Modded Epi Valve Junior-V-Mod review

[danelectro]

I modded my VJ Combo with a V-Mod kit I bought on ebay. For $25 and the time it took to pull out the chassis it was well worth the time and money. The kit is simple to install, it requires drilling 3 holes in the face and 4 solders to opposite ends of 2 resistors. It included a "bright" switch, "gain" switch and "standby" switch. I really bought the kit just for the standby switch but was pleasantly surprised by the way the other switches affected the amps tone. The bright added some sparkle and the gain gave the amp a little more drive, which is very subtle but vintage sounding. With the amps volume at 1 o'clock it really starts to come alive with both switches on. At lower volumes the switches don't have as much affect on the tone.

 

The amazing thing about the VJ is how extremely loud it is, it's the loudest 5W amp I've ever witnessed. I make no exaggeration when I say you could use it to play with a heavy handed drummer. The bad thing about that is the amp has a little too much headroom, especially considering it's only 5W. I would prefer that it break up at a lower volume rather than having to push it so hard, for house friendly volumes this is a bad thing. When it does start to sing the tone is beautiful. With my SG I was able to get great classic rock tone, think Leslie West's tone on Mississippi Queen without any tone modifying stomp boxes, with my Tele I could get Sticky Fingers era Keef tone.

 

I like the VJ's so much I just bought 2 of the head versions to do some different mods to. I'm going to mod one with the Bitmo trio kit and use it with a 412 cab and one I'm going to mod and give as a Xmas gift. For $99 dollars these amps are nothing short of amazing. Believe the hype you read about these on the net.

 

Here's a pic of the face after the mod.

 

pic

 

Sorry I can't post any sound clips at this time since I don't have a mic that would do the amp justice and the VJ has no line out.