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What is the best home practice guitar amp with a 150-200EUR price cap, roughly 5W output, no app dependence (I don't want to go for app diving in the few minutes I can practice and also want to probably use the thing after the company decides that the model is outdated and not supported any more)? There is no real size requirement (I don't want to put it in my pocket or anything), but battery operation would be a nice plus, and good sound quality (even in quiet operation) is a must.

Currently I have an old Nux Mighty 15, but at the low volume level I'd need it's output is really poor, you can't increase the gain, and the sound is generally muffled in the lower quarter of the volume.

I came across Boss Katana Mini X, Yamaha THR5, Blackstar Fly 3, Nux Mighty Light BT, Vox Mini Go 10 , Mooer SD10... online tests rank all these as the single best one in the category, so it seems like an impossible choice. What's your take?

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[-] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I've used a spark mini 10 watt for the past couple years and a toneX plug (headphone amp) for around 5 months and for smaller, quieter spaces I much prefer the headphone amp for practice or just playing around solo without a looper.

The spark mini has 4 preset tones your can change between with a dial and replace them with an app, but the app isn't needed for normal use just replacing the preset tones.i usually leave it at a clean, a fuzz, a high gain big overdrive, and a floaty chorus reverb.

The plug headphone amp has like 30 presets with buttons to select from and the app is only used to charge them too so not needed most of the time. It has a half decent tuner built in too.

I think with the larger library of presets to cycle through and being able to go super low on the volume in the headphones without the high gain tones breaking up like they do on a normal amp makes it easy to pick up whenever I'm grabbing my electric guitar which is most days. It holds plenty of charge for me I usually remember to recharge it after maybe every 3 or 4 sessions. My only gripe is as a modeler it doesn't do more synth type non guitar tones, but neither does the spark amp.

[-] BlushedPotatoPlayers@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

How is the sound quality? I tried an ancient Marshall MS-2 (or alike) from the 90s, and that was really horrible, like the cheapest battery-operated radio

[-] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago

I think it's good, most of the default presets I kept too, I only changed 5 or 6 when I got it and left the rest. I'm using sennheiser hd 569 headphones and I can hear a decent range coming through. I think there's a few other similar devices from fender, positive grid, etc I haven't compared, but I can go really low volume and still get good high gain without it breaking up and it was the only device I've used so far that was able to do that reliably.

this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
26 points (96.4% liked)

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