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With the gain cranked a raspy, filthy drive sound is yours

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• Review
• Manufacturer's Description

The Vox company has launched a brand new range of channel-switching amplifiers that are the most versatile and highest gain valve amps in its history.

Dragging the somewhat weighty AC100CPH head out of its box, the black vinyl covering, black control panel with gold legends and black plastic corner protectors are consistent with the Custom Classic series and neat enough, but the combination isn't quite as evocative of the company's most iconic era as it could be.

That said, sitting atop the V412BN cabinet with its diamond-pattern grill cloth, there's no mistaking this amplifier's heritage. The biggest deviation from what most of us consider synonymous with Vox occurs under the bonnet, so to speak, where a glowing quartet of EL34B valves provides the AC100CPH with 100-watts of juice.

Overview

Central to the iconic AC30 sound that players have craved (and amp-builders have sought to clone for decades) is the compression and sag inherent in an EL84-driven circuit.

It will be interesting to see how the EL34, a valve integral to the sonic fingerprint of modern Marshalls, performs in different livery and in combination with a different preamp circuit. In the preamp stage, the first of four ECC83s in the signal chain is low microphonic, which should help stop any unpleasant extraneous ringing noises entering the equation.

The front panel is largely surprise free, although the presence of independent reverb controls for each channel is a welcome addition as it's unlikely that you'd want the same reverb setting across both channels in a clean/dirty switching set up.

On channel two, the bright switch introduces an extra capacitor to lift the high end, while the fat switch adds middle and boosts the gain. Again, independent three-band channel equalisation increases the versatility and tone-shaping possibilities.

Channel one's EQ is augmented by a tone cut of the kind that adorned the very first amplifiers to bear the Vox name, as you turn it up, the high end is attenuated, smoothing out your clean sound, which is eminently useful for guitars with overly brash pickups.

Around the back, a pair of speaker outputs can be switched to accommodate an eight or 16-ohm load, while the effects loop has level and bypass switches. The DI output has a rotary level control, unbalanced jack and balanced XLR outs, a ground lift switch and a low pass filter that when engaged simulates the frequency response of a guitar speaker cabinet for direct recording.

Because of its position in the circuit after the power amplifier's phase inverter valve and before the master volume control, you can wind the master volume right down for silent direct recording. That said, silence is the last thing on our minds as we rev the AC100CPH up and plug in…