Review: Vox Series 33 Guitars, SSC 33 and SDC 33 guitars (Video)

Review: Vox Series 33 Guitars

SSC 33 and SDC 33 guitars 17-Dec-10

No flash plug

8:5 mins

Vox’s new Series 33 bring the high level of luther-ship and electronics from the 55, 77 and Virage randes and into a more affordable area. The two guitars we are looking at are the Series 33 SSC (Standard Single Cutaway) and the Series 33 SDC (Standard Double Cutaway).

Appearance wise they correspond to a Les Paul body type and a sort of Gibson SG style, though they are quite loose associations.
First up - they are beautifully contoured and finished - the SC33 has an Ash top and Mahogany body and neck, the DC33 is Mahogany throughout. Both have rosewood fretboards and Tusq nuts.

The hardware on both is also nicely designed with their unique MaxConnect Bridge also seen on the higher end guitars. Of course the electronics is where these guitars shine, with their CoAxe pickups - which offer both single coil and Humbucker configurations, switched as a pair - for more precise control, you’ll need to climb up the Virage price ladder.
Tonally, they can sound very close to a Telecaster and also to a Les Paul - the P90 pickup is one of the benchmarks used to voice these.

Playability is good - the neck is very precise, encouraging more adventurous playing - which has got to be a good thing right? The body of both guitars are contoured so they fit nicely to you so it feels pretty comfortable to play

Tone
A good range of sound were to be had with both these guitars, Murph preferred the SDC because of the look, he was able to coax lovely clean Telecaster style tones, some warm Jazz type sounds and when adding the drive, some great dirty and higher gain sounds. The electronics really do allow for quite a decent range of sounds and the sustain and bite are clearly available should you need them

Over all
Impressed with the quality at the price, very nicely built and the flexible pickups providing quite a wide range of tonal variation. Much of what makes the high-end Virage guitars what they are are still retained at this lower price point.

The SSC 33 available with Ash or Maple top in various colours
SDC 33 in solid Ash or Mahogany and various colours

Both models priced at:
£699 / $1000 full RRP

Both come with a deluxe Gigbag case

More info
http://www.voxamps.com/us/guitars/series33/

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