Headphones and valve / tube amps

[jugglindan]

Another idea totally away from valves just to confuse you. A friend of mine has a drop-in tone control pot from Guitar Fetish which is a pre-amp and effect unit all contained on a tiny circuit board on the back of the pot. It was very nice playing through headphones plugged directly into the guitar. You can get them with different effect built-in too.

Can you switch it off easily to play normally through an amp? It reminds me of the AmPlug, which is a convenient option for headphone practice. I have never tried one so can't comment on the sound.

[Bakersdozen]

Can you switch it off easily to play normally through an amp? It reminds me of the AmPlug, which is a convenient option for headphone practice. I have never tried one so can't comment on the sound.

The Amplugs are pretty cool. Great for just being able to riff with headphones anywhere. And easy to just chuck in the case.

[king casey]

I have a Vox amplug that I fooled around with for a while.
Battery life is annoyingly brief and the main reason it's swimming around in the drawer.

cheers, Mark.

[Joe Garfield]

This might be it:
https://youtu.be/_6kWsb3wOnk

[Oby]

Wow that Blackbird is sweet. Very tempting.
There's also some pretty good valve preamps from Douk. The Nobsound NS-01E might be a pure valve not hybrid but I'm not sure. Their Black Bear models have an op amp chip for the headphones but the Nobsound doesn't mention anything about an op amp chip.

[Joe Garfield]

I came across that Orange amp - good suggestion!

I also found this: AMT SS-11. This particular video made me fall in love with it and almost buy it. But it's hard to find many other videos that sound that good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihrdaQbTT8U

The tone, but particularly the attack response is just phenomenal.

[Joe Garfield]

Well, I bought the Blackbird. It seems like a nice high end unit and there's instructions to change tubes and tweak the bias to shape the tone. My whole life I've wanted to play through tubes and I'm tired of always wishing I got the better thing.

https://www.effectrode.com/products/...m-tube-preamp/

Now if only my guitar kit would show up!! =)

[McCreed]

Glad your search is over and hopefully you found "the one"!

I like the irony of you finding what you wanted from an Aussie guitarist's demo! He's a damn fine player (I mean foin) and does excellent videos though.

[Joe Garfield]

Well, what can I say - I've always liked the Aussies I used to hang with the Aussie internationals when I taught skiing in Vermont. Every year it was a different group but they always immediately felt like friends.

Here's another great video. His 'grain channel' is nice and clean with 50% guitar volume, starts to drive with more volume, then his moderate overdrive channel rips. Really nice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59ZDQiyLKu4&t=13s

[Oby]

Good choice. I've made the same mistake many times trying to save a few bucks and later wishing I bought the more expensive unit.
I was just about to buy some cheap speaker units to build a cabinet but now I think I'll wait and save up for some Celestions or WGS.