Santa came early and brought me a pair of new Vox AmPhones. These are AudioTechnica headphones that plug directly into your axe and sound like you're playing through an amp. They come in a few different models: Twin, AC30, Lead (Marshall style) and Bass. Of course, I went for the Twin, although the AC30 sounds really good on the clips on the Vox website and the Lead sounds pretty good too http://www.voxamps.com/us/amphone. But I've got a Hot Rod Deville, so I figured the Twin would be the closest.



So far, they sound pretty good. They've got Volume, Gain, Tone, and Reverb/Chorus/Delay.

Volume: Goes pretty loud. I'm going to have to be careful not to blow out my ears any more than they already are.
Gain: Gets some good overdrive and distortion without getting anywhere near as ear-bleedingly loud you'd need to get on a real Twin. Even got some feedback without even trying.
Tone: Just got them, so I've only had the tone on 10 so far.
Reverb/Chorus/Delay: Same as above, but so far the delay sounds pretty good. Next step, reverb!

You have to take them off to dial in the knobs, so they're not super easy to adjust. Other negative thing is that they put the cord coming out of the left earphone, and for righties like me, that means the cords gotta go around the guitar, when if it was on the right it would have been right there...

I'm going to put them through their paces in the next couple of days (and beyond). Only time I can really play is after I put my wife and daughter to bed, and with our house, playing through any kind of an amp doesn't to work. Heck, my wife wakes up if I strum too hard when I'm not even plugged in. So this was something I really needed to work on my playing.

All in all, I get very clear definition, I can hear every nuance of my playing (something I sure wasn't getting not having it plugged in). Only thing is with my single-coils I can also hear the hum pretty well, but after turning out the kitchen lights and walking around the living room, I was able to find a good spot where it wasn't too bad.

Anyway, you can get 'em for $99.99 online. So far, I'd highly recommend them if you live in a domesticated environment like me... Oh yeah, you can turn the power off and listen to your stereo through them like regular headphones too.

Cheers!

Since the guitar is not a stereo left/right sort of audio device, can't you just turn the headphones around or did they make a bias fit them for only one direction?

_________________
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You know what, they're perfectly symmetrical, so why not turn them around?

Thanks!

Hadn't seen those before, rather nifty indeed!

What 1/4" adaptors does it come with? From the videos, it seems like the phones as supplied come with a stereo 1/4" adaptor to plug into the guitar, which is fine for passives, but won't complete the circuit most use to keep the battery from draining when unplugged. Might disappoint a few on Christmas morning if there's not something supplied to deal with that.

It's got a 1/4" and an 1/8" plug. Also has an on/off switch, so as long as you remember to switch it off, the batteries should be good!

I meant for the batteries in an active guitar - they're usually switched on and off by inserting a mono jack plug which bridges two contacts. Stick a stereo one in, and you have one very quiet guitar.

Nothing most people wouldn't work out within moments, but I can see a lot of people not thinking of that and returning them if they ship with a stereo 1/4" instead of a mono one, particularly the bass one, as there are a lot of active basses out there. Just seems like a bit of a strange oversight to me!

Doesn't bother me as I'm 100% passive, quite tempted to grab some of those for late night noodling.

Got it! Never had an active guitar so I didn't think of that. But I can say they're killer for the late night noodling!