Thanks for your feedback SSstormtrooper. I know I can always count on you for sound advice.

I'm sure this amp is probably amazing cranked up but I just feel its probably not really suited for low volumes at home. I bought it hoping to get the best of both worlds. Low volume for home and then maybe a bit of jamming in the future at high volume but that side never materialized.

I find I can get some fairly good cleans using clean blue, reverb, sine chorus and digital delay for just picking but then rhythm cleans just sound plain awful no matter what settings I try to tweak. On the other hand I find with distorted tones I can get some half decent rhythm tones using metal amber or insane amber with tube screamer, digital delay and sine chorus or line 6 flanger plus a little reverb. Its when I'm soloing with distorted tones I just get a hideous shrill tone that breaks up way too quickly. The only way I can hold the tone is by giving it shed loads of vibrato. I've tried new strings, different pick up positions and height. I've messed with the sound gate but still can't get a decent tone. I think I've also tried nearly every patch on customtone. I'm putting it down to the fact that maybe at low volumes a decent tone can't be achieved. At high volume with the valves being pushed it would maybe sound a whole lot better. BTW I'm using an Ibanez RG1570z and a Yamaha Pacifica.

Thats why I was so amazed at the difference with the Vox Valvetronix VT20+. Maybe because its a small amp and solid state that that is why it sounds great at low volumes. I suspect that it wouldn't hold up so well if it was cranked up. That's why I was asking for peoples experience of the VT40+, VT80+ and VT 120+. Becuse these amps are equipped with attenuators I thought maybe I could still drive the preamp at low volumes and get the best of both worlds. After trying it the other day I was amazed at the tones that could be achieved, and when soloing the notes just sustained forever. I'll probably pose those questions again on the Vox forum.

My FBV Express died last week but is still in warranty. So it was only because I was in the shop sorting that that out that I got round to trying the valvetronix after hearing so much good stuff about them.

Anyway thanks again for replying and I'll try your patches when I get my FBV back and let you know how I get on.

Hi David

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

In retrospect I may have been a bit harsh in my assessment. Since my first post I have done plenty of tweaking from scratch and have made some headway with the clean and distorted tones I am trying to achieve. With the cleans I'm trying to find more a sparkling glassy clean tone with chorus, delay and reverb. Most clean tones I've tweaked or downloaded in the past seem to  have no life and it sounds like there is a blanket over the amp. As for the distortion I'm trying to achieve a good 80's rock tone. I'm nor far off but not quite there. The one thing I have noticed though is that when I was using v1.17 I achieved a better distorted tone at low volumes but unfortunately I couldn't use spider edit with it. When I went to v2.00 the distorted tone went downhill a bit. I think a few others have mentioned the same problem.

I suspect though that at loud volumes though this is an awesome amp. Unfortunately I have never had the opportunity to really crank it up. But I am getting there at lower volumes and plan to persevere irrespect of my first post.

All that said I have recently discovered the joy of the Line 6 UX1 Pod Studio and Reaper recording software. I've got to say the UX1 is an amazing bit of kit and so my amp is getting a little less attention for the time being. Although I do also plan to use it for recording as well as Pod Studio.

Thanks again