Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we are going to make another legacy review, this time of a Behringer combo which was quite popular among the beginner guitar players in the mid-2000s, because at least back then the German company was known for producing cost effective music gear, which often were inspired by products created by popular brands, but that often featured a very good technical spec sheet.
When Line6 presented the POD in the end of the '90s, this device represented a paradigm shift in terms of guitar amp simulation, finally simulators were leaving the niche of toys and were starting to be used also from professionals, and few years after Behringer launched its interpretation of this new wave of digital amp sims, the V-Amp, which had similar shape and features, but that added even more sound possibilities, and along with it they released also the V-Amp Pro (the rack version) and the V-Ampire, a combo which basically mounted a V-Amp Pro on a speaker, and this happened even before Line6 released its first combos based on the POD.
All this at a fraction of the price of the Line6 versions.
The V-Ampire LX112 is a now discontinued digital 1x12 combo with 120w RMS (there is also a 2x12 version), or 2x60 RMS stereo, which back then had features that almost no other combo had: 32 amp models, 15 cab simulations, 16 effects and so on, all controllable via MIDI, and given the price it was quite popular.
Tone wise the sounds were surprisingly good for the time, they were usable for any genre, also in a live environment (even if the power amp was weaker than the numbers tell), and held up also compared with an actual POD, except for probably generating a bit more noise.
So, where is the catch? Where were they cutting costs? Simple: build quality.
The amp was extremely poorly built: the first one I bought (new) made a lound bang the first time I turned it on, producing dense black smoke, and when I called the store they tried also the others that they had in stock and they all had the same problem, therefore I had to wait several weeks for the arrival of a new batch, and when I got mine replaced, it finally worked.
The poor build quality showed itself not only with the power amp failure, but also with the knobs: they were made of extremely thin and weak plastic, and the first time I carried the amp in a car, just because of the vibrations, FOUR knobs fell from the amp (and no, I wasn't racing the Paris Dakar rally).
After this experience, I decided to sell it and to buy something with a less shiny spec sheet but with a stronger build quality, and since then I learned my lesson.
Nevertheless, if you need a very inexpensive combo to doodle around in your room and you don't plan to move it EVER, for its street price of today (around 70/80 bucks) it could still give you some fun.
Thumbs sideways!
- 2 x 60-Watt guitar modeling workstation
- 12'' Bugera Vintage speaker for classic sound reproduction
- 120-Watt mono or 2 x 60-Watt stereo operation with additional cabinet (optional)
- 125 memory locations, divided into 25 banks of 5 presets each
- rotary controls with dedicated LED indicators
- 15 rear panel connectors allow comprehensive routing to suit virtually any conceivable application-plus MIDI In, Out/Thru
- Full MIDI implementation including program change commands, control change commands and SysEx, allowing extensive MIDI control using our free V-AMP Design editor software for Windows operating systems
- Balanced stereo XLR DI Out with ground lift and switchable ULTRA-G speaker simulation
- Pre-DSP send/return for dry recording and wet monitoring
- Adjustable stereo aux input for line-level signals (CD, soundcard, monitoring etc.)-can be re-configured to feed headphones only, for in-ear monitoring applications
- Frequency compensated stereo headphone output with adjustable volume
- adjustable auto-chromatic tuner
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