NAD: Victory Sheriff 44

[Desertdweller]

I've been wanting a modded Marshall sound for a while and have been going back and forth between a JCM 800 and a Silver Jubilee. Then a few weeks ago I saw Victory posting about their new Sheriff amps, which led to me reading and learning more about the company. Next thing you know, I have a last-gen Sheriff sitting here. What a great little amp, everything about it is just classy. From the smooth turning pots to the bias option on the back, it's just fantastic. Here's a couple pics and a quick riffing video with it I recorded earlier this evening.

 

[Whizzinby]

Thats awesome. I’ve eyed both the Sheriff and Kraken on more than a couple occasions. I need to give a Victory amp a go.

 

[laxu]

I liked the Victory VC35 a ton. Vox AC30 style amp in a lunchbox format with modern feature set. Sounded great, was really easy to use. Mainly sold it for space reasons as it would have been sitting unused a lot since I can't fit it (or use it) in my current apartment.

Didn't love the Sheriff 22 when I tried. Liked the Super Kraken but not enough to buy one.

 

[la szum]

Sweet! Congrats.

 

[mbenigni]

That clip sounds amazing.

 

[-BOOGIEMAN-]

I've been wanting a modded Marshall sound for a while and have been going back and forth between a JCM 800 and a Silver Jubilee. Then a few weeks ago I saw Victory posting about their new Sheriff amps, which led to me reading and learning more about the company. Next thing you know, I have a last-gen Sheriff sitting here. What a great little amp, everything about it is just classy. From the smooth turning pots to the bias option on the back, it's just fantastic. Here's a couple pics and a quick riffing video with it I recorded earlier this evening.

View attachment 4719

Holy crap!!! I dig it!!!

 

[spawnofthesith]

Congrats!!

Tone sounds awesome!!

 

[Alex Kenivel]

ded sexi

 

[GuitarBilly]

I tried one of these last week. I thought it was a bit dark, but every clip I hear sounds bright and open. Maybe the one I tried had a problem. I love the size and features of this amp.

 

[Desertdweller]

I tried one of these last week. I thought it was a bit dark, but every clip I hear sounds bright and open. Maybe the one I tried had a problem. I love the size and features of this amp.

I get that, for what I'm doing it's boosted, so I am adding a bit of push, treble, and mids with the SD1 for sure. It has a very open sound, not sure I'd call it dark, but slamming the front-end of it with an overdrive definitely gets it into more modern territory.

 

[Desertdweller]

I'm not finding anything in the manual or online with the tube layout for this amp. So I'll throw this up here for anyone looking for this in the future. Based on this pic of the inside of the Sheriff 44, below is a usable tube layout for the amp simply created in MS Paint. I wanted to make sure it was up on the internet somewhere.

Hopefully this is useful to someone in the future.

 

[Bob Zaod]

I borrowed one once and absolutely loved it. AWESOME NAD! Congrats!

 

[Elric]

Yeah, I have been among the folks who have eyed those amps with some interest as well, being a huge modded Marshall fan combined with the fact the Mr. Cornford himself Martin Kidd is the Victory guy, IIRC.

The MK50H borders on being my all-time FAS amp model which has always made me wanna check out one IRL... that said, I've heard the V's differ significantly from the Cornford designs...

Anyway I do have a Kraken V4 preamp and the 'Marshall' channel on that is pretty sweet.

 

[Desertdweller]

Yeah, I have been among the folks who have eyed those amps with some interest as well, being a huge modded Marshall fan combined with the fact the Mr. Cornford himself Martin Kidd is the Victory guy, IIRC.

The MK50H borders on being my all-time FAS amp model which has always made me wanna check out one IRL... that said, I've heard the V's differ significantly from the Cornford designs...

Anyway I do have a Kraken V4 preamp and the 'Marshall' channel on that is pretty sweet.

That is super interesting to learn, I had no idea. I really do like the Sheriff, especially with an SD1 out front. I also picked up a V2 Hot Mod for it this week and it really adds something to the amp as well.

