The Victorilux comes in the 3x10 configuration discussed by our columnist, plus 2x12 and 1x15 combos.
Our columnist is a Fender die-hard but finds thrills in an inspired modern alternative: the Victoria Victorilux.
I am extremely loyal to vintage Fender amps. I love their clean and transparent tones, and how their simplicity makes for amplifiers that are not only collectable but serviceable. I do play other guitars and amps besides Fenders, although I have to admit that I always measure them against the brand and often try dialing them to a sound as close as possible to Fender tone. But this month I want to share a story about a Fender-inspired amp that I love: the Victoria Victorilux.
Victoria has had great success with their point-to-point-wired amps based on classic designs—with a twist. Their long customer list of influential musicians and weekend players proves they’ve done something right. Who doesn’t want a new, robust, high-quality amp that looks and sounds vintage?
My love of the Victorilux started in 2011, when I got to try one for the first time. It was my brother’s, and he showed me a long email thread with company founder Mark Baier discussing different speaker and tube options. I was impressed. My brother’s amp was a 3x10 combo loaded with Jensen P10R speakers. It had dual 6L6GC power tubes and a 230V power transformer. Other speaker configurations were also offered by the company including 2x10, 2x12, and 1x15. Today, Victoria offers Eminence speakers instead of Jensens, according to the company’s website. I really like Eminence Legend 1058 10s and Legend 1518 15s because of their full tone and ability to handle high power without losing touch-sensitivity.
I describe the Victorilux as a Fender-black-panel-style amp in a tweed enclosure with brown-panel charm.
I describe the Victorilux as a Fender-black-panel-style amp in a tweed enclosure with brown-panel charm. As with Fender tweed amps, the chassis is placed vertically in the cabinet, which is robustly constructed with finger-jointed solid pine. The speaker baffle board is Baltic plywood. The controls consist of two 1/4" inputs, volume, treble, mid, bass, reverb, and speed and intensity for the tremolo. With just a single channel, there are fewer things that can fail. The circuit component layout is tidy and takes no shortcuts, and everything is coupled and fitted tightly.
For me, the Victorilux was love at first sight. And that deepened when I heard it. I expected the amp to sound something like a Super Reverb: good and clean. But I was surprised by how fine it sounded at low volumes. It had a sparkling clean-yet-lush-and-warm voice even at the quietest bedroom levels. The EQ spectrum seemed wider than I was used to with older Fender amps—especially for the mid control. I have seen a few Victoriluxes without mid knobs, and I strongly recommend trying one with mid control, since that dial can change the amp’s character between a mid-based British voice and an American scooped tone. With the mid knob set high, the Victorilux starts breaking up surprisingly soon for a dual 6L6GC amp. Lowering the mids will take you back into Fender-black-panel land.
At that first meeting, I was quickly able to dial in a nice tone—as can be done with a vintage Fender. But when I turned up the volume, it didn’t sound Fender black-panel at all. The amp broke up earlier and was more aggressive, with more sag and compression—thanks to the Victorilux’s cathode bias design, which reduces clean headroom. I guess Baier was inspired by the early breakup characteristics of small Fender tweed amps when he chose cathode bias for the relatively high-powered Victorilux. Cathode bias is a less efficient power-amp design compared to fixed bias. All black-panel-era amps and the bigger tweed amps had fixed bias, to maximize clean headroom.
The original Jensen speakers in this amp have been replaced with a trio of Webers for a more powerful and chunky sound, with firm, well-defined bass response.
I also expected the reverb to be lush, but I particularly liked the smooth and gradual knob response. The tremolo could nicely sweep deep and slow or very fast. To summarize, I found the Victorilux to be a brilliantly designed amp that contains the best inspirations from Fender’s tweed and black-panel eras.
