things [Music] [Applause] welcome back to anderton’s TV I’m joined today by Pete hello we are doing a desktop amp shootout yes possibly the most asked for video uh of all at the moment yeah I mean an updated one because we’ve learned some before yes we have four uh or the four best-selling desktop amps in andertons at the moment so we got a positive grid spark we’ve got the boss Katana air ex thr 30 from Yamaha and the nux mighty space um I want to address one thing that I repeatedly see in the comments section about uh why would you spend you know 300 pounds or whatever desktop amplifier when you can buy a conventional you know the bigger normal amplifier okay the desktop category is very much about achieving great tone and features at low volume yeah like not money we’re not talking about the money here we’re talking about the function yeah imagine a great analogy here is Imagine buying a like a 5.1 surround sound system for your TV you can spend a fortune on those to get epic stereo sound in a small space you could 100 go and buy a thousand watt 1×15 powered PA speaker if you wanted to For Less on the inside as well but yeah but you but that wouldn’t be appropriate for that the application all right so forget absolutely if you want a gigging amplifier you want a bigger amplifier whatever you can go and buy bigger and cheaper amps than these but they’re designed to do a different thing so that’s my desktop kind of a little bit of info do you think people Switched Off already so they’ll come with that anyway we’re going to go in ascending price order so I’m going to start with the cheapest one end up with the dearest ones it’s not the cheapest one yep we’re gonna mainly just go through tones and a brief overview of of the app um they’re a deep dive reviews of all of these amplifiers put them in the links below maybe they’ll flash up there just type it in YouTube or Google um we chose these four because they’re the most popular ones they’re not the only ones you can absolutely buy desktop amplifiers Fender and black star and Vox and I’m sure there are other brands as well they’re just in Anderson’s at least not as popular so positive grid spark this is the big one this is the spark 40. part of a family of three spark amplifiers there’s the spark mini which is half the size and there’s the spark go which is like a quarter of the size and they all by and large runoff the same app um and it just I suppose you know the smaller you go the the quieter they are and the more portable and all that kind of stuff so the spark has even though it’s the cheapest one I think the most fully functioned app In fairness the spark and the next one up the nuts are the two that have got the most featured apps and then the dearest ones have the least featured apps but so you look at my I’m using my phone I could use a iPad or or a phone or Android or whatever and you’ll see now if I go to the all section you’ll see this kind of concept of loads and loads of pre-made-up rigs with different amps and different pedals kind of different to the way boss and Yamaha do it where you’re more just choosing a more visual it’s more visual thing so if I just I just choose one at random here this silver ship one you’ll kind of see here’s an amplifier if you know your amplifiers you’ll recognize that this is looks like a Roland Jazz chorus if I go across the top you’ll see a chain of pedals some of them are grayed out some of them are lit up and obviously that designates what’s on and what’s off if I click on a particular pedal you’ll see um here that it it lights it becomes on the full screen if I swipe my finger up and down over any of the controls on here you’ll see that it adjusts it using the switch on and off turns it on and off it is so brilliantly lately yeah so we’re going to go through now uh because it’s enough talking we’re just going to go through you can see at the top here they’ve divided the the um rigs into different musical genres Pete and I had a little play around before and we’ve just had chosen our favorite rig from each genre so this is called dancing in the room oh I assume if it was on fire somebody said don’t play it anymore John Mayer and I was like absolutely I will and now you said it I only play it even more good and I tell you what before I do that please like And subscribe because you always forget that so housekeeping rules please like And subscribe hit the notification Bell I’m gonna give away something every 10 000 new subscribers to somebody who’s been described forever million we give that away there’s more videos up there all the links are down there and you know just ask some questions and Alan you’re a legend what a Legends thanks for those um let’s have a listen let’s have a listen here’s a G chord hello [Music] yeah do it [Music] I’ve always thought it had something low Endy sort of thing you know what so we did the the firmware updates on all of these just prized doing the video make sure and I actually think they may have even addressed that because it doesn’t sound as unless it did when we did the first one well Mike’s wise we’re just gonna close Mike each amplifier with um two mics close up they’re all stereo so it’s absolutely worth if you’ve got some headphones or some stereo speakers have a listen to that yeah um we’ll talk too much yes let’s try the your favorite one in the Blues mode which was this Blues Arc [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] Rock uh Rock I forget which one we said I think we said modern Stone was your favorite [Music] thank you tight as well yeah so again that’s a sire S7 