![]() The painstaking attention to detail recorded in these pages is extraordinary it is the product of a keen appetite for knowledge. ![]() ![]() From there the obsession began to find a focus-or perhaps, more accurately, a purpose. “At that moment, there was no question,” he tells me. Elyea says that after years of waiting for the next great book on Vox to hit the stores, it dawned on him one day that he would be the one to write it. This book was concieved with great ambition. Just a glance at the book makes it clear that an obsession has been at work here, but reading it reveals a depth that could not have been inspired by obsession alone. Elyea informs me that there are “some other things” that he would’ve liked to include in the book, but it’s hard to imagine what could’ve been left out. This guy is thorough, and when he went out to find something, he went all out to find it, every detail. #Vox amplifiers manualsStarting with that collection, which spawned an expanding database of amplifiers, Elyea also put in years of tracking down manuals data sheets, log books and other documents, made many trips to the UK to talk to everyone he could find who’d ever worked there did scores of interviews… you get the idea. As a result, the Vox Museum has become a repository of some of the rarest amplifiers around, and with the book, I am able to share it with everyone.” Elyea continues, “I remember the day I sold a complete set of Fender Reverb units, all with covers, and I never looked back. #Vox amplifiers tv“As much as I loved the different guitars and amps,” he says, “when a potential new addition to the Vox collection would appear, another guitar would go on the block: 360/12, 370, 6120, ES-5, SJ-200, TV Junior, pre-CBS Strats, black guard Teles-they all were sold to buy more Vox.” Though just the thought of parting with such a bevy of great guitars is enough to make any gearhead rueful, the end result of all this trading-off was the Vox Museum, so the story is a bittersweet one, rather than just bitter. He began his gear collecting with a general interest, but as he got more interested in Vox amps he decided to focus solely on them, foregoing guitars, effects, and other amplifiers alike. It must have been Elyea’s obsession with Vox amps that started it, but his quest to find out everything that could be found out about Vox Amplifiers in the early years can only be described as relentless. What sets it apart is its depth of detail. It’s not just that the text and the photography are equally edifying, organized and easy to navigate, or even just that it covers so much territory, from history to field guide, to reference manual, to nostalgic coffee table book. Oh yes, there’s also plenty of gear porn.Ĭertain to become the definitive book on the subject, Vox Amplifiers also sets a new standard by which other books on the history of our most beloved gear might be judged. Laudably, he is never reticent about what he could not verify. Interspersed throughout are charts, sidebars and illustrations, and a running item called “Setting the Record Straight,” in which Elyea clears up many popular myths with the information he dug up in his years of searching. In these pages is a seemingly endless array of pictures detailing every aspect of Vox history, familiar and unfamiliar, along with an engrossing narrative and meticulous documentation. In terms of what this book achieves, it may be even bigger than its outsized proportions can convey. Twelve years in the making, it is a very big book, and I’m not just talking about its physical size-although at 9.5 x 12 inches and 682 pages, it’s no slight thing in that regard either. The History for Hire Press has just published Vox Amplifiers: The JMI Years by Jim Elyea. ![]()
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