Small battery operated practice amps - Joyo, Caline, Headrush & Boss offerings

[mcnach]

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but over the past 3-4 months I've acquired 4 little amps and I'm keeping and using all of them

Well, actually, I do know how it happened, of course! I only have one neighbour, downstairs. They've just had a baby and although they've never complained I thought it would be good to have a way to play without headphones in the house (I was diagnosed with a vestibular Schwannoma on my right side, that affects my hearing and sense of balance, and the symptoms are best managed if I don't use headphones)

I tend to use them with a Joyo JW-06 wireless unit, nice and cable-free.

 

I thought I'd write a few lines with my impressions, now that I've used them for a while, as they do have different strengths and weaknesses. 

 

 

 

I've got a tasty coffee on the desk, so let's go, in increasing price order.

 

1) Joyo MA-10B

 

This thing is just around £30. Made of plastic, very light. There are versions for acoustic guitar and electric guitar too.

It says it's 10W, with a single 5" speaker.

 

It can be used plugged in using the included power adaptor, or with 6x AA batteries. I use rechargeables. The batteries are not rechargeable while in the unit, you need to charge them elsewhere.

Operation time on batteries is stated as 3h. I haven't measured it but I have the impression they last quite a bit more, but then again I was not playing super loud.

 

It's not the best sounding bass amp, unsurprisingly, but it's not bad at all. It gets loud enough for home use, just don't expect very deep lows.

The controls are basic: gain, tone and master volume. And a switch for overdrive, which is... nothing amazing.

For the price I'm positively impressed. It does a good job when you want to play at reasonable volumes that won't bother others but still sound nice enough.

It can get loud, but you need to tame the low end once the volume goes up, or the speaker farts out, but at the sort of volumes most people would want to use it it behaves well. It's not an amp for busking, however it would do a good job if you're playing with an unamplified acoustic guitar/singer and did I mention it's super light?

 

This unit does not have bluetooth. It has a 3.5mm AUX input. When I play music from my phone through the AUX input, the sound is better than I anticipated. It lacks a bit of low end on the AUX, but that can be easily improved using an EQ app on the phone (I use PowerAmp Equalizer).

 

I was actually going to get the Harley Benton Jamster Bass, which is similar in specs, built and size, but it has bluetooth and it costs about the same. The Joyo is prettier 'though  It looks kind of 'retro'.

 

It has a headphones output, but I have not used that.

 

Overall, I could have been satisfied with this. £33 I think it cost me. Crazy.

 

 

 

2) Caline Scuru S8B

 

This one is around 3x as expensive as the Joyo, I think I paid £80-90.

 

Plastic and metal, reassuring weight despite being much smaller than the Joyo, although this is probably because of the built-in battery. It feels reasonably well made.

It says it's 20W with two ~3" speakers. There's guitar and acoustic guitar versions.

 

This one has a built-in rechargeable battery, which together with the small size and the handle makes it a great noise-maker while on the move.

The manual says 4h battery life. Again, I feel it lasts quite a bit longer than that, but the volume you use it at will have an impact. I used it the other day as a bluetooth speaker and it lasted about 9h before I was done. The speaker was still going strong and I hadn't even started with a full charge.

 

Initially I was a bit disappointed and I nearly returned it. The controls are a bit unusual, none of the usual master, gain and EQ. I read it's based on the Wine Cellar preamp pedal, which I used to have and found a bit unintuitive at the time, but many people love it.

There are 2 switchable sections and a master volume. The 'comp' section allows you to engage some basic compression, with an EQ knob that provides basic tonal control. The 'driver' section allows you to mess with the higher harmonics and also some EQ. I use it with the compressor always on, and use the driver to alternate between a clean brightish sound and a dark deeper one.

 

The sound is decent. It is not noticeably louder than the Joyo before the little speaker start to fart out, so I'd say the same as the Joyo: absolutely plenty of volume at home, and it'll probably be ok if you busk with an unamplifier acoustic guitarist. The bass sound is more tweakable than on the Joyo and it sounds more like a traditional bass amp, although you need to watch the low end a bit.