 

[Desertdweller]

Here are couple pics with the hot mod installed:

I don't have any clips or videos to share with this yet as I'm still learning how to best utilize the hot mod with the amp. It's an absolute joy to mess with gain staging like this. I have a tubescreamer and a SD1 out front, I have two gain modes on the hot mod, and I have the plexi and the JCM800 channels on the amp itself to play with along with the more vintage Cathode or more modern Fixed bias modes. It's a little overwhelming with all the options, but it is fun for sure.

I'm finding the cathode mode to be more mid-focused and vintage sounding, while the fixed mode tightens up nicely. I like the lower gain stage on the hot mod with the plexi channel. On the higher gain JCM800-like channel, running the hot mod in lower gain mode with an overdrive out front gets super saturated, or just running the hot mod in higher gain mode without a boost sounds heavy, dark, and gritty, which is great too.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Hot Mod sounds like something the missus does, to really spice up the moment.

 

[Byrdman]

I've been wanting a modded Marshall sound for a while and have been going back and forth between a JCM 800 and a Silver Jubilee. Then a few weeks ago I saw Victory posting about their new Sheriff amps, which led to me reading and learning more about the company. Next thing you know, I have a last-gen Sheriff sitting here. What a great little amp, everything about it is just classy. From the smooth turning pots to the bias option on the back, it's just fantastic. Here's a couple pics and a quick riffing video with it I recorded earlier this evening.

View attachment 4719

@Desertdweller do you still have your Sheriff 44? If so, how do you like it after having it for over a year?

The reason I ask is that there is used one locally for sale for $1000 and thinking about it but I have never played one. Also, the reason I was thinking about it, from what I have read online, it's got some Plexi & JCM800 type tones Plus Mod tones. Can you get Plexi & 2203/4 vintage tones out of it too if you lower the gain and EQ it right?

Thanks!!

Byrdman

 

[Desertdweller]

@Byrdman I actually only kept it for about 6 months. I honestly need a tighter amp with more gain. I’ve flirted with Marshalls and modded Marshall sounds, but to me nothing quite feels right to my fingers and ears other than a more modern 5150 / Rectifier / Mark type of tone. The Sheriff is a very well-built amplifier and the guy I sold it to loves it dearly. So consider it a ME problem and not the amp, but it really was not my cup of tea.

From a technical perspective, the only flaws I found were that turning the knobs for the EQ felt like it did next to nothing. I wasn’t getting a tighter tone turning down the bass and I wasn’t cutting through more turning up the mid knob. Also the FX loop is ridiculously sub-par, I’d take the mid-2000s parallel rectifier loops over this one. They say it’s to be more authentic, I flat out think the FX loop sucks. All my delays and reverbs were getting compressed and distorted, and there are just so many amps out there that do it better.

 

[Byrdman]

@Byrdman I actually only kept it for about 6 months. I honestly need a tighter amp with more gain. I’ve flirted with Marshalls and modded Marshall sounds, but to me nothing quite feels right to my fingers and ears other than a more modern 5150 / Rectifier / Mark type of tone. The Sheriff is a very well-built amplifier and the guy I sold it to loves it dearly. So consider it a ME problem and not the amp, but it really was not my cup of tea.

From a technical perspective, the only flaws I found were that turning the knobs for the EQ felt like it did next to nothing. I wasn’t getting a tighter tone turning down the bass and I wasn’t cutting through more turning up the mid knob. Also the FX loop is ridiculously sub-par, I’d take the mid-2000s parallel rectifier loops over this one. They say it’s to be more authentic, I flat out think the FX loop sucks. All my delays and reverbs were getting compressed and distorted, and there are just so many amps out there that do it better.

I have been reading up on it and that is what everyone says. Great amp for it's 1 thing it does well, but FX Loop sucks and if you change almost anything, everything else needs to be re-EQed to keep it sounding right.

I think I'll pass on this one. BTW, someone said somewhere that the new ones fixed all those short comings but I'm still leaning towards a Marshall SC20H. Ideally my perfect amp would be two channel that did 2203/4 tones on one and Plexi on the other with MV's per channel.

Thanks for the info!!