with an upgraded set of pickups in it it’s a Monty’s full Monty’s HSS set everything here can be purchased from Anderson’s you can have a Plex set up as well I totally can’t remember which one was your favorite was it iron Hammer the top one yeah [Music] thank you [Music] go on Eddie um as you well perhaps you can’t see but uh the uh you’ve also got some bass and some acoustic options on here have they all got that I believe they all have got I think they probably have yeah so I wonder actually what was your favorite because I kind of feel like a little bit of extended playing do you want to just go to that Blues one and just and maybe whilst you’re playing I’ll just turn on and off pedals I think there’s a bit too much delay for me now thank you it’s time to drive off [Music] [Music] I would recommend with all of these in my personal opinion to just have a little fiddle around the sounds the size of room that you’re in the guitar you’re using presets they’ll all benefit from a bit of a tweak if we just quickly whiz through some of the options on here so if I remember rightly with all of these devices you can stream music through your spark user as almost like a Bluetooth player um that’s another thing it’s good to have in your house this is used as a Bluetooth blur you know now the spark again if you’re watching this thinking oh that sounds interesting go and watch the Deep dive because we go into the app a bit more but there’s all kinds of gem and tuition and backing track stuff you can yeah like three chords and it works out a drum beat and a bass line to go with you pretty clever the spark yeah it’s enormously popular in terms of just how many units anderton sell it is the biggest selling one is it yeah wow okay uh the smaller ones again so this is about 250 well this actually depending on different deals at different times a year this will end up probably costing you somewhere between 250 and 300 pounds the spark which is half the size takes the price down to just under 200 pound and then the go which is a slightly different Beast it’s like really tight it fits in your pocket yeah the kind of thing you could put in a gig bag and just travel with Paul Gilbert um actually you place that one you can have them think anyway the go we sell thousands of and it’s about 120 quid thousands literally that’s crazy especially at Christmas and stuff like that yeah um it’s good little things so that’s the spark there are um Wireless foot controllers that you can buy for them no Looper no Loops that is one of my things that Looper well I think the only one that’s gone I said not got a little pot no it’s got no limit it’s got all of these Jam tracks and all that functionality instead uh Got No Effects Loop or anything like that so if you wanted to loop it’s just a question of you’d have to buy a Looper pedal use it in the front and Away you go obviously wireless phone socket yes it’s wireless so Wireless no that’s another great shout so that’s a couple of these products come with wireless bugs in fact yeah not even a couple of all three of the other ones are ready to Go Wireless this one is uh the nuts you were trying to buy old-fashioned yeah you know what though so I said nux didn’t know this I meant the positive grid yeah there is you can buy Wireless Systems where essentially you get like two of these nuts make an amazingly affordable one new x uh new X sorry you’re totally right and here is one yeah and all you would do is one end would go in here the other end would go in your guitar and you can make your amp Wireless but also I don’t know when this video is going out but I do know there’s some very exciting news if you have an amp like a spark and you want to Gig it uh there’s some very exciting news coming for an optional extra for is it oh really uh which I definitely out uh before the end of the year 2023 so if it’s not out by the time this video goes live stay tuned we might do it look at this little thing sorry just open up that little uh wireless system look at that in here yeah look at that I was charging it yeah I know it’s charging from within the case anyway look Wow Let’s jump on to the next one I really like the spark I think that is a great little amp perfect this is the nux mighty space new X why do I keep calling it nuts it’s because you’re right new X there are three versions of this in the family this is the biggest one called the mighty space there’s then the mighty there’s an air I can’t remember there’s the mighty light and the mighty yeah you’re right the space comes with included in the price the wireless transmitter so we’re just using the guitar cable just because we haven’t got this charged up at the moment but this is great you leave it plugged in here you leave the amplifier plugged in and um it’ll charge this and then you can just plug this into the guitar and it connects it um it also comes with it also comes with in fact which we probably should use you’re right it comes with a foot switch to enable Fanfare please the Looper yes Pete’s favorite feature right you might as well plug this in I mean either the Looper or you can use it to you can plug another uh one in and you can use that to change your presets right two things on the back here which is incredible right so super highly featured anyway the we’re using the uh app the mic the the nux mighty amp app which again is the same app for all of uh the uh new X Mighty range you just get slightly more features with the with the bigger one in terms of um how many effects you can run simultaneously and stuff like that uh you can see here that it’s not