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Vox Pathfinder bass amp

#2
I am also looking for a small practice/bedroom amp and it seems ok to me - and for the money I can't really see how you could go wrong. Two drivers/line out and it's cute and dinky looking! I'm going to search the web to see if it's available here in the UK so thanks for the lead.
 
#4
The reason i'd keep an eye out for one of these: I play guitar from time to time, and own a few amps and have a fair amount of experience with my guitarists amps (in fact i usually do a lot of the amp research for em). The pathfinder 15R, which is the guitar version, is one of the best practice amps ever made. Seriously ever. Costs $120, has a fantastic reverb and a usable tremolo, sounds fantastic, and has an amazing lead sound. The studio we tracked our last record at kept one on hand for the lead tone (apparently Earlimart have made extensive use of it), which is better than a lot of tube amps. Just one of those random, cheap, secret-weapon amps. I heard one and bought it immediately. Set clean or on the verge of breakup it sounds a lot like an AC-30, and overdriven it screams like Brian May's mini transistor amps.

Now.... no telling if the bass amp will be THAT good, but its got an impressive lineage at least. My bedroom bass amp is currently a Roland Bass Cube 30, but i'll definitely be trying one of these.
 
#5
ishouldbeking said:
The reason i'd keep an eye out for one of these: I play guitar from time to time, and own a few amps and have a fair amount of experience with my guitarists amps (in fact i usually do a lot of the amp research for em). The pathfinder 15R, which is the guitar version, is one of the best practice amps ever made. Seriously ever. Costs $120, has a fantastic reverb and a usable tremolo, sounds fantastic, and has an amazing lead sound. The studio we tracked our last record at kept one on hand for the lead tone (apparently Earlimart have made extensive use of it), which is better than a lot of tube amps. Just one of those random, cheap, secret-weapon amps. I heard one and bought it immediately. Set clean or on the verge of breakup it sounds a lot like an AC-30, and overdriven it screams like Brian May's mini transistor amps.

Now.... no telling if the bass amp will be THAT good, but its got an impressive lineage at least. My bedroom bass amp is currently a Roland Bass Cube 30, but i'll definitely be trying one of these.
Click to expand...

Agreed. That pathfinder 15r is a beast. I own one. I actually use it as a practice bass amp. I just plug headphones into so I won't blow the speaker. Works awesome. I'm sure the bass version will be decent. I'd consider getting one if I didn't have the guitar version
 
#8
Yeah, I saw that 2 1/2 lb weight and wondered if they meant the box to ship it in! I loved the Pathfinder 15R and when I saw the bass version tears of joy came to me. But then I thought about the fact it has less power than the guitar amp and should have more, if anything to jam with others with. So I'm erring on the side of caution and waiting to read some reviews first before purchasing. For $99 though, if it's comparable in sound than VOX definitely will have a winner on it's hands.
 
#13
I just bought one of these at my local music shop, played it for a few minutes and pretty much said, "I need to leave with this". Its a very cool looking little amp, super portable for when I feel like playing on the couch, porch, toilet, etc...Right now its on my nightstand so I can sit in bed and fiddle around on bass. Its no low end machine, but heres what I think so far.

First off, very cool to look at, has that "wow" factor.
The tone is pretty decent, you're not going to get a lot of low end out of this thing, but turned halfway up with the bright switch on, awesome slap tone.
The built in drive on the amp is kinda too much for the combo to handle IMHO, turned up a little it sounds good, crank it too much, sounds eh.
It comes with a bass and treble knobs, while a mid control would be nice, I have no problems dialing in a good tone with just those 2.
One complaint- the thing has some feedback to it, I don't know if its just my unit, but it picks up some static and feedback even when I'm 4/5 feet away.

Overall, very cool little amp and it does what it was designed to do: Small practice amp with a ton of vintage appeal.:smug:

Oh and I will post pics soon!
 
#14
glorified headphones.
Having said that, its still better than nothing. It also takes you $100 away from getting something useful. You would have difficulty cutting through a guitarist with 10 watts. It will also be hard to develop the touch necessary to play on a real amp in a proper band setting, which should be the goal. I would save for something better but I understand yhe need to have something/anything
 
#15
I've had a substantial amount of experience with the cheap Vox amps and have found their quality control to be so bad that I would never order one online just for the sheer nuisance value of having to return-ship them perhaps multiple times to get a good one. I bought mine through the local GC and that made the six (6) returns I did less time-consuming before I eventually gave up and repaired the brand-new amp myself.

I really like their visual appeal and I think their circuits are interesting and innovative, but the execution is just atrocious. :(

Even Vox fanboys pretty much agree on this point.
 
#18
I'm curious to know...is it a closed back enclosure?

I have lots of bass amps and a 15R guitar amp and a DA5.

I'm guessing it's open backed but if it's a closed back, I may just get one for the great looks and small size.

No pics on the net to show the back side of the bass 10 model. Anyone able to comment on this?

Thanks.
 

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