Vox AmPlug Bass Guitar Headphone Amp

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $64.00
Sale Price: $49.99
Today's Bonus: 22% Off

• A great-sounding headphone guitar amp that gives you serious sound fast
• Plugs directly into your bass
• AUX in jack lets you jam along with your CD/MP3 player
• 100% analog circuit faithfully simulates the response of the original amps
• Bass features a full-range bass sound with a compressor/boost effect

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I recently purchased the Vox AMPlug for Bass, because it was the most compact headphone amp I could find for my travel bass. It truly is a great headphone amp with great sound and great FX. It's got that groovy and classic Vox AC100 bass amp sound that truly inspires. With the right headphones/earphones, I worry that I'm blasting my neighbors. Thankfully they can't hear a thing.

The only initial negative is that the construction is flimsier than it looks. The battery door barely stays on, and the gain, tone and volume "wheels" are hard to see and access.

Aside from that, I highly recommend it.

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I purchased this because I just started playing bass again this past year and all the practice amps under $200 just sounded weak or farty to me, and I tried quite a few! I needed something to tide me over so I can practice and play along with CD's etc until I drop the cash on good combo at least 50 watts and 12" speaker equipped.

Tone: I honestly enjoy the tone from this little headphone amp more than some of those 20 watt combos I have tried out. I have a Jazz bass with passive pickups, and this headphone accurate amplifies that Fender tone with just the amount of "Coloration". My only complain is that in standard mode the volume ius just not as loud as I would have liked. Its totally usable, but if you want it blaring loud it just doesn't get there. Not with passive pickups. More on that later...

Controls: Gain, Tone, and Volume. Simple as that. I like the seperate gain knob. Seems out of place on a bass amplifier but its nice to play the gain and the master volume off of each other for the right amount of gain / attack / volume. The tone knob offers a drastic range but to me the sweet spot is right in the middle, and the upper and lower ends of the spectrum sound strange muted or plucky.

FX: The switch has 3 settings, "Standby" (which is off), then "On" for standard mode, and then "FX" mode. Here you have gain boost and some light / moderate compression. You get far more volume from the unit in this mode, but have to dial back the gain to get a normal clean bass tone that seems usable to me. I have found I like the standard mode for normal solo playing /practicing as the tone has a nice balance of warm / punchiness. Then when I plus in my mp3 player to jam or I'm in a noisy environment I use the FX mode for the boosted sound.

Reliability: I can't comment too much as I have not had it very long. Some commenters have mentioned the build seems a bit cheap. Its definitely flimsy plastic and should not be abused like a stompbox would be. Mine does fit perfectly into the input jack of my Jazz bass, some have posted issues with that.

Usability: I give it 5 out of 5 stars here. Its simple, its user friendly, its dirt cheap and super compact compared to bass preamps on the market. I would have never thought I could practice an instrument while traveling (it and a pair of headphones slip right in my gig bag) or practice at home with decent bass tone and not need an amp or cable.

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More than often, you need a silent solution to practice bass wherever, and this product makes it possible. Although the strings obviously still make noise, it's perfect for those sleepless nights when you want to play and not bother anyone in the house. You can plug your ipod in it and play along your music, you'll just need one of those aux wires. Careful with the volume, as it overpowers some headphones and you really don't want to be blowing expensive headphones

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Does what I need it to, when I need it. What's better than that? More features, of course. But then you'd pay more for it. If you're looking for inexpensive that delivers, this is it.

I want to start off positive here because I am giving it 2.5 stars...

I have had this unit for just shy of 4 years now and it still works, even after bouncing around the inside of every case, gigbag, backpack, and rucksack or assault pack (yes, I am in the Army, and yes, I took this on deployment haha) I've owned! It is very solid and durable if you're not catching on!

When I first bought it, I thought it was so amazing to hear my bass in my headphones without bugging anyone else, and I could go for walks around the neighborhood having a silent jam as I went -pretty freakin sweet!

But the tone was always an issue for me. It always sounded SO dark and muddy that it was hard to enjoy the sound of my own bass sometimes. I found one or two settings that gave a DECENT tone but you roll one control wheel the wrong way in the slightest and you lose all clarity in sound.

The "Bass" AmPlug special feature is a "fx compression" circuit. I wasn't thrilled with it initially because it seemed to have no use whatsoever on my basses aside from blasting me with WAY too much sound no matter HOW low I turned the controls. I figured at the time that I had cheaper gear, and nothing active, so maybe that was the function issue. Nope. I own a beautiful, 1976 Gibson Ripper and a pristine, 2008 Musicman Stingray5 HH....these are my two best basses. One passive, one active (respectively). Both sound like complete garbage through this unit with the compression switch active.

In the end, I bought mine when they cost no more than $20, and it has lasted my nearly 4 years now, 3 of which have been in the Army (so mucho abuse). If you thin-out your tone and crank the highs on your bass, you can get a decent sound out of this sucker, but you really have to work for it (so do yourself a favor and right down the "sweet-spot" settings you find!). I felt it was very-well priced and an irreplacable tool for bassists everywhere. It's hard enough to find a decent-sounding stage rig without blowing your pockets up, and we all know there is next to nothing on the market for us in headphoneor mini-amps.

My advice? pick one up today and test it out. If you can get two, maybe three good tones out of it that you're happy to hear, buy it without question. The new price is...rough, but bassists always had to shell out more dough than our 6-string bretherin!