Ever since I got my electric guitar, I was trying to find a way to practice without disturbing people at night. Sure my large crappy amp has a headphone jack. But then I have two wires; going from my amp to my guitar and another one to my headphones. Let’s just try to cut the amp cord. I figured someone must be thinking what I was thinking and sure enough and I found the VOX AMPlug. This is no VOX AMPlug of course but it’s pretty darn good when see the price tag on it. The VOX is about 3x the cost! I must admit, the VOX AMPlug has a cooler name. Joyo JA-03 just doesn’t roll off the tongue.
My old crappy amp, I can now donate
So what does it do? It simply acts as an amplifier for your electric guitar. You plug it to the output of your guitar and then you can use your favourite headphones. It even has a line-in so you can hook up your mp3 player and jam to your favourite tunes.
It’s got 3 dials on it for gain, tone and volume. It’s not an overly complicated device and has some of the same features you’d find in a big amp setup. This model is the acoustic version. From what I can tell there are other amp styles like Metal, English channel (AC30), and super lead (Marshall) version. The original VOX Amplug’s has about 9 styles to choose from so not a bad selection considering this is a clone.
It’s powered by 2 AAA batteries. I really hate AAA’s because I don’t have a lot of them. Why can’t they make them use AA? I can live with the device being a tad bigger. But that’s another story.
I guess having an electric guitar and then only playing with it with your headphones might seem a bit dumb. However, I’m usually using my acoustic guitar anyways. At night, my acoustic is still loud enough to keep people up. So I got myself an electric to practice on at night. What I like about an electric guitar is that it’s not as clunky to hold, body not so thick like an acoustic, strings are thinner, so in general, just less effort to practice on.
Next to my Planet Waves capo, it’s the one of the best guitar related accessories I bought so far. If you live with other people and respect their right to a good night sleep, do them a favour and get the Joyo.
