Valve Special

[Guest icantbuyafender]

Whats the deal with these amps?

 

Ive heard that they just stop working.

 

Anyone care to enlighten me? I saw one on craigslist for cheap. Should i jump on it ?

 

The owner said it just stopped outa no where.

[cGil]

Great candidate for gutting and rebuilding, but not much else. Just like the Valve Standard, the VSpecials have really flaky pc boards that are prone to solder pads lifting and traces peeling off the board. Not to mention that horrid DSP, which is pretty lame considering the raw power of DSP's in cheep floor fx units. Also, the OT is the same muddy boat anchor used in the version 1 and v2 Valve Juniors. All that junk's gotta go.

 

But hey, once you gut it, there's plenty of elbow room in that chassis to play around in, and cab is wide enough for a long spring reverb tank with room to spare. Oh yeah, fwiw, I wound up with Jensen P10r's in both of my VSpcls. One of the Jensens has been around the block in a few different cabs; but this is the best sounding one yet. Something about that offset baffle combined with just the right amount of cab volume works wonders for Jensens I guess.

 

Gil...

[Woko]

I have one and think it's a great little amp. The first thing I did was change the speaker to a Celestion G10, and put a good set of valves in and I have had no problems whatsoever with it. I have also used the amp live a couple of times

I tell you what when you turn it up it sounds like the end of the world.

 

for the price its a great amp for around the house.

 

yours woko.

[cGil]

It's actually pretty close to a Plexi SE. Just a few mods away, really. But, just like with the early Valve Juniors, the biggest bang for the buck for the VSpcl in terms of tone mods would have to be swapping the OT. Seriously woko. You don't realize what kind of fatness, detail, and chime that you're missing with that stock OT. Check any VJr OT-swap-themed thread for reviews. I have no doubt you'll find a virtually unanimous level of awe and delight from the upgraded level of tone quality.

 

To be honest, those stock 7.5k OT's have been reported to sound marginally better with a 6V6;, but they're still no match if up against decent iron like the Hammond, Heyboer, Edcor, or MPS OT's. Precisely because the stock OT's are so muddy, they're actually perfect for an el84-driven reverb tank circuit similar to the Fender, Soldano, or Orange/Matamp standalone surf box heads. Beyond that, well, they may be pretty good as a paperweight. :-

 

Gil...