I am a complete newbie to bass. I play old time Appalachian and Scott’s/Irish fiddle tunes and a little bluegrass (guitar and mandolin) I really don’t want to haul my Crate 40W amp out to the living room every time I want to practice, which is every day, so I think that what I want is a Vox Bass headphone amp, but know nothing about them. I’m not particularly concerned with great tone or any kind of distortion or modelling or whatever. I’m just trying to learn how to play bluegrass bass, and I need a new practice rig. In reading the reviews on the Vox, I ran across one in which the person said that these should not be used with active pickup systems because the output of the little amp will nuke the drivers in my Sony headphones. I’m not real sure what kind of pick up I have in my Michael Kelly Dragonfly 5, but I think it’s a pretty basic piezo, but it does take a 9v battery. I normally run it through a DI/preamp. Should I leave this in the chain or take it out? No, it doesn’t have a switchable pad. Does anyone out there have any experience with these little amps? At first glance this seems like a good fit, and a couple of the on line stores have these on sale at the moment, but do I need to buy powered headphones or can the gain/volume be adjusted down to where it won’t melt my ears off.
I sold the Vox for the Nux, much better all around. The Vox’s tend to have quite a bit of hiss in them which drove me nuts. The Nux was silent, and…bluetooth.
I did end up selling that for the Boss Waza Air Bass system, but that is going to be overkill.
You will want some sort of tone control with that Dragonfly (I had the 4 string version, very nice basses, but piezo’s can be brittle sounding sometimes.
Some other headphone amp related threads:
I ran an amplug2 for a while and don’t recall any issues with my active bass. That said, I too switched to a Nux and recommended it over the Vox.
Like @John_E I bought the Nux, I had this before i bought an actual amp. A great piece of kit for the price and quite versatile.
I still use this today, while there may be better systems out there, this one is capable of more than I actually need.
It comes with amp and cab sims as well as effects. TBH though, never really used them too much as it is too easy to fall down the rabbit hole of fiddling with all of these rather than improving your playing
Nothing basic about this. It uses a Fishman piezo and preamp with some pretty versatile tone controls. The pickup isn’t active but the preamp is. Really nice setup.
Whoever said something about their being a problem with an active bass with the Vox messing up headphones was way off base. Ive never heard anything even remotely close to this.
The Vox can be hit or miss. The Nux has a better overall reputation.
Have you tried plugging your headphones directly into the bass? With that active preamp you should be able to get a signal. Whether it suits your purpose is up to you.
Let us know if you have any more questions and what you decide to go with.
I’ve got two Vox amplugs, but they are for guitar. I like them for the simplicity of having the controls on the unit and not having to worry about using an app to control. As soon as you start adding music/backing tracks via the aux in though, you start to get a bit tangled in chords. I haven’t tried the bass one and if it’s super hissy, I reckon that would get annoying pretty quick.
I got the Mooer Prime P1 for my birthday last year. I’ve mostly used it for guitar, but intend on using for bass as well. It sounds pretty good, has bluetooth for music connection and you can connect direct to an Android phone to record the sound either in an app or whilst you record video (it basically becomes the microphone input). I also like the fact that it doesn’t plug straight into the guitar/bass - whilst not always an issue, I sometimes found the Vox would get bumped around when sitting down. I use a short cable with the Mooer. One last thing, is you can also use the Mooer as an multi effects pedal into your amp (just need to turn off the amp/cab sim in the app).
I have not had the chance to use one but reviews talk a lot about the Fender Micro Mustang on bass. I have the Vox and I wouldn’t recommend it. The tone is not great.
I had a vox amplug for guitar. It sucked
I used a pod 2.0 as a headphone amp. It sucked.
I bought a zoom b1 four last week. It seems okay as a headphone amp, but I wouldn’t recommend unless some of the other things it does are of interest. Don’t know if it plays well with piezo pickups.
One thing I dislike intensely about headphones is the danged cord. I don’t do enough headphone practice to merit a wireless solution.
Yeah, I used a Vox Amplug (the original version) for about two weeks when I started playing bass. Didn’t like it, too much hiss/static. Maybe the newer version is better, I think it also has a built-in drum machine? Either way, like many others, I got a Zoom B1 Four and never looked back.
