vox Lil Night Train On The Way

[JeffBlue]

Ordered a Vox Lil Night Train because using a preamp tube as a power output tube absolutely fascinates me. A 2 watt amp will be fun to use to keep the volume neighbor friendly. I will be experimenting with different NOS 12AX7s and 12AU7 and their variants. Excellent tones ahead.

 

[leo12.]

I'd be interested on the results & what speaker etc.

 

[greywolf]

those look interesting .. I'm  a big fan of small amps

 

[MikeW]

I got the Carvin Legacy 3 recently and one of the big selling points for me was the flexibility and power that you get in a small size. I've been really impressed with what some companies (Carvin and Mesa in particular) are doing with the 'lunch box' amps lately so I'll be interested to hear what you think of the Vox.

 

[JeffBlue]

I finally received my Lil' night Train yesterday and the amp is great looking. Call me crazy, but I didn't waste any time with the cheap Chinese tubes that the amp comes with. After reading many threads about tube variants and types, I went into my stash of NOS tubes to replace. V1 NOS 6072 (12AY7), V2 NOS 12AX7 and V3 NOS 12BH7. Fired up the filaments and wailed. I am plugged into an old vintage Caliphone phonograph speaker cab that I installed a Carvin 12 inch Vintage speaker. Sounds great but I believe it could sound better. Considering the C19 mod or even changing out the cap for an Orange Drop of a different value. Anyone else try this?

 

[JeffBlue]

I went ahead and clipped a leg of the C19 cap and the improvement was huge. The amp lost some ugly fizziness and the tone improved. Very useable tones. I am pleased with my Lil' Vox.

 

[jackthehack]

I finally received my Lil' night Train yesterday and the amp is great looking. Call me crazy, but I didn't waste any time with the cheap Chinese tubes that the amp comes with. After reading many threads about tube variants and types, I went into my stash of NOS tubes to replace. V1 NOS 6072 (12AY7), V2 NOS 12AX7 and V3 NOS 12BH7. Fired up the filaments and wailed. I am plugged into an old vintage Caliphone phonograph speaker cab that I installed a Carvin 12 inch Vintage speaker. Sounds great but I believe it could sound better. Considering the C19 mod or even changing out the cap for an Orange Drop of a different value. Anyone else try this?

You're not crazy; every amp I've bought that has cheap/no-name Chinese tubes ALWAYS sounds better with higher quality tube replacement.

 

[JeffBlue]

I agree that NOS whoops most tubes out there. Chinese and Soviet tubes suck in comparison.

 

[Justinginn]

Meh. Ain't no more soviet anything.  :tard:  :doh:

:rock-on:


And some of the new Sovteks sounds ok to me. But I agree on the Chinese tubes and that upgrades make things better. I'm into Tun Sols in preamps and JJ power tubes. Huge improvements.

 

[leo12.]

Jeff here's a link to more LNT tweeking if you haven't come across it yet.
http://www.tdpri.com/forum/amp-owners-clubs/251988-vox-lil-night-train-club.html