I’m looking for an amp that’s better than my fender mini deluxe cause I’ve had it for a year I think, and it just stops working randomly, I use electric guitar, plug in acoustic guitar, and my bass. I also need it to have that amplifier 3.5 mm for my headphone jack so I can practice in piece without buzz.
I’m also looking on amazon btw unless it’s a must. pls, help I have a 150$ budget at most.
Hi Ana,
Welcome to the community!
If you still like your current amp other than the cutting out problem, then maybe it is a better cost to troubleshoot the problem and fix it. It may be something far cheaper than a new amp.
if you are really feeling like a new amp, then tell us what you like about the one you are replacing. It will help folks identify your preferences. You gave us the desire for headphone jack, but what about the tone or features (like reverb) that interest you?
Most amps are designed for just one of those instruments. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend playing a bass through a guitar amp (especially a guitar amp with a small speaker); it won’t sound its best, and it can be hard on the amp. (If you play a bass through a guitar amp you’re probably okay if you keep the volume low and listen for stress on the speaker.)
While you can play an acoustic through an electric guitar amp with no worries about the speaker, it may not sound great. However, there are some electric guitar amps that have a setting designed for acoustic guitar. The Boss Katana is one, but I think that’s out of your price range. You might look at the Line 6 Spider V 20. I believe that’s in your price range, and has a full range speaker and settings for both electric and acoustic guitar. It has a 1/8" headphone jack.
A Yamaha THR10 has settings for electric, acoustic, and bass. It’s a bit out of your price range, but maybe you could find a used one.
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Has it all. I have not tried bass yet but electric and acoustic work.
Coming in from a completely different direction I’ve started using a ‘Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Gen 3 2-in/2-out’ connected by USB to my PC for practise. This give me the flexibility of using different instruments, headphones or computer speakers (which are OK but not great).
This also allows me to play around with all effects and recording etc.
I also have a Marshall MG15FX which takes up a bit of space. The USB Audio Interface is small and lives on my desk.
Just my 2cents.
I mostly use my 2i2/sowtware amps too
I think my fender mustang would work ok as a bass amp too but dunno, it should be an frfr in essence (as most amp sim amps should anyhow).
Most bass amps will cope with guitar but a lot of guitar amps wont cope with bass because its a lot of lower freq they are not built for
In general, yes. I have tried bass through a Boss Katana 100 and it sounds OK, but I wouldn’t want to crank it.
I don’t know about the Positive Grid Spark Go, but I had a Spark 40 and, although it has settings for bass and bass amp models, IMO it sounded pretty lousy through the speaker. It was OK on headphones, but I would expect any modern amp or modeller to sound decent though headphones.
The THR10 is actually pretty good with bass. It, obviously, lacks the low end you would expect from a larger, dedicated bass amp but it sounds correctly balanced (which the Spark 40 did not). But, as @J.W.C points out, new ones are quite a way out of your budget.
If you can find a second-hand older model in your budget, I would go for this.
The other small/affordable amp which I have had decent experience with is the Blackstar Fly Bass.
I got one of these a while back to use when camping (the festival I was going to had a bass guitar workshop). In my case, I needed something small, portable and which would run off batteries. These days, I would use my THR10ii, but I didn’t have it at the time.
The Fly is pretty low volume and, like most of these smaller amps, isn’t going to blow you away with it’s low-end, but it was balanced and sounded pretty good for it’s size and cost. But it is really only designed for bass.
The problem is your budget is very low for even a good quality guitar amp, yet alone one which can do all of the things you are asking of it. Your options are going to be quite limited.
I have seen great reviews of the Nux Mighty Air, although I’ve not used one myself. But I reckon that’s probably where I would be looking in your case.
Cheers,
Keith