Blue series-'Hiss' level-Korean vs Vietnamese manufacture

[Voxman]

A while back there was a thread on Voxtalks from the owner of both a Vietnamese made AD120VTH and a Korean made AD60VTH. He noticed a significantly higher noise-floor in the Vietnam model and, unlike the Korean AD60VTH, the hiss volume was constant and did not vary with Master Volume adjustment (whereas the AD60VTH did respond). My own (Korean) AD120VTX is pretty quiet, and any background hiss does reduce when lowering the Master Volume.

The Voxtalks thread is here:

http://www.voxtalks.com/cgi-bin/UltraBo ... 0&Session=

Today I received a PM from someone else with exactly the same issue on their Vietnamese made AD60VTX.

This would now seem to confirm that when moving production of the Blues to Vietnam, no doubt to reduce costs, there has been some change in components and/or circuits.

This is not a 'fault' per-se, but the higher noise floor inherrent in the Vietnamese made 'Blues' may be more noticeable and cannot be changed (eg it cannot be reduced by either the noisegate or by lowering the Master volume level). Therefore, if you are looking to buy a Blue amp, you may want to consider the above and check where the amp has been made first particularly bearing in mind that the Blues have now been discontinued and that most old stock is likely to be of the later Vietnamese models.

Rich