Quote:
Originally Posted by pestyjoe
Hi,
Has anyone seen or played on a Vox Black Diamond Amp? ... Any feedbacks will be appreciated.
Joel
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As "any feedbacks will be appreicated", I'll offer up my .o2.
First: Welcome to the best board on the net as regards all things tone.
Second: Hmm. This is Vox's flagship modeling amp. So I see two ways to go with this thread: 1) Valvetronix specifically, or 2) Modeling amps in general. As regards the former, I was an early buyer of the Vox AD30VT- a Valvetronix modeling amp. In fact, the AD30 was my first amp
with a tube. I thought, and still think, it was a wonderful sounding amp. I changed out the speaker (with a simple Weber Sig series), and thought it sounded even better. So I have no doubt that if Korg/Vox is saying the new Black Diamond is their top-of-the-line Valvetronix amp then it is going to sound REALLY good. It will do everything they say it does.
But, and I do seriously hope I am not opening up a huge can of worms here, if the issue isn't the Valvetronix specifically, but instead the virtue of a modeling amp in general, then I think one need beware. IMHO, the distinction between a "modeling amp" and the amp it models is quite clear: one is an
impression of the other.
My first "real" amp was the Fender Cyber-Deluxe. A great amp IMHO, and highly underrated. But I bought it thinking (and telling my wife) that with this amp, because it modeled every other amp, I would never need to buy another amp! (Okay, okay. We all start somewhere. You can stop chuckling now).
But it was a really loud amp. So I bought the Vox AD30 because it too modeled mostly the same amps, but could be played quieter and had a tube. Well, tubes sounded good, so I bought a Blues Deluxe. Wow! All tubes sounded really good, so I bought a Super Reverb. Hey! That sounded good too!, but it was bit loud, so I bought a Blues Jr. Okay, but I kept hearing about hand-wired versus circuit boards, so I bought a 57 Deluxe! Wow! That sounded great, so I bought a Vox AC15H1TV. Oh, but then I got hold of a vintage Twin Reverb! Oh my, vintage is where it's at, so I traded my 65 Reissue Super and some pedals and cash for a vintage Super..........
And so it goes.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: as an initial point of reference, modeling amps can serve as a good starting place: this is "Fenderish", this is "Marshallish", this is "Mesa Boogieish", "Voxish", etx. But to really hear the amp, you have to have the amp. To that end, my modeling amps HAVE served their purpose. I own (too many) amps, and they are all Fender or Vox (with the exception of one Rivera) mostly because in playing with the models, those were the models I always played.
So, given a reasonable assurance that the Black Diamond will sound great, I think a more important question is, why do you want it?
Mahalo,
Ed