I don't get why people without knowledge/respect would have to comment and/or generalize like this. Whenever I read posts about the edge saying "you need dotted 8th delay" or this or that effect is like reading comments in a "insert random useless metal band here" topic saying you need more gain.
Anyways, there are plenty of examples where you can hear the core tone without fx, i.e. desire from the elevation tour dvd's. The basic for edges core tone is a sum of ac30's (usually at least 2, sometimes 3), one is brighter and cleaner (vox 1), one is crunchier with more mids (vox 2) and one is louder and more bass heavy (vox in a box). Vox 1 and vox in a box are usually always on, vox 2 comes in for a few strat tunes (i.e. pride, bullet the blue sky).