So I’ve seen and read all the negative or at best “meh” reviews for this amp. Why then is it that I can’t quit playing my strat through it? I’m finding very little not to love.
Share a clip please of what your getting! Not to many demos that do it justice imo. This one is close, but too much going on in the background and not the best captured recording, but enough there for what I would like to hear...
This first clip nails the strat tones, far better than I could do. The second is a good example of the Girth (dirt) channel.
Seen these also. I like the strat tones too. I did not care for the dirt tones on these clips. I think its even the same guy in the one I posted, and your first one you posted. LOL If your enjoying the amp, thats what matters! I think you could do strat tones just fine!
Night Train is a really good sounding amp. Made in China, there may be service issues and maintenance issues...but it's still a good amp. So crank it up and play. It is probably made in the same factory (in China) as Orange Amps. You will see (internally) that Orange and Vox are built almost the same, inside. You can also see that both amps are built with the same parts(...etc...) I suspect that the same person designed the Orange Tiny Terror and the Night Train amps. (Please don't believe that these amps were designed in UK, I would sincerely doubt that.) Both these amps have a really nice crunch, and good sustain. I start playing these amps, and I don't want to stop. Crunch Crunch Crunch - I wanna crunch a bunch.
I haven’t looked at the guts, but the fit and finish are flawless. I did swap out the preamp tubes for a ribbed plate Tele in V1, a Mullard in V2 and a strong Ei in V3. The improvement was subtle - maybe a bit more rounded on the dirt channel.
My theory- A lot people are all about gain. The more the better. Vox takes shit, not just this one, because it’s not loaded with an insane amount of gain. Most people who like Vox... or even strats.... sound great playing clean and clear. As you know, sloppy playing is a lot more evident playing a strat through a Vox than say a high output Humbucker guitar through a hi gain amp.
Sounded good to me. If you like the tone you're getting then who cares what anyone else thinks. Some people are brand loyal and that's cool but I like to try out different amps to see what other sounds I can get. That's why I have owned Marshall's, Fenders, Peavey and am current playing through Jet City amps. I saw many reviews saying Jet City were junk but maybe some of those just don' t know how to dial in a good tone or just like to say they own this amp or that amp. I can get a good brown sound and a usable clean tone and even balls out metal tones out of my Jet City amps so it's all personal preference. The amp sounded good to me so enjoy and play your ass off!
fwiw, Orange owns their factory outright.. it was a green field site built from the ground up... There is a large chapter in the Orange book about it.. They carefully managed around all the typical issues faced by companies offshoring manufacture to China... given this I guess i would be more than very surprised if they were building amps for Vox. Ade Elmsley designed the TT, and i suspect that any similarity in the night train is *cough cough* admiration of a great design.
So, I've never played one of these amps, but I'll give you my thoughts based on what I heard above in those clips. I really liked some of the clean / edge of breakup tones I was hearing, but once it was switched over to the gain channel, I think it fell apart a bit for my personal tastes (a bit buzzy/raspy). It sounds like it could be a really nice clean / bluesy amp, but I'm not sure I'd reach for it for rock and beyond. Btw., I'm not hearing any similarities to the Tiny Terror. I had one of those for a day (tied with the JTM-1 for the quickest amp dump i've ever made).
Never played through a Nighttrain, but I love the Vox character! I have jammed an the newer AC30 and like the tone with my strat. If you want more gain, hit it with a pedal!
I’ve been using the Mosky Golden Horse pedal. It’s the most affordable klone I’ve found at around $22 on eBay. It sounds great boosting either the Night Train or my Marshall, or a Tube Screamer. Hell, just about anything sounds better with it.