# 1U Rocktron Velocity 300



## El Caco (Feb 17, 2010)

I've been thinking of going away from a poweramp + cab setup recently but a visit to the Rocktron site today has caused me to rethink this.

Rocktron - Velocity 300







I've heard good things about the old 300 but they have made the new one a 1U and the new reactance circuit looks really cool if it works the way they say.



> The Velocity 300 has a unique &#8220;Reactance&#8221; circuit that actually replicates the output impedance of tube amplifiers&#8212;so you can get the same great sound that a tube amplifier delivers in a reliable solid state design. And, because it is a variable control, you can customize your Velocity 300 to sound like any of your favorite tube amps. Best of all, this feature is available in the mono bridged mode too!



If they have actually pulled of what they claim at $370 this might be the best new piece of gear I have seen this year.

I also noticed the S112 cabs and the reviews are really good, I almost want to grab some of those as well, sucks that I'm broke.


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## dpm (Feb 17, 2010)

Man, that looks cool. I've heard good things about the old Velocity too, but 1u is a huge improvement to start with IMO. Considering the high end PA companies are pulling 7000 watts from a 1u package it shouldn't be _that_ much of a big deal to get 300 - 500 out of an affordable package.


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## dpm (Feb 17, 2010)

Oh shit yes, it looks like a 115/230v switch is standard


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## El Caco (Feb 17, 2010)

yep that was so nice to see, I hated how you would see all these Rocktron Velocity amps from the States on eBay all the time but you couldn't use them without a step down. Now you can grab one from anywhere and it will work anywhere, awesome stuff. But I did a quick price check and if you can get a good deal these will be barely more expensive to buy locally after you factor shipping so for once I can feel good about looking after the local guy and benefit from local support should I need it.


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## jeb (Feb 17, 2010)

I've played with the old velocity 300 for many years.... It was an awsome unit for the price.... The reason I replaced it... A friend sold me a marshall 9200 for nothing...

If I didn't get that deal... the velocity 300 would be in my rack at this time!!


jeb


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## Rick (Feb 17, 2010)

I want one.


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## meisterjager (Feb 17, 2010)

Nice!





*Meisterjager contemplates keeping his e530 to form a 2u setup from hell*


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## TMM (Feb 17, 2010)

jeb said:


> ...The reason I replaced it... A friend sold me a marshall 9200 for nothing...



So, what you're saying is that you stole your friend's amp? 

This sounds pretty awesome Steve! Thanks for the heads-up.


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## op1e (Feb 17, 2010)

I just picked up an older Velocity 250 for $250 off Craigs. I'm lovin the shit out of it. Mine has "Reactance" and "Definition" for each channel. Just like a Resonance and Presence. I highly recommend the older 150/250/300 if you can find one. Dont know if the knew one sounds the same, but mine is a nice match with the mp1.


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## jeb (Feb 18, 2010)

> So, what you're saying is that you stole your friend's amp?



HAHAHA

Yeah I stole it for a ridiculous price.... I should keep the velocity as a backup


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## Hex (Apr 10, 2010)

I know this thread is really current, but I have to give a +1 to the older Velocity 250. Sounded great with a Randall MTS system and a Rocktron Chameleon. Very warm and "tubey" sounding. I might give the new 300 a try.


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## El Caco (Apr 10, 2010)

Eleven Rack through the new Rocktron Velocity 300



It's not much of a clip but I thought people might be interested.


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## AK DRAGON (Apr 11, 2010)

I love my Velocity 150 (basically it's less power cousin). Reactance is great. Make it sound like SS or Tube.


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## shredfreak (Apr 11, 2010)

Still haven't heard from the store yet so i think i might go down there next week -.-.

Haven't found any yet on thomann.de or any other european sites so i'm wondering when they'll be available in europe.


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## El Caco (Apr 11, 2010)

There's a few reviews on the Fractal forum Fractal Audio Systems View topic - Review: Rocktron Velocity 300 new version...

It looks like the poweramp to get.


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## shredfreak (Apr 12, 2010)

So basicly the velocity 300 is pretty much the same price as the 100 version? that guy getting it at 369$ looks stupidly cheap for a poweramp like that really.


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## shredfreak (Apr 16, 2010)

coolbeans, just found them on the thomann site
ROCKTRON VELOCITY 300 - Belgium International Cyberstore



FUCK this is tempting


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## SnowfaLL (Apr 16, 2010)

Lemme know how it is, if you pick it up. I think im pretty set on something else, cause I want to play bass thru this rack too so looking into the Carvin DCM series.. but this might be too cool to pass up, if I could get that + something thats 1U for bass, that'd be cool.


