Product Review: Vox AC4TV Class A Tube Amplifier

I'm always looking for gear that satisfies my tonal itch at a price my limited budget can afford. About a year ago, I found a Vox AC4TV amplifier on Craigslist for $150. It was owned by a student at Lee University who was looking for some cash to trade up to an AC15 to get started gigging. I happily snapped this up and have been very happy with my choice. New you can expect to pay $250 for one of these little beauties. Vox originally introduced this amp in 1961. Fifty plus years later its modern descendant is still with us. 

The Vox AC4TV is a 4 tube watt class A tube amp with a 12AX7 preamp tube and an EL84 output tube driving an honest-to-god Celestion 10" speaker. The controls are simple and self explanatory-volume, tone and output level. The volume control of course controls volume and the amount of power tube saturation. The tone control gives you everything from a darker rhythm tone when turned down to that bright fizzy tone you expect from a Vox amp when the tone is turned all the way clockwise. The output level control knob allows you to select an attenuated 1 watt or 1/4 watt output level so you can crank that volume and saturate the tubes at an even lower output volume level. At home I often use the 1/4 watt setting for practicing with the volume knob dimed for that killer overdriven amp sound. I use the 4 watt setting and a lower volume to set up a chiming clean sound and put my pedalboard in front of it for a wide range of tonality. 

The sound is your classic British tube amp-with relatively clean sounds up until 11 or 12 o'clock on the volume knob and vintage overdriven power tube grit as you crank the volume further. At 4 tube watts, it is surprisingly loud but sufficiently small to allow you to crank up the amp for great overdriven grit without the volume getting excessive. Like all British amplifiers the overdriven sounds are where this amp truly shines. If loud shimmering clean with lots of headroom is your bag then you will definitely want to look at an American tube amplifier for that. That said, you can get a range of usable clean tones out of this amplifier if you are willing to work with your guitar volume knob in the way an old school blues man would. 

This amplifier is ideal for practicing or recording-and in fact was designed for that. However, this amp has proven surprisingly capable in a club gig setting. I discovered this at Acoustic Cafe in the summer of 2013 when Nigel Newberry of the Hillbilly Sins suffered an amplifier breakdown just prior to showtime. He didn't have the luxury of the time to go back to Cleveland to get a replacement. Fortunately, my home and this trusty Vox tube amp was nearby. We dialed in a spanky clean tone on the 4 watt setting and mic'ed it up with a Shure SM-57. After that he plugged in his usual pedal board and played the show. Fortunately veteran musician and sound guru Anthony Sims was running the PA and once he tweaked the sound out, Nigel's guitar sat perfectly in the monitor and mains mix for the entire show. I would not have conceived of a 4 Watt tube amp working at that volume level-but I was pleasantly surprised. 

This amplifier does lack on board reverb-which is not surprising at this price point. I use a reverb pedal and that works fine for me. The amp does have a 16 ohm output for a speaker cab-which is surprisingly handy if you want to move some air with a 2X12 speaker cab for recording. 

If vintage overdriven sounds are your bag and you want an honest to goodness class A tone monster for short dough-this very well could be your amp. If clean headroom or death metal is your thing-look elsewhere! 

Watch this YouTube video to see what this little tone monster can do:  Vox AC4TV Demo Video