in today’s video I’m going to cover the best practice amps that I’ve tested personally in one capacity or another now I’ve been doing this YouTube channel for over 15 years which is insane we’re over 120 million views and in that amount of time I’ve tested so many different practice amplifiers so this will cover everything that I’ve showcased that I think stood out from the rest of the pack now these won’t be just super expensive amplifiers they won’t just be entry level amplifiers I picked a good selection of stuff depending on your budget and particular need some people like amplifi are a little bit more simple and other people will want all the features Under the Sun so I’ve got a really great list just know these aren’t in any particular order because it’s really hard thing to rank them based on their tones I think all of these are great in their own way and I’ll talk more about it throughout this video now if you can do me a favor we get this video to 1,000 thumbs up that would be awesome I put a lot of work and research back into my old content to get this list together I really felt like these were the standouts of the bunch while I’ve tested so many different practice amplifiers I clearly haven’t tested them all and if your amplifiers is not on this list maybe I didn’t check it out but I’ll link down to my playlist of all of the amplifiers on this list anyway so you can go check that out after this video that link will be in the description box let’s get into it all right let’s kick this off I have to start with the new X Mighty light BT Mark I and this could also translate of course over to the original version which was my favorite small practice amplifier at the time and then ux made this so this is a 3w practice amplifier it can be powered either with double a batteries there’s six double A battery slots at the back you can power it via USBC on the back as well has USBC port and you can also run it off a dedicated power supply what this means is if you have a battery Bank like this or a computer port whatever the case may be you can power the amplifier this amplifier is cheaper than the positive grid Sparco and there’s no DLC which is that downloadable license content so you’re not going to get charged extra through the app when you need to actually use this it’s just going to work and I think this is is one of the big positives once you’ve gone through the process of connecting this to the app and then setting up your favorite tones you can recall your favorite presets just by using the button on the top which means you don’t need to then connect it to the phone ever again you can just dial it in clean dirty High Gain whatever the case may be you can add effects and all that kind of stuff and then you can just recall that sound by using the button on the top this thing’s awesome and I can highly recommend it [Applause] [Music] this amplifier represents the best value for money and overall versatility out of all of them and I’ll explain why so this is not only a great little desktop practice amplifier that you can then connect to your phone set up a whole bunch of tones and recall them nice and simply it has a whole bunch of different effects built in and you can also use it as a dedicated audio interface so this will give you guitar tones you won’t be able to achieve just by miking up an amp in the room the produce tracks out of this going directly into an audio interface sound phenomenal and I can highly recommend this if you’re on a budget looking to record an album or whatever the case may be the tones in this are really something special up next is the positive grid spark go and I like this just enough to add it to the list now this is very small and compact it’s a smaller unit than that of the newx BTL Mark I so if you’re looking for a travel amplifier that you want to use at low volumes that has a built-in rechargeable battery this is definitely the way to go it savs you having to worry about either double a batteries or buying rechargeable batteries or powering it via some other means so once you charge it up you get plenty of battery life and it’s very small in the hand now given how small this amplifier is it is louder than you think and like the BTL Mark I it can also be used as an audio interface so if you just want to plug it into your computer and record some really great guitar tones you can do that as well just know that the size of this amplifier is very small and I wouldn’t expect too much out of it if you’re looking for an amp that really fills the room I’ve got some better recommendations coming up shortly the positive grid spark go allows you to jam along to your favorite songs thanks to that Bluetooth connectivity but just know the app does contain a lot of DLC which is paid content so if you want to get some of the Jam tracks that they provide and other resources you will be paying extra this amplifier is also designed to kind of Click onto your guitar strap but I don’t really like using it like that so I prefer to use it on a desk and if you’re using a cable it’s really easy to sort of topple over so you kind of have to use this with a wireless pack if you want to just let it sit on a desk otherwise you’re going to knock it off the table if the cable has any tension on it which means it’s another thing to buy if you don’t already have a wireless pack so just keep that in mind but again this is a really great sounding app considering just how tiny it is all right up next is arguably my favorite practice amplifier if I just want to focus on the playing and less about the tones and this is the joyo jamb buddy the Simplicity of this makes so much sense and I love the fact it’s a flat design so you can put on the floor and use it like a pedal