I was thinking about getting one of the small portable headphone amps that might provide some modeling I don’t get on my Rumble 25 plus it would be nice to practice in some different parts of my house without bothering anyone.
Does anyone have any experience with these and could provide a recommendation? There is VOX, Fender, BOSS, Flamma and NUX from what I can find. They range in price from about $40 to $120 which seems reasonable to me.
Happy to hear any experiences!
jeff m.
Hi @Jeff-in-OKC if you use the search function top right of the page. You’ll often find your question has been asked and answered previously. Especially gear questions.
TL;DR don’t get the VOX it’s a massive piece of shit (I had one and threw it away) compared to the Boss, Fender, NUX etc
I have the Boss Katana Go. It sounds amazing.
This. I mean, I wouldn’t be quite that emphatic about it, but I would highly NOT recommend it. But, give me postage and I’ll ship you mine to see for yourself, assuming that I can find it.
It’s not even worth just the postage. It’s really very bad compared to the other stuff out there. It looks like they made it from the same plastic they make the kinder chocolate eggs from.
I threw mine away so nobody else had to suffer with it.
0/10 hard pass.
This was what I was looking for! Many thanks @Barney
Another no to the Vox.
Another downvote for the Vox, it’s not even nearly as good as @Barney describes it. It’s flimsy, you have to button cycle settings every time and the sound sucks.
Of the ones I have played with, I like the Valeton Rushead Max Bass
It’s solid, the internal USB battery lasts for a long time, it has some basic effects (reverb, drive, envelope and “sims”), plus the controls are slider switches and twisty knobs, so you don’t lose your settings every time you turn it off.
I had the Vox, Spark Go, Fender Mustang and Boss Katana Go.
The Katana was the best!
But I hear very good things about the new Blackstar BEAM-Solo, especially when it comes to tone…
I’m quite pleased with my wireless Spark Neos. Via the app you can edit your signal chain. You can choose between different pedals, amp models. You cannot change the positions within the chain tho as far as I know.
I recently got the Fender Mustang Micro Plus and I’m very happy with it. There’s a free update to add a few bass amp models. I did a quick review here in the forum if you can find it.
I have the Fender Mustang Micro and the Micro Plus. I’d recommend the standard Micro as it’s much easier to find a setting you’re likely to like. The Plus is too much of a faff as there’s about eight million different amps on there and you’re likely to die of old age before you find one to settle on, even if you’re, like, only six years old right now.
There’s only 2 good choices now, the Katana go or Spark go.
I have a Vox AmPlug, Sonicake Pocket Master, and a Palmer Pocket Amp Bass.
Vox is okay, but it feels cheap. Sonicake is surprisingly good for its price, nicely built, but also plastic, and the mobile app is useful for editing presets. Palmer is solid, a great little pedal, but these days, there might be better options.
I practice on the Palmer 90% of the time. The best value is the Sonicake, as it is a multi-effects unit and can even load NAM profiles.
Yeah that was my take too. It isn’t terrible but is very cheap and flimsy.
I went ahead and ordered the Boss Katana Go just now. Amazon has it for $122 at the moment plus I had points! It received great reviews (just like here) too. However the phone app got mediocre reviews, but I’m such a newbie I most likely won’t notice. I looked up the Palmer Pocket Amp too and if I had the spare cash I might have gone that direction. I didn’t know it existed until @alexv mentioned it. I’m looking forward to practicing on my back porch while it’s not Africa hot outside. I like my toys.
I have a Boss Katana Go and I love it! It has a tuner, a lot of effects, it can be charged with an USB-C cable connected to a phone charger or computer. It is so practical!
I haven’t used Vox, but that can be an option for anyone in a very tight budget or a teenager just starting with bass. It is comparably cheaper for someone who can’t afford a Kanata Go. But if you can afford, the Katana Go is the way to go. 
If you hate it, I’ll buy you lunch.
But I’m confident you’ll like it (a lot)
Pro tip Jeff-in-OKC: Hate it. : )
Another mention for the pocketmaster, it’s cool for the price, especially if you have a guitar floating around. Rechargeable with USB-C, and you can record over USB-C without any other interface. You do need a cable for it, but that’s sometimes an advantage if your jack is up under your bass - you can see what you’re doing with it. It does have a limitation with NAM profiles that you can’t use IR filters while a custom NAM is loaded, but there are plenty pre-loaded that work with the IR preloads. You can use custom IR filters, but just with the stock NAM. Most of the time when I’m using it with lessons I just use the noise filter and a little compression on the Basic Bass patch.
My biggest annoyance with the Vox was if used with sensitive IEMs or earbuds it has a lot of noise, so headphones of reasonable impedance are a must with it.
