Where to find cheap amps

At full power, the Blues Cube Hot is loud enough for small gigs, while the 0. Excellent quality, value and reliability wrapped in a compact, portable and great-sounding package. When connected to a FLY extension cabinet sold separately or as part of the Fly Stereo Pack , it becomes a 6-watt stereo amp for guitar or music playback. The unit sounds as good as practice amps four times the size, with thick bass, ringing cleans and substantial gain. Overall, a huge success in a tiny box. This miniature amp stack, a recreation of the iconic Super Beatle, stands nearly two feet tall.

The Superbeetle can pump out 50 watts of output at four ohms, 25 watts at eight ohms and The head is powered by analog Nutube circuitry, which employs a VFD vacuum fluorescent display tube that captures the same sound and response of vacuum tubes without any of the inconsistent elements. Controls include volume, bass, treble and gain and a mini-toggle standby switch. The digital spring reverb and tremolo each have their own singular control, with the tremolo being driven by Nutube technology.

The result is classic looks combined with sweet jangly tone in a miniature amp stack that will sit well onstage - or anywhere. Read the Vox Mini Superbeetle review. The best budget guitar amps should deliver great tone, be easy for you to use and knock out the right amount of volume for the various scenarios that you might find yourself in. A big thing to consider is the size of the amp. Are you looking for a budget guitar amp to play gigs with, or is it just for home practice?

Amps like the Spider V and Katana will deliver enough volume when it comes to playing gigs, but you sacrifice portability. If you just want a clean sound, with maybe an overdrive too, then you might be better with something simple and straight forward. If you want a wide variety of sounds, then there are some fantastic budget modelling amps that give you everything from shimmery and sparkly cleans, through classic crunchy sounds, all the way up to high-gain tones.

Different amps will offer different amounts of gain. The Roland Blues Cube Hot and the Vox Mini Superbeetle both replicate the sound of an overdriven tube amp really nicely, making them a great choice for blues and old-school rock. Some amps, like the Positive Grid Spark allow you to delve even deeper via an app on your smartphone. Many great budget guitar amps even have effects built in, so you can expand your sounds even further. Adding a touch of reverb or delay can really help add some texture to an otherwise dry guitar sound, so an effects section is definitely worth checking out.

Nowadays, guitar amps can be operated in different ways. Some, like the Katana and Micro Dark have a fairly traditional layout, and all you have to do is tweak the knobs on the amp until you get your desired sound.

Boss and Roland are owned by the same company and continue to release superb products, including some incredible budget guitar amps. Classic brands like Orange, Vox and Marshall also impress with their signature sounds without breaking the bank, and digital pioneers Line 6 carry on their legendary Spider series catering for every type of player out there. Mike is Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld. He's spent the past decade writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar , Total Guitar and Guitarist , and a decade-and-a-half performing in bands of variable genre and quality.

In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock under the nom de plume Maebe. Guitar World. Included in this guide: 1. Boss Katana MkII. Type: Solid-state combo. Output: W.

Number of channels: 5. Effects: Maybe you should spend a bit more on the guitar or the effects pedal for example. Well, this brings us nicely onto our next point. As we have said, a lot of this depends on your situation and what you can afford.

There isn't much point spending thousands of pounds on a high powered Marshall stack when you are only going to be practicing in your bedroom is there? Keep it simple, don't get a cheap amp packed with effects and gadgets you won't need.

Some people reckon you should spend twice as much on your amp as you did on your guitar but there is no 'one size fits all' here. We've reviewed some of these amplifiers here at 4Guitar, so hopefully that will help with your decision. We haven't however, included any amps we wouldn't be happy purchasing ourselves.

That's another tricky question to answer. We have a whole page on this site dedicated to some of the best practice amps out there where we try to define just what a practice amp is. If you do want to spend a bit more, take a look at our list of practice amps where you can read our review of each one. Some of these combos are listed above but others are a little more expensive so we haven't included them in our list.

You will see that there are quite a few 'mini' or 'micro' amps in our list. It's a lot of amp for the size and price. Orange amps are not well known for clean tones, and this applies to the Terror Stamp. Also, not everyone is impressed with its volume, some report that it does not have enough projection for use with loud bands. This is a no brainer for fans of Orange, but for those who are not, this is a great alternative compact amp if you are into low to mid-gain overdriven tone.

