PRODUCT REVIEW
The most exciting moments with the Night
Train for me were using the extremely satisfying clean channel. It’s not often that you find
a small-wattage head with cleans that can
compete tonally with some of its larger wattage brethren, and also be as capable and
convenient for gigging (provided that the
drummer isn’t playing too loud). It’s certainly
the best sounding small-wattage clean tone
that I’ve heard so far.
out the controls is the Standby switch, which
also functions as a wattage selector.
According to Dave Clarke of Vox R&D, the
preamp was inspired by one of his favorite
amplifiers: the Trainwreck Express, designed by
Ken Fischer. Apart from its legendary sound,
the Trainwreck Express was produced in very
small numbers and is extremely hard to find,
commanding tens of thousands of dollars in
some cases. The Night Train’s power section
was born from concepts introduced by the
AC15CC, and various component changes
and tweaks were thrown in to give the Night
Train its own, unique voice amongst its British
siblings. In the up position (Pentode), the Night
Train runs at 15 watts, and the down position
(Triode), the head drops the wattage down to a
modest 7. 5 watts.
pickups, especially Tele-style ones. With humbuckers, the tone is wider, but seems to lose
a little bit of focus when pushed to higher
gain and volume modes, whereas the Tele’s
bridge pickup stayed twangy and detailed at
almost all levels.
The Night Train’s high-gain tones are, in the
best possible terms, a completely different
animal. While the Bright mode is capable of
creating smooth, clear overdrive, the Thick
mode turns the jangly Night Train into a roaring
fiend. Designed in conjunction with famed amp
designer Tony Bruno, the Bright/Thick switch
isn’t really a dedicated tonal change, but seems
more like a channel switch. Using the Les Paul
Custom and flipping the switch to Thick, the
amp shook off and shed the classic ‘60s vibe
that I’d been enjoying. It snarled with an incredible Slash-esque bark. There is a very conspicuous volume increase with the switch set in this
position, but in a good way. The Night Train
breathes a bit better, and pushes more air. It
was really strange standing in front of this little
mini-stack and feeling like it was kicking me in
the shins like a child in a temper tantrum.
The Final Mojo
Coupled with a fantastic overdrive that seems
like an entirely different amp itself, the Night
Train is really hard to beat if you’re in the market for a low-wattage amplifier. Other than a
little unruliness in higher volume situations, my
only qualm in the design is the omission of an
effects loop, or some other avenue for adding
reverb and delay. Obviously a good-sounding
reverb tank would be nearly impossible to fit
in the tiny chassis, and a loop would handle
this immediately. Hopefully future incarnations
of the Night Train will include this feature, and
(I’m crossing my fingers) make the Bright/Thick
feature footswitchable. VOX has really hit it out
of the ballpark with this one.
you want very smooth, controllable and usable cleans and great
drive tones for recording and
small, intimate venues.
Buy If...
Speedin’ like a space brain
I put the Night Train in Pentode mode, with
the Gain barely above the 9 o’clock position,
tone controls at noon, and the tone switch
selected to Bright. Most small-wattage heads
have an issue with clean headroom, but the
Night Train is certainly an exception. Pushing
the master volume just made it louder and
punchier, and only when I used a really strong
pick attack was there any sort of dirt on
edges. Moreover, it was surprising how easy
it was to get this loud, tight clean tone out
of the tiny, gleaming wonder sitting in front
of me. The newfound excitement lead me
to trying a more diverse array of instruments
with this clean sound, just to see if I could get
the amp to give without having to perform
any major adjustments. While the Gibson Les
Paul Custom, Duesenberg MC Signature and
Fender USA Stratocaster all had obviously
varying tones, the Night Train still kept its
sterling high end and authoritative punch. It
would be interesting as well to see how this
channel would react with a 12AT7 in the first
position, instead of the standard high-gain
12AX7 that it ships with. The Night Train also
seems to respond a little better to single-coil
Skip If...
you need more than 15 watts,
or an effects loop.
I moved the head to a Bogner 4x12” with
Celestion Vintage 30s, which allowed it to really
showcase how multidimensional the overdrive
tones are, unlike some small-wattage heads
with rather flat and dull distortion sounds.
Despite being a 15-watt amplifier, the Night
Train is very loud and powerful, but can get
noisy when pushed hard. Feedback was a big
issue at high volumes with both the Les Paul
and a Paul Reed Smith Starla, both of which
were equipped with humbuckers. Some of
the sweetest lead tones the Night Train can
produce come from pushing the power section, so liberal use of the guitar’s volume knob
is recommended to avoid any sort of auditory
chaos that might ensue. Lowering the gain
knob helped, of course, and some very cool
non-master volume types of tones are possible
using the Gain knob as the master while the
Master Volume is at 3 o’clock or higher.
Rating...
5.0
ONTHEWeb
Click here to watch a video
review of the Night Train at
VOX Amplification
MSRP $700
voxamps.com
