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A hand-wired, loud and seriously good-looking bit of kit

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The very term Vox AC30 exists in six-string vernacular as if it were some single, identifiable thing. Yet in reality - just like the Fender Twin - the model has changed wildly over the years with any number of updates, reissues, signature models and more.

Celebrating Vox's 50th Anniversary, the new Heritage Collection amps - topped by this head and its matching 2 x 12 cabinet (£629 with twin Celestion Alnico Blue drivers) - boast 'hand-wired' among their features list. Highly prized among boutique amp fans, this method of construction can be extremely labour intensive and therefore costly. Thus these new amps are designed in the UK, but built in Vox's Chinese facility, which has proven its worth with the Custom Classic series.

The big news for the Heritage Collection AC30s are the choices for the two channels. Most Vox enthusiasts agree that a mid sixties Top Boost is the number one AC30 sound, so that is the basis for channel two.

Controls are minimal with a single volume pot, the Top Boost bass and treble circuit, plus a pair of inputs for high and low gain. Channel one, meanwhile, is built on the venerable EF86 preamp valve, a feature of some 1950s Vox amps and re-popularised in the 1990s, principally by the droolsome Matchless DC-30.

According to many amp designers it's a difficult valve to work with, partly because good new ones are in short supply and partly because it's a feisty little blighter electronically. In addition to the single volume pot - gain and master all in one - you have a three-position brilliance switch, a two-position bass shift and finally the option of running the EF86 valve in triode or pentode mode. The latter offers the full gain potential with a fatter, juicier response, while triode returns a cleaner sound and more headroom.

The two final features work across both channels. The first is Vox's top cut, which cuts high frequencies after the main preamp sections, and last but not least is a triode/pentode switch for the quartet of EL84 power valves. According to Vox, this drops the power from the full 30 (pentode) to 15 watts in triode, enabling you to squash the power amp a little more at lower volume levels.

Save for a couple of speaker outs, that's it. There's no reverb, no tremolo or vibrato, no effects loop. You don't even get a standby switch - it's automatic.

Wiring

The AC30 Heritage Collection chassis follows the traditional Vox 'L' shape design, with power and rectifier valves sat vertically on the 'foot' of the L between substantial mains and output transformers, while the preamp valves also sit vertically on a small bracket inside the vertical part of the L.

Access to preamp circuitry is good, not so to the output stage - if you need to change an EL84 you have to remove the chassis to do it. Layout and component standard is pretty good, with the preamp and power supply circuits built up on hybrid PCB/turret boards - the resistors and capacitors are wired to small nickel silver turrets in traditional fashion, with PCB traces replacing the wire links you'd see on an original Vox.