NAD: Mugig with A/B shootout with Roland AC-33

[Methos1979]

As promised here is my review of the Mugig battery powered acoustic amp with direct comparisons with the Roland AC-33. I'm sorry to say that this review is going to be very short (by my standards) as the Mugig had a fatal flaw right out of the gate once powered. More on that in a second. For those that have not followed the Mugig thread in this sub-forum, it is a very inexpensive battery powered acoustic amp. Though it retails on Amazon for $199 it frequently shows up there for $99 and sometimes even less.

I'm not going to delve too deeply into the specs but it's about the same size and weight as the Roland with a larger speaker (8" and 1") vs Roland's dual 5" speakers. It also has supposedly more power at 25 watts to Roland's 15 (plugged in) and 10 (on battery). Right out of the box the amp looked better than I thought it would. The faux wood covering and brown textured tolex is actually well done and attractive. The buttons are nice looking and have a quality feel to them.

The metal speaker grill on the front is also attractive and seems very durable as compared to The Roland cloth covering. The handle is fine and the strap buttons on the sides (for the included carrying strap) are gold plated and attached with felt washers. Nice little details. The Mugig is a wedge shape when sitting on a flat surface with a pole mount in the side which is a nice touch. The Roland sits flat but does have a pop out mechanism to angle the amp up a bit but not as much as the Mugig angles up. Also, the Roland does not have a pole mount.

I set them up side-by-side to look at physically and then test with a guitar. This is where things went downhill fast. First, the Mugig did not sit flat. Although it looks fine on the bottom with its four rubber feet, it rocks a fair amount. Not good. Looking at the controls there are two inputs - one for guitar and one for mic. The guitar input has no EQ. Just volume, delay, reverb and a gain for the effect. The mic channel does have a bass and treble EQ. The Roland has 3 band EQ for both channels.

Now, I knew this going in to the purchase of course but since I use my little K&K preamp with the Roland for some oomph to the guitar signal, I figured I'd use that on the Mugig as well and use that for EQ. The goal here was to find enough (hopefully more) to like about the Mugig to fill my battery power amp needs. To get an even playing field to test amplified tone I set the Roland EQ to flat and turned on and turned up volume and master on both amps. The Roland was dead quiet. The Mugig instantly had hiss with nothing plugged in. That's game over for me right there.

I went ahead and plugged the guitar into both anyway and neither provided a decent tone as it was but the Roland did have more volume. The Mugig did not provide much volume until it was turned way up and then it squealed like a stuck pig. The Roland did not feedback at high volume even with the auto-feedback killer button off. Although there was certainly more testing that could have been done, the hissing from the Mugig meant that it would ultimately be a waste of my time and I elected to stop. It will go back to Amazon tomorrow.

I still think the Roland AC-33 is way over-priced (if you buy it new - I did not) but at least you get a lot of features and you can dial in a decent tone on an otherwise dead quiet amp.

[Mr Blues]

Hi methos

Have you tried the Fender Passport Mini . OK its not stereo but for the size its fantastic. very lightweight. Suprisingly good sound for its size . Very good price as well I got mine for £110 UK pounds.

I have done some short video's trying it out with different mics.
Here it is . On this video I'm using my Shure SM 58 mic and a LR Baggs Para DI on my guitar.The amp seems to handle it well
Recording with my Nokia 808 mobile phone. ( Supurb phone with great stereo mics)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goya...ature=youtu.be

Dave

[CASD57]

I heard of some other people having a hiss , lucky mine came without that feature [emoji3] I wished you could of had a better experience since these are very affordable plus I think it is closer to the street Cube then the AC33

[Methos1979]

Here's some photos I took for physical comparison:

[MikeBmusic]

I haven't given a good workout to my Mugig yet, but no hiss. Suggest you return it for another.