Vox Ac4TV (Vox AC4TV)

Member Name: amnesiac

Product:	Vox AC4TV
Date:	13/07/09 (373 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Variable wattage, great cleans, good price, nice looks!

Disadvantages: No gain knob, just a tone knob for EQing

Nowadays there's a whole host of small valve amps on the market. The AC4/TV is Vox's offering. At £189 it is reasonably priced, around the average for these small amps.

The most unique and interesting feature on the AC4 is the variable wattage. The amp runs at 4 watts but can be switched down to 1W or 1/4W. This is a great feature for bedroom practice. The amp doesn't offer a gain knob to get preamp gain so to get any kind of overdrive you need to crank the powertubes and that means turning the amp up. That's where the variable wattage comes in, even at 4 watts this amp is really loud if you want overdrive, turn it down to 1/4W and it becomes a lot more reasonable. However you'll still need quite a bit of volume to overdrive the amp, anyone who wants overdrive at the lowest volumes will need to look elsewhere or rely on pedals. I run a Digitech Bad Monkey through the amp to get overdrive at lower volumes. It sounds best with the amp starting to break up and using the Bad Monkey to add a little bit more gain on top.

The other controls on the amp are a single volume knob and a tone knob which acts as a very basic EQ.

The sound itself is typical Vox, the cleans are great providing the Vox chime you'd expect from an AC30. In my opinion it has better cleans than the rest of the small valve amps around the same price. The overdrive is good too and when cranked can easily handle classic rock like Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd.

The AC4 is a very basic, single channel valve amp made for practice or recording. I believe it sounds a lot better than a lot of similarly priced amps, it really shines with cleans. The main feature is the variable wattage which I imagine would be a big reason that many people buy this amp. I wouldn't advise getting this amp if you play with a lot of distortion and if you want overdrive at really low volumes you will need a pedal. If you're looking for a well priced valve amp focusing on cleans then this is it.

Summary: A great little valve amp with great cleans