I later tried a set of Weber speakers in the amp: two alnico 10A150s in the bottom row and a 10A125 on top. That made it much more powerful and chunky, with firm, well-defined bass response. For those who play in power trios with a loud drummer, I recommend this speaker setup. You will fill the stage completely with massive guitar tone. Those are my favorite Webers, though the ceramic 10F150 or 10F125 will also do the job.
I hope my experience will encourage the vintage Fender fellowship to try out various amp brands. There are ambitious alternatives out there, and my experience with the Victorilux proves that classic tone can be crafted using well-built modern amps.
The PG Mad Professor Super Black review.
Finland-based pedal builder Mad Professor has invented a stompbox that can dial up a range of classic black-panel Fender sounds. It's called the Super Black. Unlike a vintage amp, it won't break the bank or your back. And in a blindfold test, it might just blow the minds of hard-core Fender freaks.
At $299, the Super Black ain't cheap, but it also includes Mad Professor's Sweet Honey Drive circuit, which is about $150 on its own and can be used in combination with the Super Black's tone shaping tools or in standalone mode.
Into the Black
Here's the concept: Mad Professor says it's recreated the topology of Fender's famed AB763 circuit— the foundation for the black-panel Deluxe, Twin Reverb, Super Reverb, and Bassman, among others—within Super Black's 4 ½" x 3 ½" x 1 1/2" enclosure. Skeptical? I was, until I plugged in my Stratocaster and started playing. In no time I was conjuring spot-on duplicates of Deluxe, Twin, and Bassman tones—my favorite Fender flavors. (I run through those three voices in the demo video, using a Carr Vincent amp.)
The control set for the Super Black is simple. On the top row, there's a 3-band EQ and a gain dial. Under that are volume and presence knobs. For the Sweet Honey Overdrive section of the circuit, there's volume and drive (the “focus" control from the full-featured Sweet Honey has been omitted here). There's also a very effective bass cut toggle for moments when more chime is in order, and another toggle for compression. The compression switch is the source of my only issue with the Super Black because flicking the compressor on or off emits a popping sound. Otherwise, it's a blast to use. The Super Black can be powered with a 9V battery or DC.
Spanning the AB763 Family
The Super Black's ability to approximate the dynamic range and characteristics of low- to high-powered black-panel circuits is remarkable. The pedal's most Deluxe-like tones (attainable with EQ controls at noon and volume and presence in a tight V) have lots of boxy, small-combo definition. In a more Bassman-like mode (bass and mids cranked, a little less treble, and the compression on) the mellow lows and hard-punching midrange are prominent. And as a stand-in for a Twin (which you get by backing off the gain and keeping the EQ controls between 11 and 2 o' clock) it was a dead ringer for the beloved 1966 black-panel I parted with last year, as a gift to my back. It's articulate and rich, with beautifully crisp mid range, clarion highs, and wonderfully fast response. It made me sentimental. If I'd been able to fit that amp in the palm of my hand, I'd still own it today. Toss in the Sweet Honey's growling overdrive and the age-old problem of pushing a high-powered Fender hard enough to get amp breakup is solved—all at very civilized volumes.
The Honey Drive, by the way, is a sweet deal all by itself. It's a medium-gain OD that is touch-sensitive and really shovels on dirt the harder you dig in. When its drive dial is cranked, that's an estimable amount of soil, and it's good at getting loud and filthy. But blended with the Super Black section's control set, however, there are lots of possibilities for fine-tuning the balance of clarity and distortion.
The Verdict
Sure, it's costly, but the Super Black lets you carry the taste of about a half-dozen classic black-panel Fenders to a gig or the studio with one hand. And with the Sweet Honey Overdrive included, it's a two-fer that solves the too-much-headroom issues of bigger Fenders while putting a great overdrive at your disposal. Needless to say, you need a relatively clean amp for this pedal to do its job right. Gainy or grainy amps don't let the Super Black's palette breathe its own rich voices. But the richness of these sounds proves there's genuine method in the madness of this pedal's creator.
Watch the Demo: