NAD - Found a nice Pathfinder 15R

luciguci · Post by **luciguci** » Fri Dec 07, 2018 7:18 am

$130 shipped, came with a dust cover with a little white paint stain, also on the corner of the amp. The reverb wasn't working right when I got it, the input from the guitar seemslike it was running through the amp just fine but not through the reverb, but the reverb was outputting just fine, as I could hear it when the amp was jostled. So, I popped open the back and plugged the loose wires i saw back in their respective place and voila, the reverb was alive again.

plaidbeer · Post by **plaidbeer** » Fri Dec 07, 2018 7:16 pm

Congrats on the Pathfinder. It was my first guitar amp and I still have it.

Post by **Doog** » Fri Dec 07, 2018 7:33 pm

I keep eyeing these small Vox SS combos; my BASE TONE for playing at home is pretty much always a Joyo ACTone running into a little modelling Zoom amp with all the modelling bypassed.

This makes so much more sense, and looks ace. Might be time to keep an eye on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree..

BearBoy · Post by **BearBoy** » Fri Dec 07, 2018 7:40 pm

Nice. Great little amps.

luciguci · Post by **luciguci** » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:39 pm

Played around a bit more with the amp, and a lot louder too since it's no longer after dark and god DAMN I love this amp, I'm really glad I got it. I'd been getting kinda bored by pedals for a little bit, and wanted a nice amp that had at least a built in tremolo and reverb (because i'll never get tired of those two) and remembered the Pathfinder. God damn. I'm actually playing again, and I can't stop cranking the amp and playing garage rock riffs either, it sounds fantastic. Perfect choice too, I'd wanted to record a haunted garage rock cover EP for Halloween but didnt get up to it, but now that I've got this amp, it'll be nearly all I need. I'll probably get to work on that sometime next week, and spend the rest of the year working on it.

Doog wrote:Might be time to keep an eye on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree..

It took me a while to find one that wasn't a Pathfinder 10, it's like everyone who has one knows how good they are and don't wanna get rid of them. I'd say check in every week until you find one.

BearBoy · Post by **BearBoy** » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:59 pm

Don't know why they discontinued the 15R tbh. Seems to be much more highly regarded than the 10.

They also did a head/2x10 cab version:

The 15R is supposed to sound great through a 12" cab as well if you have one.

Post by **Doog** » Sun Dec 09, 2018 9:21 pm

Lol, I cooked the mains transformer on my Zoom by trying to wire a speaker output (nb: always check how to wire a stereo jack), so I might be looking into one of these sooner rather than later..

Post by **dots** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 2:17 am

Vox tone ftw, nice pull!

Fakir Mustache · Post by **Fakir Mustache** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 10:04 am

BearBoy wrote:Don't know why they discontinued the 15R tbh. Seems to be much more highly regarded than the 10.

They also did a head/2x10 cab version:

The 15R is supposed to sound great through a 12" cab as well if you have one.

There was also a 4x8" version.

Were the head/cab configurations available in Europe? I've never seen one.

BearBoy · Post by **BearBoy** » Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:53 am

Fakir Mustache wrote:There was also a 4x8" version.

Were the head/cab configurations available in Europe? I've never seen one.

According to The Vox Showroom site, the 4x8 version was a Guitar Center exclusive in the US. I don't recall seeing one over here. I'm pretty sure I saw one of the 2x10" versions on UK eBay once but it may well have originated from the US. They're certainly not common over here.

luciguci · Post by **luciguci** » Tue Dec 11, 2018 8:02 am

I decided to play around with a couple of other amps I have with 10 inch speakers; an old dusty Fender Frontman 25R that's been in my closet for years because it was broken as fuck and the icepickiest amp I've ever heard in my life, and a Kustom Defender 15 combo. I plugged the ext cab output from the Pathfinder into both of those cabinets to see how they would sound and it was interesting to see how the tone changed. Despite the fact that the Kustom aws meant to evoke either a Fender combo or Vox combo with the bass response knob, it still made the Vox sound very warm, and the Frontman speaker made it sound more Fender-ish. Despite all this, the stock speaker still sounds best IMO, I don't think I'll do anything to modify it. Maybe, just maybe someday further down the line, when I have the money to try it out, I'll find a nice British-voiced 8 inch speaker to pop in, since the stock speaker cone seems to want to buzz at certain notes, which gets kind of annoying. Hopefully it goes away on its own though. Maybe I'll remove the clipping diodes, see how I like that.

Sidenote: during all that experimentation, I also found that the cheap Fender Frontman speaker made my Kustom The Contender amp sound even better, so I'm glad I've kept it around all these years, because now I'm sure I'm going to rehouse the Contender into the Frontman cab when I've got the tools and space and time for it. It'd be nice to have just those two around for stereo fun.

Gabriel · Post by **Gabriel** » Mon Dec 17, 2018 2:42 am

I really like these amps. My friend used to have one as his kick around amp for when guitarists came to jam or record at his apartment. They can get pretty loud too, I used it for a fair few gigs.

luciguci · Post by **luciguci** » Mon Dec 17, 2018 9:16 am

I keep on forgetting that this is a solid state amp because it sounds so damn good. I can't believe I haven't got one of these ages ago.

Post by **Doog** » Thu Dec 20, 2018 10:05 pm

Snap!

Helluva schlep to Greenwich to pick it up (Best Offer on eBay, 75 quid), but totally worth it. The reverb is v weak, but it seems super loud and has a surprising amount of gain on tap.

Only played briefly as it's late, the Joyo ACTone still has a nicer driven sound, but I love this as a simple clean platform that looks aaaaaaace

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:20 am

Looks sexy. Congrats!

I bought a Fender Frontman 15G that is a surprisingly well built and good sounding amp. Also loud for its size. Clean channel is a little bit ice picky clean, but I've read that swapping the stock speaker to anything else makes wonders. Dirt channel is more distortion like, I read that it has Marshal Guvnor pedal's circuit and I'd like something less distorted.

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:02 pm

Doog wrote:Lol, I cooked the mains transformer on my Zoom by trying to wire a speaker output (nb: always check how to wire a stereo jack), so I might be looking into one of these sooner rather than later..

What Zoom? And you cooked the *mains* transformer? PM me if you like.

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Fri Dec 21, 2018 1:06 pm

Doog wrote: The reverb is v weak

I bet there's a mod for that.

Post by **Doog** » Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:29 pm

NickS wrote:
Doog wrote:Lol, I cooked the mains transformer on my Zoom by trying to wire a speaker output (nb: always check how to wire a stereo jack), so I might be looking into one of these sooner rather than later..
What Zoom? And you cooked the *mains* transformer? PM me if you like.

Haha very gracious but I've totally destroyed it since (turned it into a standalone little cab).. t'was a Zoom Fire 15.

NickS wrote:
Doog wrote: The reverb is v weak
I bet there's a mod for that.

I'll give all of the pots and reverb tank leads a clean when I'm back in London after Xmarse, it may just be the tank itself.