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## shredfreak (Apr 17, 2010)

NickCormier said:


> Lemme know how it is, if you pick it up. I think im pretty set on something else, cause I want to play bass thru this rack too so looking into the Carvin DCM series.. but this might be too cool to pass up, if I could get that + something thats 1U for bass, that'd be cool.



this perhaps? ROCKTRON BLUE THUNDER - Belgium International Cyberstore

haven't heard or seen it yet though.

First i need to sell gear & get me a utopia 300.

Although i'm kinda tempted to sell my crate head & get me one of these babies tbh. Think i've used my head as a poweramp for like errrr, 3 years now .
Would def be a nice weight reduction overall really


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## Albionic (Jan 12, 2011)

Did anyone get one of these? What they like?


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## xCaptainx (Jan 12, 2011)

I use one with my Line 6 HD500. 

I play in two bands, both with two guitarists. 

Two nights a week it is up against a Line 6 Vetta = line6 4x12

one night a week it's up against an ENGL Fireball + Mesa 4x12

It's just as loud and funnily enough I've managed to dial up an identical tone to our other guitarists Engl Fireball haha. 

Totally recommend the Velocity 300. Best Poweramp ever!


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## maccayoung (Jan 12, 2011)

I'm with xCaptainx. 
I use it with the hd500. I even A/B'd it against a marshall 9100 dual monoblock (which is 30kgs) and it held it's own. It was actually more tweakable than the marshall and nicer at lower volumes.

I even got a compliment from the other guitar player in my band about my sound, which maybe the first time that's ever happened.

So yes. Tis awesome!


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## joshc482 (Jan 12, 2011)

i was going to get one of these for my pod x3 pro but now im sold on the thing it seems fucking awesome


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## xCaptainx (Jan 12, 2011)

one of the periphery guitarist use one as well; that sold me, haha.


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## Chickenhawk (Jan 12, 2011)

Hmmm. I DO need a power amp. And I DO have one rack space left...

Thanks for the heads up, Steve.


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## op1e (Jan 12, 2011)

Still using my 250, still awesome with the 1101. Thinking of getting the new one and passing the old one and mp1 down to my rythm player so I can rock a 2 space.


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## xCaptainx (Jan 12, 2011)

also btw the knobs at the front are AWESOME. I use the HD500 with the 'stack power amp' output setting, and had the front knobs on the rocktron at noon. It had nowhere near the 'balls' of the ENGL our other guitarist has until I started tweaking the poweramp some more. I have them both around 3 or 4 o'clock now and it sounds AMAZING.


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## capoeiraesp (Jan 13, 2011)

I'm gonna have to pick one up just for kicks.


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## Albionic (Jan 13, 2011)

hmmmm i was gonna start putting some money aside for a used mesa 50/50 or 9100 
but now i'm not so sure plus thomman in europe offer this for about £265 with a 3 year warrenty 

and i just know if i buy a used tube amp it will need new valves just as the washing machine breakes the car needs new tyres and i have a gig in 2 days and am broke

i'm really happy with my little marshal 8008 tranny amp but i would like to have a bit more head room (just in case)


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## PirateMetalTroy (Jan 13, 2011)

I really like this poweramp, but mine ate it the other day. No idea what happened. I played for a few hours, turned it off and went to bed. I got up the next morning and tried to play some more, and I was getting no sound. Everything else in my rack works just fine, direct outs, tuner, pedals, you name it. It appears to power up just fine, and everything "clicks" just like it used to. For some reason it just up and died out of nowhere.

I'm gonna skip taking it back on warranty and waiting god only knows how long for it to get back to me, and just eat the cost of having it repaired locally. I just have to hope it's not an output transformer.


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## maccayoung (Jan 13, 2011)

Albionic said:


> hmmmm i was gonna start putting some money aside for a used mesa 50/50 or 9100
> but now i'm not so sure plus thomman in europe offer this for about £265 with a 3 year warrenty
> 
> and i just know if i buy a used tube amp it will need new valves just as the washing machine breakes the car needs new tyres and i have a gig in 2 days and am broke
> ...



I own the velocity and the 9100. If I had to choose one I'd go with the velocity. In fact I'm considering selling the 9100 after a/b'ing against the velocity.


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## BL1NDSIDE-J (Jan 13, 2011)

Would this and a line 6 x3 pro be suitable for a good death metal tone?