as visually um intuitive perhaps as the app that comes with spark uh so but what you’re basically still seeing is a row of effects blocks across the middle here presets are above it you can see as I’m changing those presets it’s changing the blocks below uh if you hit the any of these uh different blocks you’ll see a box underneath it that gives you the options to sort of change your uh what you want to use um at change you know so you can see it with my different amplifiers blah blah blah and then of course underneath that you’ve got the same kind of idea you you swipe up and down with your finger to change things I probably didn’t mention as well with the spark and in fact with all these things once you’ve messed around with the app and got your perfect perfect sound you do assign all of these things just to the amp so you don’t need that everything but it’s very handy for the backing track so the for the drums also this has got Drums built into it as well if we go along the bottom here you’ll see drums you’ll see the Looper you’ll see Jam tracks um it’s very cool it’s got tuna built in but I think just for the sake of going through some tones um I will just go through the presets and I can I can do some quick EQ adjusting if you want but these these are all straight out the box so reset number one is a jazz cleaner foreign [Music] Deluxe Reverb I’m surprised they used Jazz clean as the default kind of clean amp because Deluxe Reverb was much nicer which I can change [Music] and I remember fiddling around a little bit with it and it’s just it helps right second preset is a fox ac30 kind of vibe with a room inside yeah in the room isn’t it uh now we get a bit more gainy with a jcma got the low end there [Music] [Music] [Applause] even heavier foreign [Music] [Music] and the super Reverb at the end here [Music] oh big delay [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think that’s the Reverb actually clanging in the background there so again these are just the presets I’m not going to do preset number seven because that’s for an acoustic guitar um so yeah and again I can adjust any of that kind of stuff I think Mr Pete would you just do uh something with drums and the Looper just to sort of show what it does I can throw um the new X I think is about 350 so it’s about 100 pounds more than the spark but of course you get the wireless with it and you get the Looper with it so it’s probably better value as such maybe than the than the spark spark feels like maybe it’s got a little bit more in it in terms of you know like amps but it’s some other a little bit sort of uh what’s it called um uh gimmicky the thing the thing with the uh is maybe a little bit yeah you know I feel like you have to play in a certain way and it doesn’t do both great sounding yeah yeah yeah um yeah anyway absolutely so let’s see what we can do with that what sound take the Reverb off that just stay on this one that’s a bit of face on it let’s just see if it is the Reverb or the delay oh it’ll be the Reverb that’s right now yeah find it that’s and that gives them more bass on your I think the Reverb down a bit down uh decay that’s fine and you wanted a bit more bass yeah we have more bass I think you can add an EQ in it [Music] [Music] you need to hire me to do this because I’m good at presets I just need uh Timberland boots uh okay so so let’s see if we can do the loop thank you [Music] it’s got a different sound now okay I can change my sound now I’m going to give you uh yeah just put a pedal on it [Music] foreign [Applause] like with the drums on it the drums are not super great quality and I use those Yacht Rock drums which is probably players yeah and which you cannot in but this is great for her for just practicing and jamming out man on my blocks I mean I have to say uh new X obviously the least well-known brand of the four first for sure uh but I I think if you’re if you just want out and out tons of stuff built in and fun and kind of still crazy good value this is probably the standout before the wireless you know it’s all you choose there isn’t there isn’t a bad one I know there is one I would have okay all of them of course let’s try the next one yes right it’s the daddy now of the Mummy yeah or the mummy of the desktop kind of category at least 10 years ago the original thr came out yeah uh this however is the Mark II Series so the current series comes in um different sizes this is the bigger one the thr30 there’s a thr10 the cheapest one is the thr10 that’s not wireless ready so this is what’s called Wireless ready so you don’t get the little Wireless bug included in the price but if you buy the little Wireless bug for your guitar it’s basically ready to go so it will work without needing to have anything plugged in here yeah yeah uh spec will come up on screen now foreign they do an acoustic version as well no basically work on this basic keyboards in fact bass keyboards and acoustic will all work on here but there is a dedicated acoustic one as well I like the lights okay now looking at the app here it is the at least not least intuitive because it’s obvious what to do but you can see now we don’t have any sense that we’ve got pictures of guitar amplifiers or pictures of pedals or Loopers or any of that yeah there’s no drums no Loop no with this um so the idea being is that I use across the top here I’ve got three types of tone I’ve got modern tones Boutique tones and classic tones you’ll notice again actually this is the same on all of them as I’m changing stuff is changing on the amplifier as well and then I’ve got five styles of