Not a practice amp, but great with acoustics and can handle small venues as well. Bose S1 Pro+ is my go to. Can be played at very low volume and check out your mix if you are doing vocals as well.

Hi Puddleglum,

I just recently went down the same path as you. I'm mostly an acoustic player and dipped my toes into the electric world years back. Back then I bought a small 20 watt Fender Mustang modeling amp to get me started. I only really dabbled in electric guitar playing and the Mustang filled that itch.

But, like a lot of people, sometimes I found myself fiddling with all the setting on the amp more so than actually playing the guitar! Also, I found that in order to get anything decent sounding from the amp, other than the presets, took hooking it up to my PC and deep diving into the software settings. Those days I felt more like a sound engineer than someone who just wanted to play the guitar.

Fast forward to now... I recently decided to get a bit more serious about my playing and decided to find myself a nice, simple, amplifier. My criteria was to find a solid state that had nice clean tones and the ability to grow with over time.

The amplifier I went with is the Blackstar Debut 50R. This is a analog solid state 2 channel 50 watt amplifier. I know it is overkill in the wattage area, but it had everything I was looking for and also has a button that drops the wattage to 5 watts without losing any of its tone. At 5 watts it is plenty loud for bedroom practice. It has line out/headphone jack, a footswitch jack for tuning on/off reverb and switching between channels. It also has an effects loop send/return. For the controls it has all the usual suspects along with the power reduction button, a "clean bright" switch (adds some brightness to the cleans), two types of reverb (hall and plate) and Blackstar's "ISF" tone control (Infinite Shape Feature). The ISF changes the tone of the amp from a more American sounding amp to a more British sounding amp. Over all it is a nice piece of kit for not that much money ($250).


Not sure if is something you would be interested in, but figured I would at least add it to the list of possibilities. If you can find one locally to test drive, you may find it to your liking as well. There are plenty of online reviews to peruse as well. (I went with the Black/Tan cabinet).

https://blackstaramps.com/debut-50r/


Here is a pretty decent review. I wish he tured up the volume for the 5 watt test, as the amp was set a a low volume and the power reduction is very quiet.. but it does get louder than in the video.




Wasper

Wow, thanks sincerely for this info! I will keep it in mind.

Black Star also makes several little amps with 10 watts, 5 watts, 1 watt (?) - and they have attenuators to let you drive the amp harder without having the volume as high...

I believe that the Blackstar amps have reverb, as well, at least in the 10 watt and up range...

If I were in the market for a small and simple solid state amp for home use I'd pick up a Blackstar Acoustic Core 30.

Inexpensive, and has TRUE stereo reverb / chorus which is so much more pleasant to listen to. If overdrive is desired it's so much better to use a pedal rather than the lame built-in distortion you find included in combo amps. Plus, you can use it as a small "PA" with the dedicated mic input channel.

There's an even smaller Vox Pathfinder, the 10. Also great. And the Fender Frontman 25R is good.

Let me amend the above statement by saying that I'd also look really hard at the Quilter Aviator Cub.

I have looked hard at those. Seems like a really good amp, but very expensive too.

I've been needing a practice amp that I could use with headphones. Following the advice in this thread I just picked up a Vox Pathfinder 15R of Craigslist for $120. So far I'm very happy with it!

Nice amp at about half price from current Reverb asking prices. Good snag.

Also, spend time with the bass and treble knobs. They're very interactive, so experiment with raising one while lowering the other in small increments, that kind of thing. I can dial in a great sound on any type of guitar, then I make a note on a card for the setting for a guitar so I can go there next time.

Not to beat a dead horse as I had already recommended the Vox and Boss Cubes earlier, but if headphones are a real-use thing (as opposed to folks who think about using headphones but rarely do in practice), a superb amp is the Katana Mini.

It sounds great, and is intentionally "features simple" so I focus on playing and not playing with settings. Legitimately good tone and wholly usable gain knob and tone stack. Fits on a desk but sounds bigger than many of this size, some of which strike me more as toys. Great for bedroom volume and superb with headphones. That you can grab one new for a benjamin makes for an easy solution for home, travel, or jammin with friends.

Edward

Have you considered an multi-effects pedal? They usually come with presets and all you have to do is adjust volume. I've yet to change anything on my Boss GX-100 except volume in the years I've owned it. Once in a while, I'd accidentally change its setting and I just need to do a factory reset.

Also, like you, I've avoided Positive Grid for years because I thought they needed a phone app. But turns out, it's got some built-in presets too and all you have to do is volume adjustments too.

The good thing about these vs solid-state is that these sound much better than solid-states and also allows you to record on computer.

I've used my Zoom G1-Four with headphones and it sounds great..and it's on sale at SW for $69

Why Fender ever discontinued the final edition Frontman amps (with classic mid-60's "blackface" cosmetics) is beyond me, as IME they were some of the best bang-for-the-buck boxes out there. While the 100W "transistor Twin" Frontman 212R is the most common (before the ToneMaster Twin came on the market, surf players on a budget would goose these puppies with an upgraded 'verb tank and a pair of Eminence Cannabis Rex - or, for the Muscle Beach crowd, Swamp Thang - speakers, and have a gigworthy rig that left nothing on the table for less than half the price of a '65 RI), with a speaker swap that Princeton-sized Frontman 25R is a real little suitcase nuke for small- to medium-size venues: choose the right one and you can tailor it to jazz, country, rock, or whatever your style - or buy a few replacement 10-inchers and have a full tone arsenal. They have been discovered and prices are going up - I'd scour the local CL, classifieds, and garage sales and grab the next one that comes up at a good price... :guitar:

That was a deal.