Guitarists chasing tube tone for recording, or for use at home without having to blast their family and neighbors by cranking a 100W stack to get good tone should take a look at the Vox Lil’ Night Train Amp Head.
Originally released in 2010, the Vox Lil' Night Train retains the durable, cool-looking, mirror-finish chassis and all-tube design of its larger siblings, yet is compact enough to take that characteristic, all-tube Vox sound with you anywhere. You can also pair it with its own matching half-stack, 30 watt, speaker cabinet the Vox VN110T.
At 2 watts output the Vox Lil' Night Train is ideal for practicing, rehearsing and recording, at home or in the studio and at under $200 is great value, considering how many of the features have filtered down from the larger Night Train models. It's punchy but of course not capable of arena-sized volume, so you need to consider what you plan to use it for.
Click here to read more...- All-tube design for great tone
- Separate gain and volume controls
- Possible issues with cheaper headphones
With twin 12AX7 vacuum tubes in the preamp stage and a 12AU7 in the power amp stage the tone of the Vox Lil' Night Train is predictably excellent with powerful, fat sounds you can only get from tubes. There is also a BRIGHT / THICK switch to choose from two preamp modes. Switching to BRIGHT boosts the high-frequency range and activates the EQ (Bass and Treble controls). Using these along with GAIN and VOLUME you can get a range of tones from creamy and deep to twangy and jangly, at useful volumes and with loads of headroom before the valves start to break up the sound. All with that familiar chime reminding you that Vox rules at clean. You can even push this channel into an organic, blues/classic rock overdrive sound by dialing up the GAIN and backing off the VOLUME. Switching to the THICK mode bypasses the EQ and boosts the gain, making it easy to get all the way from a hint of crunch at low GAIN settings to full on powerful, growling distortion with lots of saturated gain. Throw an overdrive pedal into the mix and you'll have more low end control, perfect for crisper lead tones.
Often overlooked on many all-tube amps the Vox Lil' Night Train has a HEADPHONES / LINEOUT jack so you can connect stereo headphones or directly to your recording rig. This jack utilizes a cabinet simulator for real tube amp tone through headphones or for recording realistic mic'd cab tones. It also has a 16 / 8 Ohm LOUDSPEAKER jack so you can connect it to a wide variety of cabinets. Originally you could only buy the Vox Lil' Night Train with matching Vox V110NT Speaker Cabinet, but these days you can also buy the head and Vox V110NT Speaker Cabinet separately.
Another plus is that it comes with its own VOX premium speaker cable designed to ensure the head's output reaches the speaker without loss of sound quality and at only 8.74 x 4.61 x 4.61 inches (W x H x D) and weighing only 4.85 pounds the Vox Lil' Night Train is compact and portable.
A micro-sized, all-tube head, with superb tonal character ranging from jangly chime to full distortion make the Vox Lil' Night Train Amp Head invaluable for studio recording, small gigs, or just jamming in the bedroom and is a great value buy at under $200.
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