+1 on the Monoprice 15W. Iāve been singing its praises around here for a few years now. Itās a very versatile and affordable tube amp as stated previously.
Tone sample: Ambient Night Loop
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What does that mean? Iām looking at this amp now. Thanks
It means it is a mechanical device. There is actually a physical spring in there that vibrates.
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Thanks! Do you know what makes it a āComboā amp? What are the two things that make it a combo?
An amp and speakers in one cabinet, rather than a separate amp head and speaker cab
Thanks Rob!
@RobDickinson - based on these specs, can you please tell me if Iām able to hook up headphones for silent practice and hook up a phone or computer to feed in backing tracks to practice with silently if I want? Thanks
What amp is that?
I dont see a headphone socket at all.
it has a send/return fx loop so you could plumb in a phone or computer there somewhere.
Send/returns usually cut off the internal preamp to power amp connection if anything is plugged into them, so probably not useful for a phone or PC.
Thatās useful for a looper, although itās not such an issue on a simple amp with limited onboard FX, as you are more likely to use it with external pedals.
Man, I wish the Katana 50 had an FX loop.
Of course, you can always use the K50 with external pedals too, but it seems a bit of a waste to do so
Cheers,
Keith
You can feed it into an AI (then PC) or something then back into the loop from a line out, its a messy solution but possible.
Looks like a ānoā to both of those. So not really suitable for your usage requirements.
Itās the MonoPrice Stage right we have been talking about.
Right, its a budget analog valve amp (with a real spring reverb!), I think your expecting a bit much from it
Have a look at this. NUX just released a small 8W practice amp. NUX Mighty 8BT MKII.
Shane from intheblues does a review of it here. It doesnāt have an Fx Loop. It doesnāt have a patch/tone library like katana/fender. Its inexpensive. It uses an app to dial in tones (which I like).
NUX Mighty 8BT MKII Review - The Practice Amp Youāve Been Waiting For!
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Oh, it never ends. 
Good thing Robert Johnson didnāt have all these decisions to make, or he might have never got around to playing the guitar at all. 
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Yep, it sure donāt seem to end. Just more, more, more.
Iām way outta bounds with this comment. And the amp Iām suggesting meets none of your criteria.
But.
imho.
Do yourself a favor and get yourself a Fender '65 Princeton Reverb-amp reissue.
Much dollars compared to anything talked about.
But it will be good money spent.
These are very simple amps to control. There is no anything extra. And I mean nothing.
Ya plug yer guitar in and start playing.
You control
Volume
Bass
Treble
Reverb
and tremolo
If ya wanna play soft, turn it down. 1-2 on the vol. will suffice and not bother others in your household.
If ya wanna play at normal volumes, turn it up to 3 + or -.
If ya wanna rock out clean, put it @ 4 -5.
@ 5 it will be quite loud at home, but it will start to have natural tube overdrive at anything above 5, the louder ya go, the more overdrive ya get.
This amp will put to shame anything listed above. It sounds, well, like an electric guitar is supposed to sound, imho.
Itās luscious.
It is hard to describe.
Go check them out on the youtubes.
Pretty much nothing bad said about the tone ya get from one.
Keep in mind. Fender billed this as a student amp, for folks learning to play.
imho, it is not that.
This amp has tone to die for, glassy clean to Rock & Roll dirty.
About the only thing I think it wonāt do is heavy metal sound.
Anyways,
I get it, everyone wants a do it all amp. All the effects, all the different amp tones. All the gizmos to plug your various devises into.
The prri is none of that.
It lets you play your guitar w/o twiddling a gob of knobs or pushing a gob of buttons.
Set the tones to 5, add a bit of reverb and just go to town period.
The bad part is the price.
However, if your like most folks (me anyway). Youāll go through a gob of amps ($). Then end up at a prri in the end anyway.
Just trying to save ya the cost of going through a bunch of amps to finally just plain āget thereā
Good luck and enjoy whatever ya get. Just look at the prri as a alternative to a gob of gizmos.
Sometimes, simple really is where itās at.
I donāt know if Iāll ever GAS for another amp, but after having a prri for a bit, Iāve no desire to get a different amp. I like what the prri does and more so, how it sounds.
Big and full for a student amp w/ a 10" speaker in it.
PS, there are many varieties of Princetons too. I just went with the plain reissue copy of the original black face fender.