 

This unit has bluetooth, but no 3.5mm AUX input, so if what you want to play through this speaker does not have bluetooth, you're stuck. To engage the bluetooth there's a button on the back.

Playing music through the S8B was very disappointing. Sure, I can hear the music, but the sound quality was not great. The Joyo sounded MUCH better than this. This was sort of... boxy, muffled. Sure, it allows me to hear the backing track or whatever, but it's not a nice sound.

You can improve matters a lot by using EQ carefully. When playing back from my phone, I use the PowerAmp Equalizer app to boost low end a tiny bit, to introduce a severe dip on the mids, and increase the top end a bit. Then it's a different animal, and it can do a very reasonable job as a portable bluetooth speaker.

 

I prefer the S8B to the Joyo because it's small and versatile. I have the S8B on the shelf above the computer desk and I often use it to play music through it from my phone, rather than using the monitors attached to my PC (I work from home a lot and get lots of online meetings, it's easier to have the S8B playing music in the background than fiddling with relative levels on the PC).

However, you do NEED to spend sometime with the EQ before it sounds good to play music.

The controls for the bass aren't the most intuitive or effective, in my opinion, despite having 6 controls on the face of the amp. Onboard EQ on the bass comes really handy because of this, but I happily play a Precision through this too.

 

It has a headphones out, but I haven't experimented with it.

 

So, after the initial disappointment I am actually liking this. It sounds better than the Joyo, but not by much, however the bluetooth, small size, and built-in rechargeable battery are very welcome features, so overall I prefer the S8B. Just watch the low end if you're cranking up the volume, just like with the Joyo.

As a bluetooth speaker for music, it seems to have a more than decent battery life, but you need to use some EQ on whatever device you use for playback because the default sound is rather meh. However, once EQ'd I'm pretty happy with it.

 

 

3) Headrush FRFR-GO

 

 

This was about £135 if I recall correctly, so about the same as the Joyo and the Caline together.

This one is different in that it's not marketed as an instrument amp, but as a bluetooth speaker with flat response designed to take guitar amp modellers .

 

It says it's 30W, with two 3" speakers. This one is heavier (again, built-in battery will be largely responsible), very noticeably louder, with really good bass response (this unit has a port at the back, the others were closed-cab designs). The built-in rechargeable battery is stated to last up to 13h. I haven't systematically tested it, but it sounds about right.

 

The feature set is simple but versatile:

inputs - 1x instrument input, 1x AUX input (3.5mm), bluetooth

output - 1x headphones

master volume

instrument input volume

2-band EQ

 

The first thing to notice is that plugging a guitar/bass directly into this doesn't result in the best sound. It's a bit quiet and flat. It works, but it sounds MUCH MUCH BETTER if you use some kind of modeller. I used a Valeton GP200 for guitar and a Zoom B6 for bass, and I'm pleased to say that both worked very well. This unit is LOUD, and no farting out. The sound of the Headrush is on a different league to the Joyo and the Caline... the drawback is to get the best sound you need an external FX unit of some sort. I have a NUX Mighty Plug that I presume will do a good job too, and that will keep the bulk small. 

 

As a bluetooth speaker, this one is a lot better than the others. Good sound quality, great low end, top end clarity. The 2-band EQ works on the whole unit, not just the input, so it can be used to tweak the sound of the music you play through it. 

All inputs can be used at the same time, so you could easily have guitar and bass plus a bluetooth source of some sort. This came quite handy when I had to do some guitar overdubs on some band demo recordings: I used two Zoom R16 units for recording, which can be sync'd to record on up to 16 tracks at once but the audio has to come from each unit separately. So I plugged the guitar into one R16, the the output of R16 #1 into the main input, and the output of the R16 #2 into the aux input, and used the Headrush as the monitor (could use headphones if I had wanted to). Tiny and powerful mobile recording setup, just like that.

 

I love the Headrush FRFR-GO. I'd have it even as a simple bluetooth speaker, the fact I can input other sources is a bonus but you do need some multiFX to get the best sounds. Rechargeable built-in battery with very decent life, very nice sound, loud and deep. Winner. However I tend to use the Joyo and the S8B for practice, and this has become my take-anywhere bluetooth speaker.

