Vox ac 10 limited edition??

[wildflower]

So I noticed at guitar center that vox is offering a limited edition black colored grill with a cream back and JJ tubes. This looks very very inviting. I tried a regular AC 10 the other day at my local shop and it sounded great. I would like two for stereo. What are your thoughts on the limited addition? Also I understand there are some finicky issues with OD pedals. That being said this is not going to be a metal set up it will be my clean too gritty set up. I also noticed on this forum the JMI reference, any experience or info on those guys? They seem affordable? Any help would be appreciated thank you bye-bye

 

[Mark White]

Hoping to audition an AC10, AC10 LE and AC15 in the next few days myself, but would be interested to read other opinions in the meantime.

Later: Oh to put it another way, I won't. Out of stock, or they only have one of the 3 models. So no side-by-side comparison after all...

 

[drbob1]

I'm not sure about JMI at this point. There is some confusion about who owns them and quality: the Harrisons, fraudsters (gone to prison for it) and hype-masters. They still own the name in England.

Then there's also JMI of America, a completely different and new company with basically no track record. I spent quite a bit of time with the guy at NAMM and his ideas seem sound, but I'm not sure about implementation. AFAIK that's these guys: https://www.jmiamplifiers.com/news. They are building the amps in Vietnam, I believe? They were going to broaden the offerings and add hand-wired versions, but it looks like they've only got the AC15 at this point.

If you want a cosmetic difference, the other coverings and grill cloths are OK, but I wouldn't pay extra for them. In fact, I'd buy whatever I could find used, they seem to run about $350 on Reverb right now (vs $500 at Sweetwater).

 

[wildflower]

Yes but the LE have creamback speaker and JJ tubes, fwiw.

 

[Bigsby]

Then there's also JMI of America, a completely different and new company with basically no track record. I spent quite a bit of time with the guy at NAMM and his ideas seem sound, but I'm not sure about implementation. AFAIK that's these guys: https://www.jmiamplifiers.com/news.

AC30's with 2 6L6's? Someone's trying to pull a fast one. The whole, "Our roots begin in the mid 1950’s with Skiffle" thing is pretty interesting. More evidence that anybody can write anything on the internet, at any time, for any reason, and not really mean anything real at all.

 

[drbob1]

Yeah, the story as I got it was:
1. Jennings starts JMI and builds Vox
2. Has to give up Vox, spins off JMI
3. It goes into receivership
4. Harrisons buy the name or just register it, start building expensive and not that well done amps and effects to cash in
5. They forget? to copyright the name in North America, so this guy grabs it, with the intention of building really high quality products. Unfortunately it seems like he's kinda stuck in limbo. He was supposed to be doing a reissue of the Mk I Tonebender with Gary Hurst wiring them up individually. Had one on the stand at NAMM. No word about it any further (there is a Mk I wooden reissue done by JMI, but I believe those use generic modern transistors and aren't cheap). Hard to know where this will go. I wish him well.

 

[DrainBamage]

I rather have a greenback.

 

[EL34]

I have the special edition AC15C1VB version with the black grill cloth, JJ tubes and creamback speaker. I was able to get it for a great price from Sweetwater. Honestly, it’s the best bang for buck amp I’ve ever owned. Not to mention, it looks fantastic! I vastly prefer the black grill diamond cloth over the more traditional brown grill cloth. The reverb on the amp is a little meh, but I understand a new tank with shorter decay is a good upgrade.

 

[Mark White]

I did get to a shop that had the AC10 Limited Edition today, though Mrs was shocked at first when she thought I was looking at the rather massive AC30 next to it...

TLDR; I'll be ordering it when I get back home.

To give more details is a bit more difficult. I wasn't able to compare it against the AC10 or AC15 in the shop and don't have a particularly refined ear to be able to extoll the virtue of anything either way. There was a wide range of tones available from the controls, simple though they are. Single coil neck pickup were easiest to dial in at 12 o'clock on the tone controls and sounded very nice very easily, and a neck humbucker was the darkest and needed some bass rolling off but was very usable in a different way. Clean tones were excellent throughout, with gain on about 2 and volume cranked getting to loudish home volumes (maybe 90dB at a guess), and gain cranked and volume on 2 getting to a very distorted tone at about the same overall loudness. So lots of variety of pretty much everything that I'm looking for. SOLD!

Edit: I thought the reverb was fine for what it is. Certainly going direct with reverb on 2-ish was pleasant enough and didn't sound lacking. I meant to experiment more with it but just forgot.

Though in return for identifying my Christmas present, tomorrow I'll be shopping for handbags and shoes...