Mesa Vactrol replacements

[Mick Bailey]

What are you using for Vactrol replacements in Mesa amps? I've just finished off my stock of VTL5C1/VTL5C9 and replacements are now pretty expensive. Any experience of the Xvive equivalents, or the Chinese ones marked VTL5C (but missing the important last digit), also known as M1210CLC?

[m1989jmp]

What are you using for Vactrol replacements in Mesa amps? I've just finished off my stock of VTL5C1/VTL5C9 and replacements are now pretty expensive. Any experience of the Xvive equivalents, or the Chinese ones marked VTL5C (but missing the important last digit), also known as M1210CLC?

I've just ordered 6 Xvive equivalents, they seem to have near identical specifications and half the price. Vactecs are about 11 euro on Banzai, not too expensive, but I went with 6 euro Xvives for experimenting.

[Gregg]

Last year I ordered some replacements (marked ST VTL) from Aliexpress and they were leaking light. I had to spray them with black in order to stop that.
It's dark enough in an amp however when chassis is out they may give you wrong readings. Also they are somewhat slower switching than the originals but that is subjective.

[g1]

I think they have a 5C1 and a 5C2 equivalent, datasheet here: http://music-electronics-forum.com/a...dio-vtl5c1.pdf

[Mick Bailey]

Last year I ordered some replacements (marked ST VTL) from Aliexpress and they were leaking light. I had to spray them with black in order to stop that.

I'm sitting here smiling. That's like buying bicycle inner tubes and having to patch them before use. I wonder how difficult it would be to make ones that actually work? The people who make them have to know they're lacking. Maybe they're dumb, maybe they're not bothered. A Vactrol is such a simple thing to make well it escapes me why it would be anything else.