Vox amPlug Classic Rock Guitar Headphone Amp

Customer Ratings:
List Price: Price Unavailable
Sale Price: $30.66
Today's Bonus:

• Available in three styles: VOX AC30, Classic Rock, and Metal.
• AUX in jack lets you jam along with your CD/MP3 player.
• 100% analog circuit faithfully simulates the response of the original amps.
• AC30 emulates the AC30 top boost sound of a vintage VOX AC30.
• Classic Rock gives you the great high-gain sound of a UK-made 100W amp.

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Easily the best headphone amplifier I've tried! In the past these things were either full of hiss, smothered in echo, or were little more than glorified fuzz boxes with an Walkman-style headset. (That was definitely the case with Vox's discontinued AC1). The Amplug is different. It plugs right into your guitar's output jack, and has distinct tone, gain, and volume controls. No, this doesn't sound like a 100 Watt Vox head shrunk into a palmsize toy. It DOES sound amazingly like a much larger and more expensive amplifier, with very pleasing and tube-like distortion at higher volumes. It's the "classic rock" model, meaning that it's optimized for the chunky tube-distorted sound of the mid 1970s.

I like the Amplug a lot.

If you're into lead or rhythm guitar in the styles of Free, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, or the Who, you're going to enjoy this as a very valuable and inexpensive practice tool. The sound quality is good enough to use the Amplug as an amp simulator if you want to record your guitar directly to your computer. I think many people would be fooled into thinking you really had a large tube amp if they heard the recording. It's an amazing simulation, and I prefer the tube emulation in it to some digital effects units I've tried. I actually like the fact that it doesn't have built-in reverb as I'd rather use my own reverb when recording than be forced to settle with the built-in type.

Drawbacks? The clean sound is anemic. (This is not the headphone amp to use if you're planning on comping jazz chords with a heavy right hand. I have tried my mandolin with the clean setting and the results were somewhat better due to the double coursed strings.) Also, the Amplug really does require fresh batteries the sound as the batteries weaken becomes more and more abrasive. As the batteries die, the sound gets progressively irritating. The plug isn't angled, so you're going to have a hard time using this with a Strat-like guitar. (I use a Gibson SG and I don't have this problem). The construction is very lightweight plastic that does not inspire my confidence. For a few dollars more, the Amplug could have a metal chassis that would be very durable. None of these things deter me, because I don't expect miracles from a Japanese-made plastic amp. This is in no way a surrogate for a real amp, such as Vox's own DA5, and is very much a single-trick device but it does its single trick very well.

I bought the Vox Classic Rock amPlug on a whim in a music store. I'm glad I did! It's helped to excite me once more about playing and practicing daily. The price is definitely right, and the distortion sounds are superb. Buy this with the understanding that no amp can do all things and you'll have a great time with it.

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Got this for Christmas, and it is a lot of fun. The sound is very warm an tube-like, unlike the old compressed-to-death SRD Rockman tone of the 80's. The gain can be turned down for a clean tone, but when turned up, it has a very nice distortion. The only feature missing is reverb, as it only delivers a studio dry tone. One drawback is that it swings around in the jack, but I'm not sure how it can be avoided. Also, it was actually refreshing to see "Made in Japan" labelas opposed to some of the shotty Chinese made products. If it had reverb I would give it 5 stars. Pretty cool to walk all over the house and be able to jam, and a nagging spouse is easily drowned out! :)

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The sound of this little guy is very good for what it is. Goes from clean to a nice classic rock crunch. What makes it a very good and recommended product is that it is very practical for quiet practice. Plug into the guitar, plug in headphones, and you are free and mobile to play around. The offset plug works in front angle sockets (Strat style) or end mounts (everything else), and the controls are readily available. Seems solid but I have only had it a few weeks. Right price for what it is.

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I just received this small headphone amp and just quit playing it after two straight hours. I purchased the Vox Amplug AC30 about a year ago and was less than impressed with it. At the time, I was running it into a Highway One Telecaster with stock single coil pickups.

I now have a Gibson SG Standard with stock pickups. I really debated weather or not to get the AC30 again or the Classic Rock because I couldn't find any definitive reviews about how clean the Classic Rock could get. Let me be DEFINITIVE...It can do cleans really well! It can also get some crazy gain too. I was really impressed by how responsive it was to my playing dynamics. Even with a lot of gain, all I had to do was roll back the volume and it sounded so warm and full.

Having watched the few YouTube videos with the AC30, I didn't think it would have enough gain or crunch. I'm so glad I went with the Classic Rock.

I bought the Vox Amplug AC30 and loved it so much, it probably doubled (or tripled) the amount of time I play guitar. I loved it so much I went out and got the more expensive (by $10) Joe Satriani Signature Amplug. I liked the Satriani model also because it covered a different tonal range than the AC30, and delay feature is a lot of fun. But I had serious questions about the Classic Rock Amplug. Why did have only a 4-star review on Amazon among the lowest for any of the fabulous Amplug products. Would it be only a "one trick pony"?

Well, I have to tell you, I was completely blown away by how great the Classic Rock Amplug is, and I'm now even more blown away by some of these negative reviews. I've tried out a number of effects pedals for plugging into an actual guitar amplifier, and many pedal users are seeking what they call a "Marshall-in-a-box". In other words, they want a effects pedal that will single-handedly transform whatever amp they have into the sound of a miniaturized stack of Marshalls. Believe it or not, the Vox Classic Rock on higher gain settings is about as close to a "Marshall" sound as I can imagine. And it comes in a small, plastic headphone amplifier that runs on 2 AAA batteries and costs all of $39.99.

Functionally, the Classic Rock Amplug is the same as the AC30 three dials for gain, tone, and volume, an aux in jack (for MP3 players), a headphone jack, and an on/off switch. But that's where the similarities end. While the excellent AC30 model simulates the boxy, sparkly sound of a tube amplifier, the Classic Rock packs some PUNCH. The low end presence on this thing (even through a $20 set of entry-level Sony headphones from Target) is significantly greater than on the AC30. More importantly, the sound doesn't deteriorate with higher volumes. There are plenty of ways you can try to play guitar through headphones, but most of them become a static-filled mess as soon as you turn up the volume. Amazingly, the tiny Amplug has plenty of power on tap, and the "overdrive" is controlled through analog circuitry, with amazing clarity.

But the real surprise in the Classic Rock Amplug (and the point upon which I disagree with several other reviewers here) are the clean and slightly overdrive tones as you roll back on the gain knob. Several reviewers referred to the clean tones as weak, or claimed that there were no clean tones. Yet, with both my Les Paul and a Strat, I was able to set the Volume at around 6-8 and the gain at about level 2 and get a very nice clean tone without loss of volume. If any dirt was remaining, a slight rollback on the guitar volume further cured the problem. Even better, playing a Strat into the Classic Rock with the gain set somewhere between 2 to 4 actually created a Tubescreamer-like blues tone! This tone was one of the audio demos offered on Vox's website, but I didn't believe it for myself until I plugged the Classic Rock in and dialed in that tone.

Long story short, the Classic Rock is extremely powerful, but more verstaile than I thought. It can do the high-gain Marshall tones I expected, but also offers a wide array of clean or slightly-overdriven tones. It might even be more versatile than the AC30 Amplug, though I remain pretty loyal to the AC30. The good news is that the two models are different enough and cheap enough that you can own both. Highly recommend the Classic Rock 5 stars.