guitar sound clean crunch lead High Gain special and then the three bass acoustic and flat what I can do on the app which I can’t do on the amplifier without it is change the cabinet so you can see I’ve got different cabinets makes a massive difference in my opinion yeah and it will load in an appropriate different cabinet for each of these and then if I scroll through the the the the pages you’ll see I’ve got stuff for Noise Gate effects etc etc you can stream music into this all of the diesel work as a standalone you know Bluetooth music player if you want but I guess the main idea is to jam with it so as we’ve got 15 different kinds of sounds to go through um I tell you what we’ll do is I’ll find Pete’s favorite one from each you know essentially modern Boutique or classic so so here’s the first one classic clean [Music] it sounds good I like the sound does sound good sound good yeah okay so what is this one here this is classic crunch [Music] [Applause] observation it doesn’t have the bass end that the first two have and yet sometimes we sort of complain that the first ones have too much bass but now I’m almost sort of going I don’t mind it not having too much space to be honest it might be interesting how the mics maybe pick up a difference yeah maybe yeah but I don’t like being natural which is like I’m just going to put it in there because you know because no I I I agree right okay so here we go right classic lead classically [Music] [Applause] [Music] perfect yeah okay so then we’ve got a modern [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] then last one let’s see which is Pete’s favorite Boutique special [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] am I wrong in saying that these uh amps in here are not sort of uh Recreation of other ramps where the other ones would use one that looks like a Martian and use one that looks like a well it’s all uh you know these old are all modeling yeah but it doesn’t say in here there’s no like captures I tell a lie actually the nuts will let you load IRS in which is kind of freaky isn’t it but I think I don’t know about the positive grid one actually no but this is modeling I’m sure yes yes that technology isn’t it Yamaha are definitely being slightly more sensitive to sort of not saying oh it’s a box or a model rectifier um good I mean so far I’m kind of feeling like good sound in this that’s its strength isn’t it it’s like it does look cool I kind of I sort of feel it’s they’ve paid a bit more attention to that sort of like how do you make something fit into someone’s home yeah non-offensive yeah um even down to the color I kind of feel like it does feel a bit disappointing feature-wise when you compare it to the new accent yes but that’s why I think because if you’re sitting at home on the sofa and you just want a little jam and you’re sitting alone kids are out whatever wipes out with the yoga he just unplugs here she plugs in yeah and then she has got her presets on the top but he has got his presets on the top and then you just sit you just want a noodle you want you you don’t necessarily want all the stuff when you sit down in front of them and start you out I mean because of how long this has been out tennis teacher uh we’ve all had a thr at some point yeah I had a thr 30 I don’t have it anymore um but yeah look I love it I really love this so this is another actually this isn’t crazy this is about 400 quid but then it goes to kind of 500 quid if you if you buy the wireless details again you know hopefully we captured all of the spec when we were sort of put that up on screen earlier and again this bound to be a video of this from this will be a while now but of Pete and I playing this but there we go last one then is the new car the newcomer yeah let’s do it right the last one okay this is the newest one as well so this is Katana air ex it has a baby brother called Katana air which is basically a same app same knobs and buttons but but much quite a lot smaller yeah you can watch the video we did up absolutely in fact it has an Uber baby brother don’t the katana mini is the uh yeah the little one yeah super small yeah anyway so this is the most expensive one it does however come with the wireless uh transmitter yeah which we’re not using for this video but it does come with it so actually this isn’t a dissimilar price to the Yamaha if you factor in no you have to buy this extra with the Yamaha so spec of the katana air ex will appear on screen now actually in the video the video that we do of this in isolation we’re actually predominantly using the line outs on the back in this video just to remind you you are hearing everything from all four amplifiers with mics in the room there’s no line else at all it has uh this most simple of all the apps yeah arguably the least amp models of all the amps that we’ve done today but I think you’ll probably hear that it’s maybe the one that sounds the most like a guitar amplifier it’s bigger as well isn’t it’s bigger it’s got a wooden box here yeah I mean so that’s a wooden box all we’ve got is uh four basic guitar sounds plus a slightly flatter acoustic bass type thing again if you look on the uh app here you can see I’m on the page where you would adjust the the guitar amp sounds and then as I move across here you can adjust the different types of effects that are in it you can even mess around with the chain that your effects order of your effects and finish you can do that I think on all of them um yeah the Yamaha you can do no yeah but you can yeah doesn’t have effects pedals in there there’s no pedals in it