At first it took some time to get use to the little bit of noise it makes but now I don't pay much to it . I like it being simple to use. It Has that great Fender clean sound and the Reverb and Vibrato is the best. 46lb was a little heavy but I put Fender pull off wheels on it. One more thing is pedals work great with amp.

vfmind owns this item

This amp absolutely reminds me of my 68 Bandmaster Reverb head, excellent response to pick attack and a sweet reverb too.
Can't beat it for Funkified Blues !!!
I pulled off some nice ZZ Top with a TS-9 and my Route 66 comp, The harmonics jumped off the bent notes so easily.
Its different than my 67 Bassman, my tweed and my Marshall clones for sure and thats a Good thing !
Got mine used and so maybe it was modded ???? no white noise at all after replacing v-4 with a good 12AX7
and I have headroom to spare so......
It's a new favorite for me, as always you should plug in with a familiar guitar before you lay out big bucks for an amp !

blues bondsman owns this item

I just want to say that Teachering is correct in his review and I want to do add one thing. I´ve been playing with my Vibrolux in gigs for the past 5 years. Yes, it is noisy amp at home and in the studio, but I cannot complain about the noise on stage. It serves me well there. I would love more headroom, but I manage to learn to play using the volume knob all the time. So, it got used to avoiding overdrive with volume knobs and different picking patterns. It´s a good amp for gigs. For studio and home use, I use the Blues Junior.

alexdesanti owns this item

I bought this amplifier on a whim about three years ago because I enjoy Fender tube amplifiers and liked the look of the Vibrolux. I think also that when I heard it referred to as the "little Vibro King", I was sold. On plugging in and turning on this amp I was disconcerted by the amount of ambient or white noise that issued from it. I soon discovered that this is not a quiet amplifier. It took some getting used to, but eventually I was able to ignore the noise and did enjoy the amplifier to a point. My family, on the other hand, did some complaining about its noise. After a time I became aware of other things about this amplifier that I did not like. For example, the Vibrolux has little in the way of head room. Using a Stratocaster, Telecaster, or any other single coil the amp begins to break up around three to four on the dial. Imagine plugging in a Les Paul and the humbucker! More often than not I enjoy the sound of the guitar without distortion. This is very difficult to achieve with the Vibrolux. Lastly, not only is reverb present in both the normal and bright channels but, when you get right down to it, there's very little reverb to speak of even though the amplifier is called the Vibrolux Reverb.

Does what I have just said suggest that I dislike this amplifier? Strange as it may seem, I really like this amp. I know amplifiers well enough that I also know that the Vibrolux has great possibilities. It can be not only a good amplifier but a great amplifier. Why the people at Fender allow this instrument to be sold to the public in the condition it is remains a puzzle to me. It needs revamping - no pun intended. In the last year I've spent a lot of time on the internet, particularly forums, to discover what others felt about the Vibrolux. Most owners, it seems to me, are not happy with its performance and, in fact, have learned that someone by the name of Mark Moyer came up with modifications that are now referred to as "Moyer Mods". The Vibrolux is infamous.

Long story short, I finally bit the bullet and took the amplifier to a technician to have the mods done to it. I thought that this would be a straight forward task, but it is not and I have the services of a good technician. I know now that the source of the amplifier's annoying ambient noise has to do with it not having a negative feedback loop. For the life of me, how is that to be explained? Done purposely I suppose because it makes the amp sound cool? I can only imagine. This job I'm having done will run me a couple hundred dollars which is an unnecessary expense. I don't expect to see the amplifier for several more weeks.

I do hope that someone with authority at Fender reads this review and can make a decision because I think that the Vibrolux deserves an overhaul. It certainly should not be sold in the condition it is in. However, the amplifier has been on the market for several years and would appear that change is not a consideration.

I want the Fender company to know that this review is by no means a criticism. Fender products are as much a passion to me as are my Strats and Teles and love of guitar.

The very best to the people at Fender.

James Myers

Teachering owns this item