![]() ![]() Rather than being just “half an AC30,” however, the AC15 includes a number of key ingredients that give it its own sonic signature. The amp uses a pair of EL84 tubes in cathode-bias with no negative feedback to produce 18 watts from an output stage that is commonly labeled “class A” – a term often misrepresented among amp makers today, but arguably more accurately rendered by this little combo designed 50 years ago. In 1960, however, he modified the larger amp’s preamp and tone stack, leaving the AC15 back in a tonal territory all its own.Īny player even vaguely familiar with this great British amp company will recognize some of the main ingredients of the “Vox sound” in the AC15. When popular British bands of the late 1950s such as The Shadows needed more powerful amps to help them be heard in the bigger and bigger venues they were playing, Denney doubled the power of the AC15 and coupled its preamp to the new AC30/4, with four EL84 output tubes and a firmer GZ34 rectifier. The Vox AC30 grabbed most of the headlines for years, but many tonehounds have come to appreciate the sweet, juicy glories of the smaller AC15, particularly in the wake of contemporary attitudes about smaller amps’ abilities to hit the sonic sweet spot at more ear- and mic-friendly volumes.ĭesigned by Dick Denney in 1957, the AC15 was the flagship of Tom Jennings’ Vox guitar amplifier line at the time, and served as the building block for bigger things to come. Rectifier EZ81 Controls Speed, Vib-Trem (switch), Ch I Volume, Ch II Volume, Brilliance, Top Cut Speakers one or two 15-watt Celestion G12 drivers with alnico magnets Output 18 watts RMS. Vox AC15 circa 1960 Preamp tubes one EF86, three 12AX7s (one for PI), one 12AU7 Output tubes two EL84s in class A, cathode-bias.
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