VOX AD30VT

[fungusyoung]

I posted most this on the main board, so apologies if anyone saw this there. I really dig this amp- it's one of Vox's latest solid state models, and it's very versatile and punchy. Unfortunately, I've had this down in NC at a friend's home studio and have only used it for a limited number of hours since purchasing it 6 months ago.

I was there a couple weeks ago when I noticed some freaky sounding static when I turned up the distortion. It almost sounded like a grounding problem. Even when I wasn't playing, if I had the volume up and the distortion near 50%, I could hear some annoying crackling if I gently brushed against the strings. We tried a few different outlets and rooms, a couple different guitars (single coil & then humbucker), different chords, etc. but nothing removed the problem except when I switched to clean modes with very little or no gain.

I'd be happy to have it checked out by a tech, but it was wondering if anyone here had any thoughts or suggestions on what this could be. Thanks!

[Joe-Bob]

Those amps have a tube, it almost sounds like yours may be bad. Also, you have no idea what happens to you amp at the studio when your gone.

[teleinMI]

Did you happen to notice where your guitar volume was when this was happening? With those amps if you run your guitar volume too low it interrupts the analog\digital hodoo magic signal conversion! Not sure that is a problem but more of a feature of the amp.

From your description it does sound like you have something else going on but just something to check...

[fungusyoung]

Originally Posted by Joe-Bob

Those amps have a tube, it almost sounds like yours may be bad. Also, you have no idea what happens to you amp at the studio when your gone.

Well, it sounds like something is bad. Luckily, its at a close friend's home studio & he's been inactive in recent months aside from when I'm there so I doubt it was ever even plugged in when I wasn't around.

Originally Posted by teleinMI

Did you happen to notice where your guitar volume was when this was happening? With those amps if you run your guitar volume too low it interrupts the analog\digital hodoo magic signal conversion! Not sure that is a problem but more of a feature of the amp.

From your description it does sound like you have something else going on but just something to check...

Guitar volume was up all the way. I brought that up and down too once I noticed the problem, but it didn't seem to matter. The noise was more pronounded the louder I turned up the amp volume and particularly the distortion.

Thanks for the comments- really appreciate it. Might have to get this looked at by a tech on my next trip.