I'll preface this by saying first that I'm a new emando player, second that while I've been an electric guitarist for a very long time, I've not used a lot of different amps and I'm definitely not a top drawer player......
With that out of the way, I thought I'd put up a quick review of the Vox DA5 amp. I finished my first emando back in November and wanted something to play it on instead of the Crate 2x12 I've played for so many years. The Crate sounds great with my Bluesbird 4 string, but I have to overdrive it so high that the volume level is too high for my household.
In looking for my new amp, I wanted a few different things:
Small/Portable
AC and Battery powered
Some built in effects to play with
Pseudo 'modeling' capability.
After looking at the Roland Cube, an Orange model, and the Fender Mustang, I decided on the Vox. I also looked at the Line6, but feedback about over complexity steered me away.
The Vox had all the features mentioned above and seemed to get the best reviews in general on the interweb (because its on the web, it has to be true right?)
I purchased mine used off Ebay, but when it arrived, I could not tell that it had ever been out of the box. The controls are solid and easy to use, and the cabinet is well made and well finished.
The Vox also has one feature that none of the others had (to my knowledge). On the rear of the cabinet, there is a switch which allows you to vary the Amp out put from .5amp to 5amps. This is great as it allows you to get the same sound and tone without being loud!
When I received the amp, after checking it over, I proceded to going through the different features and functions. The effects included are not the quality of an effect provided by a high quality pedal. They are good however (reverb is particularly good). The effects are also very adjustable for depth and rate. The adjustments can be a little fiddley, but are not terribly difficult to use.
The modeling function is very good as well. Several clean, blues and overdriven tones are available and are all quite distinct. As a blues player, I've enjoyed playing wiht the different blues tones. Like most amps, there is also a volume and gain function to play with as well. I've mostly settled on the Blues 2 or Blues 3 function with reverb and approx 60% gain. That gives me a fun blues tone which works well for my purposes.
In all, I'm very pleased with the amp. For the money and the size, it is very good. I won't pretend ro try to convince anyone that it will take the place of a great vintage tube amp, but as a practice and portable amp, its great!
Oh yeah, I play a custom built 4 string emando which uses the Moongazer/Allmuse MG4 humbucking pickupwired for coil tapping.
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