One thing I love to do in my spare time is sit down in a quiet room and strum away on my guitar. But given that most of my spare time seems to occur late at night I wanted some way that I could play without disturbing others. This is where the Vox Amplug AC30 comes in. I looked online found one and decided to just drive to my local guitar center and pick one up the next day. So here is my Vox Amplug AC30 product review.
First let me tell you what the Vox Amplug is. The best way to describe it would be to say it is a headphone amp. Meaning you plug this into your electric guitar then plug in a set of headphones to amplify the sound coming from the guitar. The Vox Amplug goes one step further by trying to emulate the sound that you would get if you plugged your guitar into one of the classic Vox AC30 amps. There are a few different versions like Lead, Acoustic, Metal, Classic Rock, AC30 and even one for bass guitar. For this review I will concentrate on the AC30 version.
Here are some of the features of the Vox Amplug.
1./Ease of use, the Vox amplug plugs directly into your guitar lead jack.
2./ Aux in that you can plug an external mp3 player or audio device in to jam along with.
5./ On and stand by switch to save you on batteries.
The Vox Amplug is surprisingly small (W x D x H): 86 x 80 x 31 (mm), 3.39″ x 3.15″ x 1.22″ It is made to look like the classic Vox guitar amps. The outside case of the Vox amplug is made of plastic but does not look cheap and feels like it would stand up to years of use. This thing is light as far as weight goes it is 40g or 1.41oz without a battery in. One more thing is it actually comes with batteries which is a bonus considering most things these days don’t.
Ok now onto my thoughts on the sound. I have found user experience will vary greatly depending on what sort and quality of headphone you have plugged into the Vox Amplug. If you have some nice quality headphones you will have a far better experience than I did with the first set of cheap earplugs I plugged in. At first I was going to return it thinking that the sound was terrible but after doing a quick search online went through my closet to pull out a older pair of headphones with large drivers. I was back to being pleased by the sound. Yes it kinda resembles the sound you get from a AC30 classic but obviously nothing can compare to the real thing. Come on now you are paying less than $40 for this thing.
I did really feel one thing was missing though. Some reverb. I know this thing is tiny and was only around $39.00 but that would have made this model complete. After some further research I learned that the Lead model Amplug does have reverb built in.
Can you get a nice clean tone from the Amplug? Yes
Can you get a nice gain overdrive? Yes
Can you play all night without keeping the family up? Yes
Can it fill a void when you are itching to play guitar but are unable to make noise? Yes
Is it super portable to be able to take it with you on the road in you guitar case? Yes
Well now I have got you all excited try one out for yourself. For the best deal try looking in your local large chain music store or online at sites like, Guitar Center, Musicians Friend, ZZSounds or even Amazon.
