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(More customer reviews)I play electric jazz guitar (flatwounds on a Les Paul Custom) and was searching to a 30W Class A combo with an FX loop. I seriously considered the Vox AC30 for its legendary tone, but they're so bright and jangly that I thought I'd regret it. After reading several favorable reviews and forum posts about the Laney VC30, I decided to check it out. It has exceeded my expectations on every level.
The tone is gorgeous, lush and smoky dark, as a British tuber should be. One clean and one drive channel, that share a 3-band EQ section. It has an FX loop with a true bypass switch that is noise-free when operating. The reverb is not tube driven (do not believe comments to the contrary -- I emailed Laney to confirm), and is very light-weight compared to most spring verbs. If you're into surf music, you won't like it. I actually prefer my Boss RV-5 verb pedal, which I run in back of this amp with a DD-3, and it sounds beautiful. The front end also takes pedals very well. I run a MXR EQ and a modded CS-3 up front to push the clean channel, with great results. I love the Tone cut pot, similar to the Vox cut, which I find better than messing with bass/middle/treble, which I leave on 5. I use clean boost to drive the clean channel into OD and find it sounds better than using the drive channel. With 30W of power, this amp has gobs of head room with vintage break up when you push it. This is not an amp for metal guitarists, this one is for vintage tone hunters.
It comes stock with TAD preamp tubes. They're not my favorite, so I plugged Tung-Sol 12AX7s in V1 (clean) and V2 (drive), and an EH 12AY7 in V3 (phase inverter). Much better! The cleans now have a glassy shimmer that is smooth, with no harshness.
The Celestion Seventy 80 driver is of average quality, sounds nice, but does not capture the full potential of this amp. So I ordered a Celestion G12 Heritage for it. I was going for a Celestion Gold, but there is a tube clearance issue. The output tubes hang behind the 70/80 speaker magnet, just far enough away to not cause noise problems. I checked the depth on the 70/80 housing and see that it is 119mm. The other speakers I was considering (Celestion Alnico Gold, Eminence Red Fang, G12 Heritage) are all deeper than the 70/80. I measured the space and decided I could afford another 25mm without effecting the tubes. As it happens, the G12 Heritage is 16mm deeper than the 70/80, so that was my choice.
So for less than the cost of a bone-stock Vox AC30, I now have a real British Class A amp with premium tone components, and it sounds better than many boutique amps I've tried. And it's made in the UK, not in China, which is a rare thing these days. The last thing I'll mention is that I have been delighted by Laney's tech support. They answer email questions quickly and thoroughly, and seem like they enjoy helping their customers. Also a rare thing in our time.
I hope these notes and comments are of help to others considering this amp. It's probably the best value in a classic Brit tube amp you'll find anywhere in the world.
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