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## Sepultorture (Jan 14, 2011)

BL1NDSIDE-J said:


> Would this and a line 6 x3 pro be suitable for a good death metal tone?



oh yes


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## BL1NDSIDE-J (Jan 14, 2011)

Man that would be cheap as balls too, Thanks alot! I wonder what a rockmaster would sound like through it which would be even cheaper.


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## InTheRavensName (Jan 14, 2011)

What about a used XTPro? They cost pretty much fuck all now and sound pretty awesome. (IMO)


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## BL1NDSIDE-J (Jan 14, 2011)

XTPro? is that some sort of line 6 processor? If so how does the amp modeling compare to the x3?


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## InTheRavensName (Jan 14, 2011)

Same modelling tech. I think, just more limited in routing options. Someone will be able to give you a better answer, but yeah, it's a L6 rack processor, normally fetches £150-200 max around here...so it's a cheaper option!


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## BL1NDSIDE-J (Jan 14, 2011)

Nice I'll look into it thanks for the heads up.


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## op1e (Jan 14, 2011)

PirateMetalTroy said:


> I really like this poweramp, but mine ate it the other day. No idea what happened. I played for a few hours, turned it off and went to bed. I got up the next morning and tried to play some more, and I was getting no sound. Everything else in my rack works just fine, direct outs, tuner, pedals, you name it. It appears to power up just fine, and everything "clicks" just like it used to. For some reason it just up and died out of nowhere.
> 
> I'm gonna skip taking it back on warranty and waiting god only knows how long for it to get back to me, and just eat the cost of having it repaired locally. I just have to hope it's not an output transformer.



You know I had weird things happen every now and then. One time my right channel wasn't working when I was fooling around hooking up another cab. I plugged and unplugged speaker jacks into different places (mine has 2 outs per channel). Turned it off and on again and worked fine. Hope you have good luck, its worth it to buy another one while you wait for the other to be exchanged or repaired. Back ups are a good idea, and your rack will look fukn Megatron.


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## Demeyes (Jan 14, 2011)

I'm trying to get my bandmate to pick one of these up. At the moment he's running through one of the channels on my marshall poweramp. It'd be much handier to have the option of using the rocktron for some gigs because the weight of the marshall can be killer to lug around.


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## 6Christ6Denied6 (Jan 26, 2011)

im looking for a power amp to use with an axe fx... this one seems to be getting alot of love here and i just had one more question before im sold.

will this have enough headroom to compete with a full band with vocals drums bass and 2 other guitarists? 

also i need to be able to gig with this as well.


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## xCaptainx (Jan 26, 2011)

yes. I use this is a band enviroment. THe bassist uses an SVT 3 and 8x10, the other guitarist uses an ENGL Fireball + mesa cab with V30s

I often get told to turn down. It will be perfect.


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## 6Christ6Denied6 (Jan 26, 2011)

when your at band volume, how much more can you go? like was your volume set to half, almost full?


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## xCaptainx (Jan 26, 2011)

I run it bridged (mono) 300w and the volume is at 4 or 5, depending on where we are situated within the practise room.


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## Rex (Jan 24, 2012)

Hey I´m looking for this unit and i have a question, my cab is a Behringer BG412s (stereo) with Jensen Speakers and it has a switch mono/stereo and two jacks at 8 Ohm.

What would be the best way to connect this poweramp to my cab? 

I Have the manual and i don´t understand the stereo/bridge modes in this case.

And another cuestion, in a local forum here in Spain one Guy solds the old rocktron 300 2u at the same price than this new model in thomann!! He says that the old model is waaaaay better than this unit. Is this true?

At same price I prefer new with the three years guarantee  unless this new model was certainly worse

What do you think?

Thanks in advance


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## xCaptainx (Jan 24, 2012)

Get a new one, with the warranty. The 1U is just as good, in fact I havent heard anything about either being any better than the other. 

Mono into 8ohm will be fine. It's what I used to do. (I now have a Matrix)


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## WhiteWalls (Jan 24, 2012)

You just plug it into the cab, there's nothing else you need to do, it's not a tube amp so you don't have to worry about matching ohms.

Stereo means that the 2 channels behave like 2 separate amps to be connected to 2 cabs, for example you can plug 2 preamps/pods in the two channels which then go to the cabs.
This way you will only have half the power for each channel, while in bridged mode you use just the first channel for the full 300 watts

So if you have the regular setup of preamp/rocktron/cab just plug the preamp into the input 1, then the output 1 to the cab.