and change channels and so forth so this is a very simple amplifier it essentially gives you a clean Channel a crunch Channel and a high gain Channel and that High Gain channel is kind of reminiscent of the sort of higher gain Santana tones it’s got a really nice clean Channel but it’s not a very loud amplifier I think this is arguably the best practice tool because you turn it on you switch channels and you don’t have to go fiddling around with a million different effects now maybe the biggest limitation of this is it doesn’t have any Reverb but we do get an analog delay and if you know the channel you know how much I like analog delay so you can dilate in and get a nice little sort of slapback sound or you know a more sort of broader sounding analog delay tone so this is great it gives you Bluetooth connectivity you can jam along from your phone you can just connect it directly play music back and Jam at the same time I think the tones out of this sound really great on the front of the amplifier we get two foot switches now this one on this side allows you to switch between the clean and the drive Channel and then you can cycle between the Crunch and High Gain Channel using this foot switch over [Music] here [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is the amplifier I choose to use anytime I haven’t played for a while and I’m coming back working on my chops because it’s very simple I can focus on the playing I don’t have to worry about all these different tones and having too many different effects and can dial up clean tone with just a little bit of delay or of course I can go over to the crunch or High Gain tones depending on the style of music I’m playing but this is so good it has a built-in rechargeable battery you get like 8 hours of battery life or something like that out of it I can’t quite remember but it just keeps on going on and on I love this thing it’s definitely one of my favorite practice amps of all time up next we have the mo or Mo Hornet now this is the white or cream version you can also get this in other colors I’ve also got the black one somewhere but after moving I’m not sure exactly where it is but depending on the color of the amplifier will depend on the tones that you get now this is a really great unit it doesn’t run on batteries you literally just run it on the provided power supply that plugs in on the back you get a headphone output you also get an auxiliary in now the cool thing about this is there’s no app connectivity and being that it’s a bigger amplifier we get a bigger sound than some of the others but the cool thing about this it’s a digital modeling amplifier but it’s made with Simplicity in mind so on the top of the amplifier we have a panel with a whole bunch of different effects and presets now you can run this in live mode which allows you just to run it and not save anything or you can run it in preset mode save your presets and recall them just by using the button on the [Music] [Applause] [Music] top this amplifier is fully loaded with delay Reverb and modulation effects you can also get a really beautiful clean tone you can run bass into this and you can also run acoustic guitar into it depending on the model that you buy I think this is the one with the acoustic and bass option and it is as you can see from the front here so now when I first reviewed this amplifier I definitely didn’t have the mic placement optimized for this particular speaker I wasn’t exactly sure where it is because it’s a bit hard to see but feeling around I know in hindsight I had the mic in the wrong spot but this sounds way better in the room than it does on my review video and I’ll be playing a quick sample of it over this particular part of the video so you get a good sense of what I can do but I’m a big fan of these amplifiers and they represent excellent value for money if you’re looking for something that you don’t have to worry about apps and all that kind of stuff and you don’t want to be too loud this is still a really great choice and unlike some of the smaller amplifiers this won’t have as much of a problem once you start turning the volume up with that speaky Distortion so these are great I can highly recommend them check them out over to a half watt tube head from the folks over at Hagerman this is handmade in Honolulu Hawaii and this is unlike any other small watt rated amplifier because the cool thing about this is it actually gives you clean head room it’s unheard of with a half WT amplifier so this is half a watt like 0.5 Watts it’s not at all super loud but it still allows you to get a really great clean tone with that nice warm sound that the tube or valve amplifiers are known for and it allows you also then to run it into any cabinet of your choice one of the strengths of this amplifier is the fact that the output to the speaker can handle pretty much anything so if you got a 48 or 16 ohm speaker this is fully compatible I love this it’s a really great feature there’s also a headphone output on the back as well if you want to practice that way but I think the strength of this is you can run this into any cabinet that you’ve got and you’re going to get a beautiful clean [Music] tone this amplifier also handles pedals beautifully thanks to it being a full-blown tube amp now while the aesthetic of this might not be for everybody I really like this and when I did my initial review of this I call this the best sub 1 watt amplifier in the world and I think it is but you’re going to be paying more for it because it is made in the US and it’s also an original circuit it’s not a copy of another amp or anything like that one of the biggest benefits of this amplifier over a digital modeling amplifier is this handles pedals