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Post subject: Review: Amplug Vox AC30 headphone amplifier
Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 6:40 pm
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First, why headphone amps?

Privacy, primarily. You practice with your amp turned down, but if you can hear it so can your roommates, neighbors, wife, dogs, cats, elves in the woodwork, etc. Turn it way, way down, then what's the point? You can't hear it anymore. Face it, after the thirty-seventh variation of "Smoke on the Water" or "Enter the Sandman", we could be talking about grounds for justifiable homicide here. I'm talking saving your life, bro.

Second, electric guitars are designed to play through an amp. Yes you can practice acoustic, and any good axe will have (it should!) a good acoustic sound. But there are things you have to hear through the electronics. Changes of pickups, volume, tone, attack on the strings, fingering - you are not going to hear the subtle things sans amp. If you want serious practice where you're making pickup changes, you have to have an amp so your can hear what you're doing.

So that's the reason for the headphone amp. Now for this particular item.

Amplug makes a series of these with what I'm guessing, different tone circuits inside. The one I got is supposedly modeled after the classic Vox AC30 tube amp.

What you get is the standard plastic blister pack with insert card, the unit itself, a small battery pack and and a multilingual instruction manual.

The unit is a small plastic box with a standard 1/4" phone plug coming off the side. It's extended enough for us inset jack Tele folks to use.

The unit has a very small slider switch on the end with a bright red LED light above it to let you know it is powered on. On the side, three controls, Gain, Tone and Volume in that order. There's a mini-
headphone jack also on the side. It takes the standard 1/8" mini-stereo plug as used on headphones for everything from the ancient Sony Walkman to the current iPod.

On the other end is an input jack for feeding an audio source. On the back a slider panel for batteries.

It uses two AAA batteries in a shrink wrapped package that comes with it. I find it very interesting that first, the manufacturer provides them, and they are straight up with you saying these are limited capacity batteries. But they wanted to give you something to start out with. I suspect they've had returns in the past from users that did not know they had bad batteries. But it's nice of them to include them, even if they are cheap-o's.

And I really like the fact is uses AAA's. That means I can use my rechargeables!

Used for testing: iPod (white) earbuds, Sony Professional MDR-7506 headphones, Fender Squier butterscotch Tele, Fender Baja Tele, Gibson Les Paul Studio.

Simple enough to use. Connect headphones. Plug in. Turn on. Wang!~ Chung!

On the good side. Plenty of volume. Unit goes from clean to crunch. With all three controls there's plenty of opportunity for variation, interaction and fine tuning your sound. iPod headphones sound great. With the Sony headphones, so, so much better. A lot more bass and overall sound. The Sony over-the-head headphones are obviously bulkier though. Single coils sound like, well, single coils and humbuckers sound great too.

I can't compare it to a Vox, since I don't have one. (anyone for a long term loan? anyone? anyone?) But though headphones, I get great tone comparable to my Blackheart tube amp.

On the not-so-good side. Once volume and tone gets cranked, there is a noticeable white-noise hiss in the background. Not annoying, but you can tell it's there. That is interesting to me, since I've heard small transistor or IC amplifiers that. are. dead. silent. So I don't know where the hiss is coming from. I haven't broken into the unit (yet) so I do not know the electronics inside. It's not enough to make me not want to use the amp. But I wouldn't use the audio output for recording. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be cranking it that loud either!

Physically, the unit is really meant for the Strat series guitars. You look at the design and see it's supposed to be nestled down in the jack cup for a Strat. That doesn't mean it won't work on a Tele - the plug itself is extended enough so it will fit in the inset socket of both Tele's I had. Obviously the Gibson Les Paul with the flat-mount jack, no problem.

However the unit is, well, plastic. If you're a sit-on-a-bar-stool practice player, you're good. Or a stand-in-front-of-the-mirror-and-wail guy or gal (you know who you are!) as long as you don't bump anything, again good. But before you lay that axe down or put it in the case, ya better unplug.

And if you do break one, send to to me please, for a proper autopsy and dissection?

Now I admit, I'm old school. As far as effects, compression and reverb are all I'm good for. If you absolutely have to have these or more when you're practicing, you've hit another major level of expense and complexity this unit does not have.

Bottom line. If you want a small headphone amp for practice, this is a great, inexpensive one.


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Post subject:
Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 9:38 pm
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Thanks for the good information!


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Post subject:
Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 1:31 am
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Yep I've had mine for a while and it's pretty cool. I take mine on work road trips so I can play in my motel room without disturbing anyone. I actually got myself a double ended adapter plug which has a quarter inch jack on each end so I can plug a short lead into my guitar and have the Amplug sitting next to me.

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Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 10:58 pm
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Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 2:37 pm
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Location: San Francisco Bay Area
I have one.....and it definitely does the job for me.

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