Lately, I’ve been bitten by the Vox bug. Not sure why. Throughout my guitar playing life I’ve always been a fan of slightly darker tones but lately all I can think about is chime. In my seemingly infinite perusal of the internet feeding my gear lust I kept seeing the words “Vox Pathfinder 15r” mentioned as being one of the most surprising amps to players searching for a little Voxy chime on a budget. So I finally gave in to the curiosity and picked one up.

The Pathfinder 15r is a single channel 15 watt solid state amp with an 8 inch Vox Bluedog speaker with top mounted controls for gain (and a boost switch), volume, treble, bass, reverb and speed and depth controls for the included tremolo. On the back panel, the amp has a line out, external speaker out (which mutes the internal speaker), and headphone jack. The boost and tremolo are foot switchable, but a footswitch isn’t included with the amp. Construction is surprisingly solid for such a low priced amp with cool white piping around the side of the amp and gold piping surrounding the brown diamond grill cloth (current production models sport a black diamond grill cloth). The specific amp being reviewed is the made in Vietnam model with brown grill cloth (current production models have a black grill cloth).

Eager to put the hype to the test, I set aside an afternoon to run the amp though the paces with every guitar I could get my hands on. At first, I left the high and low controls at noon and experimented with boosting each but after a while found that I like cutting both back which brings the mids forward while keeping the bass and treble in balance. In this setting, with the gain between 8 and 10 o'clock depending on the guitar the Voxy nature of the amp peeks though a bit. Conversely, boosting both the lows and highs which in turn slightly scooped the mids did bring out a bit of the cranked AC30 character. The high end curve of the amp seems slightly different to me than a traditional Vox tone and a bit strident when goosed (I know, don't goose it then!) not totally capturing the sweetness I was hoping for (my expectations were high based on all the fabulous reviews). When I think typical Vox breakup, I think of the "smear" which happens when the chimey highs begin to compress and breakup and low mid growl of the AC30 or the rich mid range and tight lows of an AC15. I figured engaging the boost might get me a little more juice in the mids but the tone became undefined and extremely raw sounding and is probably the weakest feature of the amp.

The ultimate surprise out of this amp though is how crazy loud and full sounding it is far surpassing expectations of a low wattage ss amp with an 8 inch speaker...

Needless to say, the tone controls are fairly interactive and experimentation will be needed to tailor the tones to the guitar on hand. The amp is also shockingly dynamically responsive; on some settings even more touch sensitive than some tube amps I've played. I felt the tremolo is good and a sweet addition (though the depth knob isn’t as effective as I’d like functioning like a glorified on/off switch) and while the spring reverb won’t appease those used to the lushness of Fender verbs nor the realism of convolution based digital verbs it’s perfectly useable.

I also tested the amp with a plethora of pedals and the Pathfinder 15r was able to partner up nicely with nearly anything I threw at it. A huge surprise was slamming the front end with a Dynacomp clone which, when paired with a Tele with lower output pickups, was about the closest I’ve personally ever gotten to Brad Paisley’s tone!

The ultimate surprise out of this amp though is how crazy loud and full sounding it is far surpassing expectations of a low wattage ss amp with an 8 inch speaker. I can't say I've played a similarly priced and speced amp which even comes close to this in terms of volume and consistent tone across the volume sweep. The amp can’t project the deep low end of larger speakers and starts to slightly disappoint once the volume nears the highest settings but I was so impressed with its high volume performance that I used the amp at a rehearsal with a rock/alt country trio. While the drummer had to play with a bit of restraint, the amp performed admirably. I imagine the Pathfinder 15r would be perfect for smaller coffee house gigs unmiced and a perfect grab and go amp for those needing ultimate portability.

While not the absolute Holy Grail of amps, it’s certainly a contender standing pretty much alone among low wattage solid state amps in its price range for adding a bit of the Vox vibe to your practice and rehearsal arsenal.

Price: ~$120 USD
Pros: Solid tones, surprisingly loud
Cons: Unflattering boost function, tremolo depth knob throw inconsistent