VHT ST 50 HEAD Reviews 
5 / 5 based on 2 reviewsOverall it's a great amp. One of, if not the few 2 channel USA handmade amps that have both great cleans AND great distortion channels.
I did buy it used and I think the price was right for what it's worth. You're getting a GREAT amp for the price! It's a shame they're discontinued, they were amazing. I've tested the new CLs and yes they are st... [read more on Audiofanzine]
nickname009 rated this unit
on
2011-04-07.
Bought from Trevor Durrant Guitars, Colchester, England. I paid £1800 for the head and 2 x 12 Cab (Approx $2700), £1400 of wich was for the Head. I had been looking for a versatile amp - Good clean, blues, rock and metal tones - for ages. Having tried Marshal, Laney, Boogie, Peavey ect in head, combo and rack formats without finding the sounds I liked, I stumbled on this small dealer with only top quality geer(Boogie, Soldano, PRS etc). They were really cool and spent ages discussing my reqirements before suggesting a VHT. They said they were the only amp available in the UK to have both great clean and heavily overdriven tones. After ruling out their Ultra Lead and CLX models due to cost, I plugged into the ST head and started to play around.
The amp immediatley hit me as having a great clean tone. It was not long before I had a very Fender esque sound emminating from the amp. I was using both my guitars(A PRS custom 22 and a Briam Moore i1). I was amazed at how transparent the amp was - keeping the guitars inherant tones. This amp has a boost on both channels, and switching this in on the clean channel produced a wonderfull full crunch wich had me in full AC/DC mode in seconds. The drive channel has everything from clasic rock tones right up to nu-metal gain, and all selectable from the footswitch. The amp also has an asignable 6 band eq, again from the footswitch, and I found I cound use this to add either a psudo volume boost, or really scoop the sound (theirs 12 Db of cut and boost available). Add to this a series/parallel effects loop, the fact that the amp can be run in class A or A/B mode and with a tube or silican rectifier - all selectable from flip switches on the back of the amp - I was finally in heaven.
The 4 x 12 cab was a little too "open" for my tastes, but the 2x12 was great. The boost could do with being adjustable rather than the fixed boost the amp has, but the CLX and Ultra lead have this. I guess that is just down the the cost of the amps. The amp comes with EL34 valves, but I prefere 6L6s. No problem though, a flip switch changes the bias and grid voltages so I only needed to replace the valves.
These amps are all rock solid construction, and are all hand built. Quality just oozes from them. They are easily in the boutique amp range.
Great versatile amp - little known in the UK. If you need great clean as well as driven tones. but cant afford a dual rec and a fender twin - Try a VHT, you will be amazed.
Paul Mapplethorpe rated this unit
on
2003-07-18.
