The AC15 Does have the VOX sound - it's not
quite an AC30 any more than a Princeton is a Deluxe is a Twin, but it's very much in the same family, with VOX jangle, chime and complex gain tones. It's a fair bit quieter than the 30, but still a
very loud amp for 15W. It's also quite a bit lighter and easier to transport than the 30 (1 X 12 v. 2 x 12). The modern VOXes are a bit more flexible than the classic models, able to get drive tones at lower volumes - once again, a little bit of a sonic trade-off though.
Vic wrote:
A Vox whether AC15 or -3O must have alnico speakers in there in my experience.
+1. The Blue is a big part of the VOX character IMO. The downside is that it pushes up the price of the models that have it. The Vintage 30 is a great speaker, but not the classic VOX tone.
I've never heard the Craig 2W amp in question, but I can tell you deciding between the two boils down to a simple question: Marshall or VOX. The Brit 15 will be more like the VOX, but I'm not sure if your budget will stretch that far (then again, I don't know the exact price, I might be pleasantly surprised).
I used to use an AC15 (Heritage hand wired) for crunch/edge of drive tones and my Twin for cleans, but aside from the impractical size and weight of the whole rig, the VOX was too loud by the time it talked, even with an attenuator. So I sold the VOX and bought a pair of Weber speakers to skew the Twin a little to the VOX tonality. That's been my go-to since.