It was what I needed!
I think the Princeton Reverb has a lot going for it. It is a good amp, but the price can keep folks away for sure. I have been lightly thinking about one of these as my first ārealā amp. 
For the other parts of the discussion:
- I donāt use headphones much any more. If I need quiet, I can play unplugged. It took a while, but I can feel and hear enough to translate it into what Iād get if I were plugged in. The headphone plan may be something keep as a separate need rather than try to wedge it into a do-it-all amp.
- I donāt see a need for an effects processor and a pedal board. Hopefully someone who has bought or tried both will speak up and tell us if I am missing a point somewhere. Since I have an effects processor with a bunch of pedal effects, I donāt plan to get pedals. It feels like doubling up without reason. I consider this a decision point to go either individual pedals or a processor.
- I DO play music so I can play along. I consider this is fairly important. Having it plug into the amp is not that important and if it is a full band, then the amp can make it sound limited - the frequency filtering is set up for the guitar, not the full band. I tend to prefer playing through regular stereo speakers and have the guitar amp be separate. I may have Justin talking to me thru the guitar amp since it is easier to set up (i dislike BT, so wire connect).
- when I do choose to use headphones - like playing in my back yard - I have a headphone amp, like the NuX but a bunch cheaper. this was a gift bought off Amazon, There are several different brands under $40 USD. It works pretty well once I fix the silly presets. It doesnāt fit in 2 of my 4 guitars, so I bought a short cable (about a foot) and use that for an extension or I use a wireless guitar transmitter/receiver and just plug those between.
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Yep, the price is killer. Right now the price is $1399. Thatās a big price. It was for me anyways. I procrastinated for a long time before I made the leap. The motivator for me to leap was I got a 20% off coupon from my local music store in the mail. I just couldnāt help myself after that. Final price including 7.25% sales tax was 1202 or the likes. A lot of bread for sure. And Iām glad I took the chance and spent the money for the enjoyment Iām getting out of this amp.
Agreed. Or if I just gotta play through headphones. I plug into my interface. That cures the need for a headphone jack on my amp. Or if I gotta have some effects, I open up my daw, plug into the interface and playback thru the stereo. My speaker outs on the interface go direct to my aux. input of my stereo. Gotta use the stereo headphone jack to get the daw effects to occur.
Myself, I donāt use many pedals. I got 5. 2 (delay and phaser) I donāt use much. I do use 2. A compressor and a vintage overdrive (how I get overdrive when I want to play the princeton quietly w/dirt). Compressor is most used @ about 50% of the time. Last pedal is a tremolo pedal. I use it with the other 2 amps I have that donāt have a onboard tremolo. fwiw, the princeton vibrato blows the pedal away for tone.
Agreed. Myself, I just donāt do BT as much as I used to. Now adays, I want what I play to be me, not the band Iām trying to emulate. But for sure, BT through the stereo is the way to go imho too if thatās what ya like to do.
Cool, someone else who digs playing on the back stoop. I do that all summer long. Usually acoustic, but. I do take the elec. outside too. I just keep the vol. at about acoustic level. Iāve not yet been asked by anyone to turn it down and I been playing outside for at least 2 years now. Elec. usually on the weekends where I can spend some time playing. Acoustic is for short play times or when I want to make 1 trip to the back stoop instead of 4 to get the elec. and associated gear outside.
One thing to note about the princeton is. Being a tube amp, when I turn it on, I like to leave it on for a while. No turning it on and off, on and off, etc. I canāt help but think this may not be a great way to treat a tube amp.
So if Iām gonna play for a short period of time, I do have, and use a solid state amp for that.
The solid state amp I got is a Peavy transtube red stripe Bandit. Another great amp with ārealā good sound (tone). This amp donāt meet the opās criteria either though (however they are cheap, got mine for $200 used which is about the going price for this amp). Granted it has way more features than the princeton. Itās just not a modeler and aināt got no headphone jack. This amp can also be played real quite if you want. Like not waking the wife up from sleeping in the other room of my small house (800 sq ft vs the opās 300 sq ft.). But beware. Itās 80w (ss) and quite heavy @ about 50lbs. So that amp is stationary and donāt get moved at all from where it resides. The bandit will near peel paint off the walls and straight up moves some air if ya want it to.
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Thanks for feedback - a little much for me though currently.