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## dean_fry (Jan 25, 2012)

xCaptainx said:


> Mono into 8ohm will be fine. It's what I used to do. (I now have a Matrix)



So how do the Matrix & Rocktron compare? Which one would you suggest to go for (especially with an axe)?


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## xCaptainx (Jan 25, 2012)

Matrix. MUCH cleaner and transparent. High end is crystal clear and sparkles nicely! I run my HD500 full/direct out with it, it sounds huge.


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## Loomer (Jan 25, 2012)

Just saw what this thing costs on Thomann's website. This is ludicrously cheap!  

And if it's also good, then this is awesome. I'll keep this in mind, should I ever decide to go Rack.


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## voodoogreg (Apr 21, 2012)

PirateMetalTroy said:


> I really like this poweramp, but mine ate it the other day. No idea what happened. I played for a few hours, turned it off and went to bed. I got up the next morning and tried to play some more, and I was getting no sound. Everything else in my rack works just fine, direct outs, tuner, pedals, you name it. It appears to power up just fine, and everything "clicks" just like it used to. For some reason it just up and died out of nowhere.
> 
> 
> I'm gonna skip taking it back on warranty and waiting god only knows how long for it to get back to me, and just eat the cost of having it repaired locally. I just have to hope it's not an output transformer.


 
Hey all my first post.
I really like the velocity amps, but a known issue with older/ low wattage ones is thermal cutoff. a real buzz kill live. I Imagine this has been fixed in the newer ones, but i would look into that. Tone is great but I can't seem to find anything I like better then my old Mosvalve 500. VG


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## jkerr (Apr 21, 2012)

Old as hell thread but due to the bump I will just say that the reactance knob is the greatest thing ever.


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## drgordonfreeman (Apr 22, 2012)

In the 90's, Rocktron made some REALLY awesome stuff. High quality, well-built products.

I was bought and sold by Rocktron back then. From top to bottom of the rack, I had a Furman power conditioner, a Pro GAP Ultra, an Intellifex, a Pro-Q, BBE 462, and the 2U Velocity 300. I bought all of that stuff brand new when it came out, and I used it and abused it for years. When the Chameleon (black face) came out, I bought that, as well, but I never used it much, as it was a decent departure from the Pro GAP Ultra.

When they changed directions with the focus of the product line, which was around the time they introduced the Prophecy, is when I lost touch with them. I just couldn't get into preset "artist" patches dictating how I sounded.

Anyway, like I said, I had one of the old Velocity 300 power amps. It was a 2U power amp, and it rocked. I never cranked it up much past 3 or 4, because it would peel the paint off of the walls. 

If they've improved at all on the old 300, which is hard to imagine, then that HAS to be one absolutely killer power amp.


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## Kristianx510 (Apr 22, 2012)

Does anyone know much about the Velocity 100? I want to get it, but I'm not sure if it can get loud enough to plays shows with.


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## Stealthdjentstic (Apr 22, 2012)

Cant wait to nab one soon


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## Loomer (Apr 22, 2012)

I can wholeheartedly recommend one now. That reactance knob really is pretty brilliant.


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## Psykopath90 (Sep 26, 2012)

I've been looking for this power amp it it seems sold out everywhere... Do you know if there is an alternative as good as this Velocity 300?


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## mnit1965 (Sep 26, 2012)

I'm also intereted in this. But being a complete newbie in terms of power amps/cabs, would this Velocity 300 work with this cab?

Harley Benton G212 Vintage - Thomann UK Cyberstore

Or the Velocity 150 would be the way to go? Or the 120 (but this doesn't has the Reactance...)?


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## Dickicker (Sep 26, 2012)

I smell a new back up power amp!


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## mcleanab (Sep 26, 2012)

mnit1965 said:


> I'm also intereted in this. But being a complete newbie in terms of power amps/cabs, would this Velocity 300 work with this cab?
> 
> Harley Benton G212 Vintage - Thomann UK Cyberstore
> 
> Or the Velocity 150 would be the way to go? Or the 120 (but this doesn't has the Reactance...)?



Hey all... after dealing with Rocktron products for a while now, I went for a Velocity 100 and couldn't be happier. It doesn't have the Reactance feature of the 300, but I use an Aphex 204 with the Optical Big Bottom to give the same girth/depth/weight to my 2x12's. 

After playing with the Rocktron Xpression (and a long time ago the Rocktron Phantom Cab), the Reactance feature is in both of those units. The Aphex does a great simulation of that (albiet by different methods I'm sure).

Even by itself, the Velocity 100 rocks. I can only imagine the 300 does too.


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