Vox Review: Cambridge 30 Reverb 1x10

History:

Purchase: I payed $500 plus taxes in canadian dollars for this amp at Toombs Music in Charlottetown PEI Canada. My reason for buying was that I had been playing guitar for 6 years through a practice amp and I wanted to move up to amp that would be easy to transport, look and sound good, and would be loud enough to jam with a band, but isn't that what everybody is looking for in an amp?

What I Like About This Vox Cambridge 30 Reverb 1x10: The amp has a very handy optional footswitch for $60 canadian which can switch between reverb, vibrato, and also switch between clean, overdrive and an overdrive boost setting. The clean side sounds very nice and sparkling clean even when the volume was set on ten. The vibrato also sounds very good. The amp sounded very loud for only 30 watts rms, though for some reason the clean channel sounded a louder than the overdrive channel, even when both were cranked. The amp is very easy to use and would be great for a second amp for somebody. You can get a pretty good range of tones from this amp too.

What I Do NOT Like About The Vox Cambridge 30 Reverb 1x10: Though the clean channel sounded very good, the overdrive channel did not. The word that comes to mind is bland. not very much prescence or low end in channel two(overdrive channel). When playing at low levels, the clean channel is also very noisy as well.

Vox Cambridge 30 Reverb 1x10 Quality Rating: The amp itself was built very sturdy and seems like it could endure a lot of kicking and spitting on, etc. The included celestion bulldog 10 inch speaker sounds very nice indeed. I remember reading something somewhere about how bulldog speakers sound good but don't last very long. The amp is very light which is a bonus and it has an open back which makes it easy to store peddles and cords inside of it. The Vox is very nice to look at, looking just like an ac30 but just a little bit smaller. It was very intuitive and easy to catch on too. It has a headphone out(which sounds terrible), a external 8ohm speaker out, a line out, one input and two footswitch inputs. The footswitch has 2 buttons on it and if you plug it into the first footswitch input it gives you control over vibrato and clean/overdrive while the second footswitch input gives you control over the reverb and overdrive 1/overdrive 2.

Review Summary: This would be a good amp for somebody who has been playing for 2 years and wants to start jamming with a band. Just loud enough to play with a drummer but not loud enough to rock an arena by far. I shouldn't be so hard on the overdrive channel because it doesn't really sound that bad, it could just sound better. It sounds to me like Jimmy Pages tone from the days of Led Zepplin would be easily achievable with this amp. Overall I am happy with this amp and though it might not sound as good as a Marshall it still rocks out and has a lot of cool features built into an affordable package. Bottom Line: If you like Led Zepplin then this is the amp for you!

Rating of this Vox product: 3

This Vox Cambridge 30 Reverb 1x10 Guitar Amplifiers Review Submitted By: Thomas Mears

Review Date: 2002-01-02