The Vox V100 Amplifier 1970 - 1973



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The V100 was an all tube amplifier for guitar or bass introduced by
Vox in 1970. A print ad published in a guitar magazine and seen at left heralded the V100 as the "successor to the AC-100."

Vox suffered a number of ownership changes in the late sixties and early seventies. During the Royston (1964-1968), Vox Sound Equipment Ltd (1968-1969) and Corinthian Securities (1969-1970) ownership periods, Vox was produced in Erith, Kent. In late 1970, Vox was moved to Hastings, Essex after the sale to Birch-Stolec by Corinthian Securities.

The magazine ad gives an important clue regarding the origin of the V100 amplifier. The ad offers an Erith, Kent address for Vox Sound Limited, suggesting that the V100 was developed prior to the 1970 sale of Vox to Birch-Stolec. Despite this evidence, the V100 does not appear in either the 1970 "Corinthian" era Vox catalog or August 16, 1970 Vox price list. The first catalog appearance for the V100 is in the 1971 Birch-Stolec era Vox catalog. While designed in the Corinthian era, I suspect most Vox V100 amps were produced by Birch-Stolec.


Successor to the AC-100
Like the AC-100, the V100 had dual inputs and three controls, volume, treble and bass. Both were powered by four fixed-bias EL-34 output tubes, producing 100 watts. The AC-100 preamp had one ECC82 and two ECC83 tubes, the V100 preamp had just two ECC83 tubes.

The AC-100 was hand wired on tag strips, the V100 was the first Vox tube amp to be constructed on a printed circuit board (photo at right).

View more details on the V100 "under the hood" web page.

Speaker Cabinet
Vox did not design a specific speaker cabinet to accompany the V100 amplifier head. The 4x12 Supreme cabinet was a popular choice as it was nearly identical to the original AC-100 speaker enclosure.




V100 Cabinet Cosmetics
The V100 cabinet incorporated styling cues developed for the solid state amps, such as the Supreme, introduced by JMI Vox in 1967. These solid state amps departed from Vox tradition by moving the top mounted control panel from the rear to the front of the cabinet. A small grill panel was inset below the control panel.

The V100 placed the control panel at the bottom front of the cabinet and the inset grill panel above.

The cabinet was covered in traditional Vox basket weave vinyl and included black Vox grill, a horizontal Thomas style Vox logo, a Vox handle, six large air vents and silver piping accents. Eight "two-pin" corners with a Vox logo were installed on the V100 (inset photo at right).

Photo Credits
The Vox Showroom sincerely thanks Espen Bergen Hansen of E.B. Hansen Engineering of Norway for his generous contribution of the V100 product images shown on this page.





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Photos and editorial content courtesy Gary Hahlbeck, North Coast Music


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