Vox AC 30 top boost (vintage)

Vox AC 30

The mother of all EL84 based combo amps. Class A biased. It’s the Beatles amp. I’ve been an AC30 player for many years though mine were never top boosts.

Vox actually made about six (or so) varieties of this amp all with minor differences not counting the reissues.

Not an easy amp to keep alive:
the internal voltages are too high when you plug them into American (120VAC) power.

Especially in Nashville, TN where the power is 126 Volts in some parts of town! The air convection is horrible. The transformers actually melt off their wax insulation since they run so hot!

My understanding is that the top boost was originally offered as a retrofit kit which probably explains why they are so funky looking. The top boost models tend to hum like crazy and they all tend to blow up at just the wrong time.

The speakers are the best sounding guitar speakers ever,
rated @ 15 watts each.

If you know much about AC30’s then you already know all this stuff. If you play an AC30 then you know all this stuff and you still play one! So what can we do for your AC30?

1) We could of course set you up with the standard filter cap job (we promise not to ruin your Mullard GZ34 rectifier tube with stupid amounts of filter capacitance (which won’t reduce your hum or tighten up the bottom end anyway).

2) We could set you up with a set of well-matched (essential) lower quiescent current power tubes.

3) We might even set you up with a different rectifier tube which may be the only way to operate the amp reliably in the US with today’s EL84’s.

4) We could replace your original back panel with one that has fans in it to move some air through the hot little beast. (save your original back panel for originality sake).

5) We could install a 240v transformer so that you actually run the amp at 245V instead of 115V. This yields a better voltage transfer ratio inside the amp and helps it run cooler. 245 and 115 are the actual settings on your voltage selector and they do mean 115VAC when they say 115.

6) We can perform hum voodoo rituals which will improve the excessive hum problem

7) We can make the one’s that don’t sound that great, sound great.

8) We can help you with the blown speakers. Our re-coner knows what to do. We can use the reissue kit (15 watts) Or…….. now don’t be a snob here, if you’ve blown them, we can re-cone them up to a 70 watt speaker and they’ll still sound better than anything else in the world. And they won’t blow so easy next time.

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