This is why I don’t care for most pedals, especially for those just starting on the musical journey.
Just keep it simple. There is time enough later to explore add-ons.
I had the Vox AmPlug 2. I hated it. It was flimsy, and the sound was crap. I had to fix it twice.
For headphone practice I use the Valeton Rushead Max Bass.
It’s great. The sound is quite good, the controls are turnable pots (not clickety scrolling and lost settings like on the Vox) and there are fine sounding effects to olay with (reverb, flanger, some sort of chorus and echo). The USB battery charges fast (USB-C) and holds for 5 hours of practice. Also has an aux in.
I think it’s a great product, especially for the price. The cons are lack of a backing drum beat/metronome and a fixed jack.
You can find it here, but it’s on Scamazon as well:
I have a lot of pedals, and I don’t find them distracting at all.
What I do like about them is shaping my tone.
I certainly use some a lot more than others, and some do sit awaiting a brilliant discovery to be had on them (this is mainly on the sax side with some experiemental stuff I would like to do if I could get this damn work thing out of my way, lol).
For the tone shaping, I think it improves my playing.
It takes time, yes, but dialing in a tone and trying to recreate a certain sound, or a new one, to me is very interesting, and the furthest thing from a waste of time.
When I hear the bassline ‘correctly in my head’, I get very excited and play more / practice more.
It is the days that nothing sounds right that I usually end playing early.
Of course, this isn’t for everyone, but pedals, plugins and tone shaping should not be easily dismissed as something that takes away from playing and improving. I find it to be just the opposite.
I was talking more about my own playing and starting down the path of pedals and effects too early. I should have concentrated more on improving my playing before using external sound modifications.
This was not meant to be a comment on effects overall.
Thanks to all of you responding to my original post. I appreciate that some of you a place a great deal of importance on “tone”. I personally do not. I am a rank beginner on bass and at this time and for the immediate future, I will not concern myself with “tone”. I am still trying to teach my index and middle fingers to pick the strings alternately and to use my unused (not fretting a note) fingers to mute the other strings. That being said, I have taken seriously what has been said. I did receive the Vox Bass Headphone Amplifier, and I am quite happy with it, although I have yet to find a use for the “rhythm button”. None of twee three selections that I am given fit anywhere in a Scott’s/Irish fiddle tune. No, I do not have a lot of hiss in my ear while using it. The only wired headphones that I have are some antique Sony on the ear cheapos, so I have ordered a pair of AKG K92 Closed-back Monitor Headphones, well that’s how they are listed. No, they are not high dollar nor really fancy with a lot of bells and whistles, but I can afford them and the reviews seem to be what I am looking for and Sweetwater has a really good return policy. For where I am on my bass journey, I feel good about my rigs. I am only using a “practice/learning” set up for now. With my Michael Kelly Dragonfly 5, I just plug in the Vox, turn all the volume controls up to about 75% and it’s all good. For my Dean 4 string, it gets one link in the chain more complicated. There is no preamp in the Dean, so I run it through a DI/preamp pedal and then through the Vox. It does seem to work out OK, but It means that I have to be near an A.C. outlet in order to power up the DI/Preamp pedal. I am really anxious to hear what it all sounds like through the new headphones.
I have had a pair of AKG K77 for quite a few years now and I love them. Super comfortable and guitar and bass sounds great through them as do backing tracks. I don’t really know what the differences are other than the K92 has a wider frequency range I believe, but hopefully they work out great for you.
I agree but I’m a bad example as production is my actual hobby and not just bass 
This is exactly the right way to think about this for now. I would say that you might want to revisit this later (or maybe not!) but you’re definitely on the right track to start out.
All that matters is you find a solution that works for you. 
I just purchased the Vox bass headphone amp. Reviews looked OK and I figured it was better than nothing. Only tried with earbuds and was not impressed with it at all. Will try with a set of good headphones, but I doubt I’ll ever get the sound I want. Nothing beats pushing air with a big speaker. If you need something to keep the wife and neighbors happy I guess it’s OK, but if I had to do it all over I wouldn’t get it. Maybe after I play with it for awhile I’ll find a setup that makes me happy, but I wasn’t impressed with it.