As used by Mike Smith of the Dave Clark Five and Alan Price and I think John Lennon had a bash on one too.
The one in the pik I believe to be a mark I - it has wooden keys covered in a black shellac, the lid is made from wood with an orange vinyl type covering.

Remove the lid (the orange bit) and you will see a row of 12 circuit boards each producing a note from the musical scale (the lower octaves are just divided down) - another board does the vibrato. At the back left is the power supply with the 240/110V voltage selector plug uppermost.
Each tone generator board contains fourteen AC117 germanium transistors, a handful of resistors, capacitors and the tuning inductor.

Front left are the controls there's not a lot so make the most of them. Just in front of the drawbars you'll find a on-off switch, a red power on neon and vibrato on-off switch. The drawbars, the four white ones add the overtones, the two dark red ones alter the tone, one is equivalent to volume and the other adds the squeeky factor.

That chrome stand detaches into three pieces, left and right Z frames, the rear supporting braces fold together held by a captive wing nut.
 
 

So what's it like?

It says in the original adverts of the time that the AC30 makes the perfect companion (well of course they would), I came across a Yamaha portable Leslie from the seventies which really went well with the organ.
To add even more flavour use the vibrato which is either on or off and I'm sure you'll just leave it on - otherwise the organ can sound a little flat.
You may think the keys are heavy and yes they have their limitations but the speed is satisfactory for most styles, they feel fine under the fingers, surprisingly good really.

This organ is unbeatable for playing ska, songs like Desmond Dekker's The Isralites, or I'll Take You There that sort of cute reggae feel - excellent. Of course it has other applications too.

Actually despite all the fancy stuff we have today I must admit that this organ has a lot of character, charm, is unique and distinctive indeed quirky and is perhaps my favourite.
 
 

Take it to the gig?

Above the top C and below the bottom C there is a filler piece, I found when wizzing up and down the keyboard I would hit this filler with the same enthusiasm as the keys - ouch!

You're on stage the lights are low... so where is the line between the keys?! It's true in subdued lighting all the black keys really do look the same!!

Watch out for the suspension brackets on the Z frame, the metal gets thin just where the organ bolts in and usually breaks off. I had a new bracket welded back on.

As with all of this type of gear I had a set routine when assembling the organ at the gig. Not horrific - it could be done single handed - roadies not required.
 
 

Broken?

Cost?

Well I think so, it is versatile but you must spend time learning how to use it. There are not many knobs on it and nowhere have I seen reference to exactly what they do so here is my sketch of the internal signal flow through the amp.
 

Notice the tone controls only effect the Bright channel, notice too the Cut control works on the power amplifier, it cuts the highs.

Knowing this helps in getting sounds, for blues use the normal channel, for that Beatles twang use the Bright channel.

The trem channel takes a bit of dealing with I think the idea was to cross couple the input as shown in the diagram, then add the trem volume as desired, a bit like a mixer.
 

Now for you HM lovers! The distortion is a function of how loud the amp is, so you can't play a clean guitar at high volume levels with the AC30. To get a loud clean guitar sound will mean going through a PA I suppose that may be why some famous pop stars have 12 or so banked up all wired together. Well besides to show off of course.
I have found that using your favourite fuzz box can really beef up a HM type sound into something really good.

When in use I always found putting the AC30 combo on a chair made it sound so much better, putting it on the floor is most definitely out!

On a chair pointing straight out was good for a small gig where the there was no PA, tilted slightly upward as shown in the diagram in rehearsals or where you need to hear yourself regardless of the others.

I have seen some silly mike positions I don't know why because this amplifier is just so popular and has been around for years.
So here is the usual position for a microphone which would suit most situations.
 
 

How Does It Sound?

Be warned that VOX had the Fane speakers of the newer models painted blue... so you need to know the shape of the speaker to be sure.

I could go on for hours but since there has already been reams of information written about this remarkable amplifier I will resist except that with this amp you need to learn how to use it. You learn to play guitar fine so learn how to set the amp up.
 

Cost?

It uses 2 x EL34 output valves using fixed bias of about -34V, driven from the AC30 ECC84 type phase splitter.