Epiphone Valve Junior

5 watts Class A, tube powered. An input jack, volume control, and an on/off switch- that's it. And that is all I need. Black vinyl covering with metal corner protectors. Has a sleek Retro look. 8 inch Epiphone speaker. Bought at Guitar Center for 119.00.

I love this amp. At low volumes, has a great blues/classic rock tone. Past 12 o clock, starts to break up nicely. I use a Zoom pedal with it, and this amp seems to love distortion pedals. This is a loud little bastard too. Seems to sound the best when left to warm up for 20 minutes or so.

For the money, a fantastic sounding tube amp.

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Price: Most mail order places have them for $120
Pros: Very inexpensive, all tube, easily modded
Cons: Noisy, needs mods to reduce hum
Review: I've had mine for about 7 months now, and I use it in a stereo mini-rig with a Vox Pathfinder 15R. The sound on this little amp is very subjective. It's got that ratty Class A, lo-wattage, small speaker OD sound. Great for classic/indy rock, but NO hi-gain applications obviously. So far, I've done these easy mods: replaced the stock Sovteks with a JJ EL-84 and a JJ ECC83S longplate with matched triodes. This definitely fattened up the lows and low mids, and the ECC83S goosed the gain a bit. I also replaced the stock Weber signature 8 ceramic with a Weber signature 8 AlNiCo which tamed some of the high end brittleness. Stock, this amp was exactly what I paid for, a very iinexpensive, simple tube circuit. With just those minor mods, it was a different beast altogether. Nice and chimey anywhere from 7 to 11 o'clock with increasing grind from there on out. The real beauty of this amp is it's potential for tweaking. I have now chopped it into a separate head, and am going to use both speakers in a series cabinet to get the best attributes of both. The output transformer has an unused 8ohm tap that can be switched out with the stock 4ohm tap or you can throw in a switch and have either 4 or 8 ohm available to you. There are already SEVERAL mod schematics for this amp floating around on the web. There are mods for adding bright/dark switches, hum reduction, tone pots, etc. All of which are relatively simple, as the circuit on the Valve Jr. is so basic.
Synopsis: A great buy for a tube practice amp stock, but add a little dough, some solder, and some sweat and you can have a nice little recording amp for under $200.

I managed to get two blems off Musicians Friend.. paid 85.00 each for them.
Nothing cosmeticaly wrong, but neither would make a peep when fired up.
turned out both had poor fuse connections.. power got in, but no further.
I scratched the fuse ends with a file, put them back in tight, and voila. Two perfect amps. Keep your eye on MF for blem vj heads!

I've decided to keep one stock and do mods on the other. First I swapped out the chinese pre amps for sovtek 12ax7s, then Tung Sol. I like the Tung sol best, smoother, later breakup, nicer crunch. still cheap, too!

I swapped the sovtek stock power tube for JJ/Tesla and that's much much better, too.

So first thing.. replace your tubes.
The Tube Store is a good outfit, good prices, good product, nice reviews and descriptions.

With the modded head, the firs thing was the standby switch.
This is a really simple mod. two wires, both clip in.
You use a very simple switch.. drill a hole in the face plate.. unplug the two wires inside.. rewire with the switch in.. and there you go. (don't try without help or instruction if new at this. you can get fried)

Now, my tubes should last much longer, and I can hit standby if I have to go 'sink the bismark' or something.

Second mod was two of the caps. I replaced the stock with sprague orange drops. a couple of bucks and the difference in tone and overall performance was much better. more fendery. richer thicker. a tad brighter, too.


I've got a lot of mods to try out yet, but so far, it's fairly easy if you're familiar with this sort of thing, and the benefits are waay cost worthy.

I have one homemade cab and one epi cab.. and the epi cab is very sweet.
way cool cabinet.. great wood.. nice covering and fine cosmetic appearance and construction throughout. for 130.00 it's quite a good deal.

These love pedals. you can plug just about any old thing in front of it and the amp just rocks out.

try alt.guitar or 18watt.com for more info and details.

I'm going to replace more caps, swap out a few resistors, and eventualy add tone controls as well.
It's the best little practice amp I've ever owned and I've owned a few.. going back to my sears and ampegs and fenders from the sixties.
a peach and a good price..
seem very sturdy.


I play more often now, and I pay more attention to tone.. and I enjoy it all much more.. that's the difference between this and my ss practice amps.
They worked well, even impressed me, but they didn't sing like tubes!
This is inspirational.