beautifully being that it’s an actual tube amp so you can run this with your favorite pedal board or setup whatever the case may be out into a speaker or a two notes cap door X or anything if you want to record and you’re going to get excellent tones you can get this amplifi to The Sweet Spot just by pushing the volume most of the way up it gets to that sort of edge of breakup sound but it never gets super saturated like a lot of other low wat amplifi so it’s a great pedal platform you can really dial this into The Sweet Spot then hit the front end with a tube screamer Clon or Blues driver whatever it is you’ve got while you will be paying more for this amplifier than a lot of the others if you plan on using pedals get a tube amp it’s going to make the world of difference when you want to run your effects into it we get a real 1287 in the preamp and in the power section we have a 12 bh7 and again you get lots of clean Headroom I think Hagerman have done a really great thing with this amplifier I’ll link down to his shop down in the description box below if if you’ve been following my channel over the last 10 or 15 years or so you know I’m a huge fan of the Bugera V5 Infinium this is another great little home practice amplifier for a number of different reasons which I’ll cover right now so this amplifier is small it’s a real tube amplifier so we get a 12x 7 in the preamp and an el84 but before we talk about the rest of the pros I wanted to say that I found the stock tubes almost unusable they rattle they have a lot of oscillation pull them out put in a set of JJs or whatever other brand you want to put in there and it will make the world of difference to that tube oscillation and rattle I made that modification and it drastically improved the overall quality of the sound of the amplifier while it didn’t change the tone of the amplifier that much it completely removed all that oscillation and rattle from the cheap Chinese tubes they put in there so yeah make that mod and you’ll be in a happy place now let’s get back to the positive so this has an 8in speaker and the little speaker that they put in there really does sound quite good now some people find this amplifier not quite bright enough and I get that as well I used to use it with the tone control all the way up but it has a really great sounding digital spring reverb so you can get a nice Reverb sound out of this amplifier run it with pedals and you’re good to go now this amp is completely switchable so at its full power at 5 wats it’s probably a little bit too loud for most home practice situations because if especially if you’re in an apartment 5 wats is too loud but you can switch it down to 1 watt which is awesome or 0.1 watt which is perfect if you just want to play at home now these amplifiers have increased in price almost twice the amount since I first bought mine I just looked at the price they’re Lally $500 Australian I think I paid like $249 for mine back in the day so yeah they’ve sort of got crept up in price but they’re still really good just know you probably most likely will have to switch out the power and preamp tubes it’s an easy mod to make but if your yours rattles and that will be the cause of the rattle most likely and it has a really great sounding Reverb and while I would have loved to have just had a little bit more top end with this amplifier I still think it’s a really great amplifier for home practice and if you’ve got an EQ pedal this is still a really great choice it’s an allinone amplifier that’s completely switchable from 5 to 1 to 0.1 watt so you’re getting a very functional amplifier and for the price it’s still pretty decent value up next is an amplifier you can’t find new anymore you’ll have to pick this up on the used Market somewhere and I’ll link down to R and see if they’ve got any I’m not too sure so check that out in the description but this is the Vox Pathfinder 15r I had the opportunity to play one of these on two separate occasions both in a store and also at a gig what I’ll talk about that in just a moment but this is a completely solid state amplifier basically made in the early 2000s and this has a legit Vox tone you also get a boost option as well for higher game tones you get a full twoand EQ it also comes with tremolo and Reverb so the most current versions of these amplifiers remove the Reverb which doesn’t sound anywhere near as nice to my ears so if you can live without Reverb you can still buy the 15 version but the 15r has the Reverb and the Reverb on these amplifiers is phenomenal sometimes I don’t understand why companies make those changes it might have been a cost thing but if you can find the 15r it’s definitely worth checking out like I mentioned I heard this amplifier at a gig and I also had an opportunity to play through it on a Jam Set once so this amplifier it’s 15 wats but it has a full-blown speaker output and we were running it into a 2×12 Fender cabinet and it was ridiculously good for its size so a 15w amp into a much bigger cabinet and it was completely usable I couldn’t believe what I was saying I was like is that a Vox 15r he’s like yep I’m like how is that sounding so good so these amplifiers are awesome just on their own obviously with the built-in speaker or you can of course run them out into a much larger cab so it kind of opens up the versatility of what you can get out of these amps and pair that with tremolo and of course that Reverb that’s built into it you got yourself a really great sounding little amplifier again you’ll have to find the Vox Pathfinder 15r on the used Market they just don’t make them anymore and I think they’re arguably one of the best small practice amplifiers of all time so well done Vox and bring him back with the