Vox AmPlug Acoustic review

Where previous AmPlugs have been modelled after the raucous blast of an electric guitar amplifier, the latest in Vox's range of miniature headphone amps emulates an acoustic guitar.

Plugging directly into your instrument's output jack, two distinct sounds, warm and bright, are available via a selector switch.

Sounds

Here's an electric guitar through the warm setting:

And the bright setting:

You wouldn't mistake what you hear from the AmPlug Acoustic for a real acoustic guitar, but it does go some way toward it, providing a nice clear sound with some sizzling and zingy top end.

The tone control has a great deal of influence on how full-bodied the sound gets and with a blend control mixing between the original sound of your guitar and and the simulated acoustic sound, there's a useful range of clean sounds available for recording and practice. Plug an iPod into the aux input to play over backing tracks or along with your favourite artists.

The AmPlug series are great when quiet/silent practice is essential, but the main reason for using one (the fact that you'll hear things louder than if you just played an electric guitar unplugged) may have limited relevance in this case. If you want to hear acoustic guitar sounds, why not just use an acoustic guitar?

If you don't own an acoustic though, one of these is a handy tool for playing acoustic-like sounds in a song, while still allowing for amplified practice on electric, albeit with a clean sound only.