The Dawg always has his nose to the ground, trying to pick up the scent of new gear. And for the past few months with the economy in a deep recession, new gear has been tough to find; especially from the small-run manufacturers. Well, I just picked up the scent of a brand new amp from Aracom Amps, and despite the recommendations of its maker, Jeff Aragaki to wait until he updates his site, sorry Jeff, this alert just can’t wait!!! 🙂
The new amp is called the Vintage Rox Series, and is based upon his absolutely kick-ass RoxBox series, which is an EL84-based, 18 Watt head or combo. The Vintage Rox, or VRX, series on the other hand, uses the same chassis and layout as the RoxBox, but is 6V6-based, producing 22 Watts of output. Now you have a choice in low-wattage solutions from Aracom!
Time to come clean…
Okay, I’ll admit it: I didn’t just discover this amp. I was actually the primary tester for the amp (there are distinct advantages to being local to a manufacturer), and I have been literally waiting weeks and chomping at the bit to announce it. I’ve hinted at its existence in previous article, but couldn’t provide any details.
Why am I so excited? For lots of reasons. But I’ll name two. First, with this amp, I think Jeff has definitely hit the sweet spot for low-wattage amp solutions! With the RoxBox 18 and the VRX 22, players have a voicing choice that not many boutique builders offer. But even more special, both the RoxBox and VRX amps sell for significantly less; in many cases more than half as much as other boutique amps at the same or similar wattage.
Secondly, the tone this amp produces is freakin’ marvelous! So much so, that I’m taking delivery of the first production amp. When Jeff brought the first prototype to me several weeks ago as an “experiment” he was working on, my immediate feedback was that this was a special amp, and I couldn’t wait until he had a production model because that was the amp I wanted to get from him.
I’ll have a full review of the amp once I get some pictures from Jeff, but for now, start checking out the Aracom Amps site for the VRX 22 announcement. It should be up by tomorrow!
Folks, I haven’t been this excited about an amp since I reviewed the Reason SM25! It’s one special amp that really deserves your attention. Also, if you subscribe to Vintage Guitar mag, you should see a review of the Aracom Evolver there in the newest issue!
Guitar Gear 
[…] going into production, and he was almost done with the web page and announcement. Of course, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and immediately wrote an announcement, despite his recommendation to wait until today). I just promised I wouldn’t say too much, […]