Reverb why up next is another practice amplifier from joyo this is their DC 15s practice amp now this has everything yet it’s very simple to operate which is great this has excellent tones across the board arguably the best out of all of the digital modeling amplifiers on this list you also get more increased Headroom as well so you can turn this amplifier up a little bit more to get more volume if you need it but it also sounds great at a low volume now this is more like a regular amplifier we get all the controls on the top we could need just to dial in the sound we have in our head so this already simplifies the entire process you don’t need a phone you don’t need to do any of that stuff you can just simply use the amplifier to dial in the best sound now this has looping functional it as well which is one of my favorite things about it it was actually the feature that ended up making a couple of my friends buy them they’re like that Looper is so good and it also comes with a channel switcher so you can go from clean to your lead tone by using the provided foot switch while you’re looping or just while you’re practicing so they made a really functional great sounding amplifier here now this also has a built-in rechargeable battery and you can also run it of course on the power supply so it’s portable I remember a couple times when my power went out when I was living up in the hills that I could just use this amplifier to play either music through or just have a jam even with the power off so that’s pretty cool too so if you want to just take this and go busking or do any type of street performing that’s what we call it in Australia this is also a really good choice too now this also allows us to have a Noise Gate so when you stop playing the amp will gradually just close the sound of the amp so you don’t hear any sort of Buzz or hiss or anything coming through the speaker it’s a really great [Applause] feature [Music] [Applause] additionally there’s some dials on the top of the amplifier for changing the modulation delay and Reverb so you’ve got Hardware keys that allow you to do this you don’t have to again dive into any sort of menu system here there’s an auxiliary out on the back so you can record nice and simply and that sounds great and I showcased that in my review video I just think overall the drum machine ped with the Looper is awesome so if you want a really great practice amplifier that has all the different tones from clean to Crunch to High Gain tones this is a really great choice and the Simplicity and sound of this really spoke for itself on my review video and again a few of my good friends have now bought this amp and they’re really impressed with it so definitely check out this one this next amplifier is kind of like the biggest brother of the newx BT light Mark II that I showcased earlier it has all of the same great app connectivity and functionality but it has more output this is rated at 30 WS now being that it’s rated at 30 WS you would expect it to be super loud and super clear throughout the entire range of the volume which isn’t the case again like most of these smaller practice amplifiers I still consider this a small amp the onboard speakers do cap out at a certain volume depending on the sound or Bass response that you’re running so you just have to fiddle around with the e Q per preset now the good thing about this particular amp is on the top we get a three band EQ and a presence control so you can make this work at much louder volumes and most of the other amps because you can just roll down the base if it’s too Bassy or if the speakers are sort of maxing out I think where this amplifier shines is on the back now this can of course be used as a dedicated audio interface we get that option as well but we also get one of the best features on here which is this speaker out right in the middle so I can power any cabinet just by by plugging it into here I think it’s an 8 ohm output so you can essentially run this into any 8 ohm speaker cab that you’ve got meaning that you can run it into a much larger speaker and being it’s that it’s a 30 W amplifier this is loud enough to gig with it was so loud and I showcased that on my review video running this into any 12-in speaker cab it’s going to sound so much better than the onboard speaker so if you’re in a situation where you happy playing at lower volumes just on a desk as a desktop amplifier like this you can use the onboard speakers but if you want to rock out or jam with friends you can hook it up to a much larger cab and use this as a dedicated head this really separates it from most of the other amplifiers on this list with the exception of the Vox Pathfinder 15r that I covered earlier that’s got this same sort of functionality but in modern sort of digital modeling amplifiers like this you don’t find that option very often and this is an all-in-one recording device that USB output is phenomenal you can get much better recorded guitar tones that way going directly into your computer as you might be able to do if you’re an experienced marking up a cab so there’s plenty to like about this you get great clean tones great dirty tones it has all the different effects Under the Sun and it’s by far one of my favorite amps on this list I have no plans on moving this on I think it’s an absolute killer furthermore it also has a built-in battery that you can fully charge a wireless pack as well that I got with this so you can basically run it either wirelessly or a second guitar input can go directly into the front so it comes with everything except I don’t know where the wireless pack part is I used it recently and I’ve just plunked it down and misplaced it but yeah this really does cover all bases when