well it has uh chorus and reverbs yes but there’s not like a pedal pedal it’s like it’s got that one and that’s that you said it one of the things I’ve that’s a bit more obvious on the app actually on the boss app that I should have mentioned for the others they all have their own way of sharing presets and storing more presets so even though the amps themselves will be limited to how many presets you can store within the amplifier as long as you use the app you’ve got like almost like an unlimited amount you can share them and all that kind of stuff um the uh boss Katana air app also has this thing called session which is where you can import YouTube videos watch the Youtube videos from within the app and loop out certain slow it down so if you’re trying to go how do you do that solo so the links like this you can slow it down that’s twice as fast as I normally yeah so anyway so look again four sounds here one at first is our clean sound here we go foreign [Music] [Music] so imagine it rather than feeling like you know there’s loads of effects built into it I think you’d kind of feel almost like you’d have a little pedals oh you can use the little Bluetooth they’ve got to switch the presets around which can’t it doesn’t come with it but you can buy it as a separate it’s worth looking there is another brand called xvive I think who do these generic little Wireless pedals that you probably could use with any of these anyway look um let’s try the crunch setting crunch setting let’s go [Music] it’s biking [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think I think it sounds good but I think It suffers from every all of them suffers from the presets whoever makes the presets needs a little bit of a what can you what can you do you know it’s like the people it’s so right with and it’s what doesn’t matter whether you buy this device or multi-effects or whatever it’s getting better it’s the same as if you bought a guitar amplifier and you plugged it in and you went oh that sounds a bit Bassy you would just lean over and turn the basement but so it’s exactly the same with presets if anything it’s more important yeah let’s get some players to do it you know yeah right lead sound maybe they do or maybe travel back up [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] fine uh and then Eddie’s favorite Brown [Music] [Music] this sounds great man I think it’s I think it’s the best sounding one of them but I think out of the box but I think you always tweak man always tweak use the EQ in there I mean my two favorite is the knocks on this one you know but my number one is the knots because it’s got the Looper yeah look that’s for me that is there’s lots of cool feature yeah I don’t know I don’t know you know I think there’s something about each of them that appeals to me but I suppose if I’m if I’m a bit brutally honest with you it’s almost like that’s like it’s the look of the Yamaha but this is what I really like but we need to blindfold up man and do this video again and see which one is the favorite one that sounds best because now we’re looking at it you know that looks great this looks great they also great I definitely think the Yamaha and the boss have got like a classy look to them that maybe justifies the price and yet the new X and the positive grid are the ones with the feature set that you want yeah that’s what we need new X or positive grids you need to do like a 500 pound version of those that’s just like Super Deluxe look but I don’t think that’s the way to go with these these I’ve got that thing of somebody who wants something a bit more than just an ad they want to practice too do you want to have the loop or they want to have that thing where you can you know this they’re adding this with the with the with the new feature that you can do YouTube stuff on it but I still think if you are if you’re a beginner and you practice a lot this is what you want if you’re sitting at home noodling on a Saturday when the family is out and you want something that does doesn’t offend anyone in your house and you’re you know yeah so I think that’s actually not a bad round up that one so if you’ve got your Paul Reed Smith guitar or your Gibson Les Paulie custom shops in your office and you’ve got a little you’ve got a couple of pedals maybe you’re going here yeah but actually if you just want bucket loads of features I would I think the new X the look The Looper thing and the fact that it is time and all that stuff I’ve been using the really small new X at home the mighty light yeah which has the drums in it and and the backing tracks but it doesn’t have the Looper in it and even just the drums I’m playing over the drums and I’m loving it and that’s like 99. isn’t it but look as I said the drums are not the greatest sounding drums but it’s perfect it’s better than what it means absolutely it’s better than a drummer because at least it turns up on time and plays in time and turns down when you ask it to yeah anyway look anyway right what did you think uh are there any more we’re going to try and do a few of these shootouts in the run-up to Christmas because I kind of know at Christmas that’s probably the first time in 2023 I’ve said that word because I know there’s you know this will be the kind of product that as a guitar player you’ll be going oh that would yeah so hopefully this was helpful um my favorites are these Timberlands yeah Ellen you’re Legend okay brilliant well thanks for joining us hopefully we’ll see you in another video soon see you again like And subscribe
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