There are a few amps which incorporate a preamp tube along with solid state amplification and digital modelling. This option may not impress some tube purists but they do impress many players, so much so that many of them rate highly.

The first edition was published during August an the current edition was published on July 8, This includes the three major types of guitar amplifiers, combo, amp head and pedal amps. For this edition, we ended up with a short list of 39 amps, which then entailed the gathering and analyzing of over 17, reviews, ratings and forum discussions, including the most recent ones up to the first week of July of All these data were then fed into the Gearank Algorithm, which gave us the rating scores out of for each amp.

This allowed us to zero in on what the market truly considers as the best amps in this price range, divided into three categories: Combo Amps, Amp Heads and Pedal Amps.

For more information about our methods see How Gearank Works. Here are the key people and sources involved in this guide's production - click on linked names for information about their music industry backgrounds. Drawing from his experience in performing and recording, he teaches guitar and bass and mentors young artists to be better musicians.

And when he is not busy playing or tinkering with musical gear, he puts on his entrepreneurial hat, which helps fund his passion for collecting guitars, mecha figures and Gunpla kits.

Alden Acosta : Product research. Jason Horton : Editing and Illustrating. The videos have been embedded in accordance with YouTube's Terms of Service. The individual product images were sourced from websites, promotional materials or supporting documentation provided by their respective manufacturers.

Publication of our July Edition resulted in the following amp coming off the recommended list above: Fender Champion Smaller speakers generally lack low frequency response think laptop speakers , which result in more pronounced middle frequencies. This mid frequency bump is appealing to guitarists, as it emphasizes picking attack and dynamics.

Bigger speakers are fuller sounding because they can handle lower frequencies better, but this same bass tends to drown some of the middle frequencies. Today we removed the following amp from our recommended list above due to a price increase, but you can still read our analysis of it: Marshall MG30CFX.

With today's update of this guide one of the amps we were previously recommending has dropped off the list but you can still read our meta review: Vox Valvetronix VT20X. We have removed the following amp from the recommendations above due to a lack of availability, but you can still read about it: Blackstar ID:Core Our data supports this comment - the Boss Katana currently has a Gearank score of 90 - read more about it at Amazon.

The only reason its not currently in our recommended list above is because it was released the month after we published this guide - there's a very good chance the Katana will be included when we update this guide.

Skip to main content. Fender Mustang LT Orange Crush 20RT. Orange Micro Terror MT Joyo BanTamP Zombie. Orange Micro Dark. Orange Terror Stamp. Disclosure We recommend all products independently of 3rd parties including advertisers. Orange Crush Orange Amps.

Pros: Earning high ratings in this price range is quite a feat, especially when faced with other amps offer more features. Cons: There haven't been many complaints about this amp, aside from a few who wish that it had some extra features. Overall: The Orange Crush 20 is a true to form plug-and-play amplifier for rock guitar styles, hard to go wrong with its tried and tested simplicity and killer tone.

Pros: The Fender Mustang LT25 is often praised for its sonic versatility, which in turn results in getting more bang for the buck. Cons: There are a few who feel that the volume control behaves oddly too much volume increase as you up turn the knob. Pros: The Crush 20RT's combination of killer looks and tone have endeared this amp to so many players. Cons: On the flip side, there were a few that found the built-in reverb to be lacking, but this could be a preference issue.

Overall: If you're looking for a top rated plug-and-play no-frills amplifier that's easy on the eyes, ears and on your wallet, check this one out. Pros: Many are impressed with the MT20's tone, which is as classic rock friendly as one would expect from an Orange amp.

Cons: This is not an ideal amp for those who want more tone shaping options right on the amp. Overall: If you're a fan of the classic Orange tone, then this amp is a great portable solution for your needs. Pros: Owners are impressed with how big and full sounding this amp is, especially in its area of expertise - high-gain direct-to-amp tones.

Cons: Not many complaints about its features, the high-gain voicing of this amp may not be suitable for low to mid-gain style tones. Overall: If you're into high-gain style tones and want an affordable and portable amp head, then this is for you. Cons This amp is not meant for those who are not into high-gain tones, or those who want more voicing options. Pros: Incredible, unbelievable, amazing are just a few of the many positive adjectives used to describe the Orange Terror Stamp.

Cons: Orange amps are not well known for clean tones, and this applies to the Terror Stamp.