it comes to playing electric guitar if you own one of these or if you’ve had a chance to use one let me know what you think of it in the comment section this next amplifier you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it and I see all of this in the comments section on my video some people who bought this amp don’t love it and other people have bought it say it’s the best practice amp ever so I’m putting it on the list because I had a really positive experience with it and that’s the Yamaha th 30 Mark II now first up I love this desktop amplifier not only does it have this great sort of retro look it has a backlit design so it has some LEDs sort of on the inside of the grill that really look cool but furthermore it has a built-in battery so you don’t have to always keep it connected to the power and it sounds great it has a really produced guitar track sound which I really like so whether or not you want to use it with an app or anything like that you can dial this amplifier in and get a really great sound in the room you can of course also like most of the other amps on this list use it as a dedicated audio interface so you can just plug it directly into the computer and get that produced guitar track directly on your recording I think in you know 2024 and Beyond this is by far the easiest way to record and also one of the cheapest ways to record is to use some of these less expensive amps this one’s a little bit more expensive but just generally speaking most of these amps sound great and they sound the same pluged directly in in audio interface mode one of the things that really separates this amplifier from the the rest is it Simplicity now you can just simply use one of the controls on the top or a little wheel thing to cycle between each of the tones you go from clean to Crunch the High Gain tones at the switch of a button or switch of a dial or whatever the case may be so it’s really easy to get the tone that you want to start with and then you can start bringing in other effects if you so choose so this also has all the other effects like delays and modulations all that kind of stuff as well and it also gives you the option if you don’t want to use that USB C output to record you can go into a mixer or whatever using a left and right output on the back of the [Music] ant at the end of the day you’re going to make a mind up whether or not you like the retro design of this and if you like what you’ve heard of the sound samples this amplifier definitely won’t be for everybody and I’ve seen that in the comment section so yeah definitely do your research with this one you’ll either love it or you won’t depending on the style of music you play but I really enjoyed my time with this amplifier and I’ll link my review video in the playlist that you’ll find in the description up next is the Marshall DSL 5cr now I’ve really sort of deliberated which Marshall amp to put on this list because I’ve tested so many the mg style amplifiers those digital modeling and solid state amplifiers sound fantastic but I really like this for a couple of different reasons which we’ll talk about now first up this is a combo it’s a full-blown tube or valve amplifier which is fantastic we get a 10-in 30 speaker so this is a celestian speaker and it’s a quality one as well so you’re getting a great tone it’s a two-channel amp so we get our clean tone and we get our Ultra gain tone so the ultra gain tone is that higher gain tone that Marshall are known for but you can back the gain off and still make it work now being that this is a 5w amp you might be thinking a 5w amp with a 10-in speaker it’s going to be too loud right it has a switch on the back that allows you to knock the output power down to 0.5 Watts which makes it perfect for most situations where you don’t want to annoy anybody so if you’re in a situation where your walls are really thin or someone’s living above or below you this might still be too much just based on its overall frequency response where you might want to choose a desktop style amp but I love this if you live in a place where you just don’t want to be too loud but you want a great tone this amplifier definitely delivers [Music] this amplifies loaded with a really nice Reverb which I I think was digital for memory much like my DSL 40cr back here but it also gives us a deep switch which can add or take away low end which makes it a really great recording appli fire I love this while it doesn’t have the classic crunch channel that most people love on Marshall amplifiers the clean and the ultra gain Channel at 5 wats or 0.5 Watts will definitely be a whole lot of fun it takes pedals great as well again if you’re a pedal player these valve amplifiers are definitely the way to go all right so that’s my list of the best practice amplifiers that I’ve used personally so let us know if I’ve missed anything or if you saw something come up on the channel That should have been added into this list let me know too I’ve tried my best to Cate all of the ones that really stood out in my mind and that were fresh in my mind and these ones really are that nice so if you own any of these or again if I’ve missed something comment below let us know what you think should have been on this list this is just based on my own personal experience with these amplifiers and again I haven’t tested everything out there of course but yeah if you want to check out any of these amps I’ll link them down below the playlist to all of the amplifiers in this list that I’ve reviewed is also down in the description so if you want to see a full-blown review you can check that out thanks again for watching my name is Shane I will catch you soon see you
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