Epiphone Valve Junior 5W Tube Amp Review
By MNJ
| Posted in Guitar
The Epiphone Valve Junior Tube Amp is a low-watt, single knob, nowhere to go tone-box that although rated at a mere 5-Watts, is far from just a practice amp.
The Junior uses a Class A design with a single 12AX7 for the pre-amp and an EL84 valve for the power stage. It boasts an Eminence Special Design 8″ speaker and it’s all housed in what appears to be a very robust little cabinet with a vintage style radio grill cloth and a black leatherette covering.
There’s only one control – for volume. That’s it, no treble, no bass, no nothing – simple. On the rear panel is a mains socket for a detachable mains cable plus three output jack sockets for 4-, 8- and 16-ohm speakers. Epiphone includes a five year warranty on this amp but really there’s very little that can go wrong unless it suffers bad mains voltages or gets dropped.
Epiphone claims that it will produce ‘vintage tone and crunch’ at an affordable price. There are a couple of other valve combos that compare in spec and price, but only a couple, and one has a 6″ speaker. Most small amps around this size and wattage are solid state practice jobs and made to a price which means that they simply cannot sound like a real tube powered amp, however much they claim to. This amp can be used for practice as well as recording to get a valve tone at very sensible volumes, and in my opinion, the latter is where it will find its customers.
Perversely, an amplifier with only one knob to play with is harder to review than one with a dozen. It’s also much harder to get the tone that’s going to work for you – usually it’s a trial and error process using a combination of the guitar volume and tone settings. With my test Les Paul Goldtop in hand I plugged into the Valve Junior and went in search of the sweet spot. It certainly wasn’t apparent to start with, and just turning the volume full up and playing a big power chord with the guitar full-on will be a disappointment. Where’s the ‘vintage’ sound claimed by the manufacturer? Actually, after a bit of experimenting I found it. The volume control should be on 2 0′clock and the guitar should have both volumes rolled back to 7 and a little tone rolled off the treble pickup. Dig in and off you go. It’s pretty bluesy, but not much else. It really needs a ‘cut’ control to tame some of the top end. Forget heavy chord work unless you use a pedal in front of it, which kind of defeats the object.
In conclusion, the Valve Junior should really be seen as a very affordable valve amp for recording. It could also be bought to be modded by a qualified tech who would probably upgrade the speaker to a 10″. Still, the Epiphone Valve Junior is a lot of amp for the money, even if there is only one knob to play with.
Tags: epiphone tube amp, epiphone valve junior