 

 

4) Boss Dual Cube Bass LX

 

 

This was a lot more expensive. I think it was about £260, plus nearly £50 more if you want the bluetooth adapter (which I did).

 

I removed the bulky corner protectors, because it was a bit too wide to fit on the shelf I wanted to put it on. 

 

This was overkill for my needs, but I thought it had the best chance at giving me good volume and it had lots of additional features.

 

It's the biggest and heaviest. Rated at 10W with two 5" speakers. This gets loud, no question. However, the sound was a bit disappointing. It's hard to describe, but it almost feels as if there's some heavy signal processing even when all the FX are switched off. EQ can help, but it's not straightforward. As a bluetooth speaker it's also not amazing. It's a better version of the Caline S8B, tweaking EQ at source will make this sound decent 'though, much more easily than on the Caline S8B, and it does get loud without farting out. Despite being rated at 10W compared to the 20W of the Caline (really?) the Boss is a louder and more solid sounding amp. As long as your expectations are reasonable (you won't compete against a horns section!) this could be a nice busking amp (at least over here we aren't allowed to get too loud).

When I was a student and all my belongings fitted in a small dorm room, I would have been super happy with one of these! But I find it way overpriced. The feature list is impressive, which is what made me buy it anyway, but if the basic sound can be improved.

 

It can run on batteries, 8x AA. Battery life is nothing to complain about. I don't recall how long they're supposed to last, and I haven't performed a proper test, but again at my usual volume the batteries last several hours. I use rechargeables but they cannot be recharged in the unit, so you need to charge them elsewhere.

 

The feature list is impressive: EQ, FX (chorus, flanger, phaser, delay, reverb), compression, amp modellers (with user memories), footswitchable looper, drum machine, stereo XLR line outs, USB interface and analog rec outputs, various routing options, and an app that allows you to tweak in depth many parameters from the FX as well as a global parametric EQ. So on paper I should be able to tweak it so that it sounds more to my liking. I did improve it a bit, but to be honest, this is the unit I use the least so I need to spend more time with it.

Check it out:

https://www.boss.info/global/products/dual_cube_bass_lx/

 

It's nice, it sounds good as a bluetooth speaker (but nowhere as good as the Headrush), and it does get loud without feeling the speakers are struggling, the drum machine is really nice to have and the app really opens up the sound. I need to experiment more with it.

 

 

 

So there you have it.

 

In my opinion, the Boss unit is a decent compromise between sound, volume and features and will do everything well enough. But at around £300 for the whole package including bluetooth adaptor), I'm not sure it's the best option out there, although it's really loaded with useful features.

 

Soundwise, the Headrush wins hands down. However you really need a modeller of some sort in order to get the bass/guitar sounding the way it deserves. It's worth having even as a multipurpose bluetooth speaker. If you don't need the additional (many) features of the Boss, the Headrush might be the better option. Only the Boss and the Headrush have deep lows at any volume.

 

Havind said that, I find myself using the Caline S8B the most. Not the best sounding, but it sounds pretty nice and the bluetooth can sound also quite decent once EQ'd properly. Small, built-in rechargeable battery... hard to beat for less than £100.

 

The Joyo MA-10B is ranked lowest... but it's not a surprise, given the low low price and basic features, it doesn't even have bluetooth. However there's something very appealing about this, it's easy to get good sounds without extensive EQ tweaking and it's so light and cheap, you could get a bunch of them and build a stack if you wanted louder/deeper  

I really like the Joyo, I have to say. It does very well what I originally wanted it to do: allow me to practice our band's set anywhere, at low-to-moderate volume with a sound that doesn't make me want to rip my ears off.

 

I hope this is useful to somebody.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hellzero]

Thanks for this interesting review @mcnach !

 

I've owned the Joyo MA-10B for years and even recorded a small demo with it on a 6 strings fretless bass and it handled the low B quite decently ... at a low level.

 

I also owned the Caline CA-100 B (around 85 GBP) for a moment, but didn't like it as much as the Joyo MA-10B, because it had to have the compressor and booster always on to get a usable sound.

 

All the specs are here: http://www.calinemusic.com/index.php?m=home&c=View&a=index&aid=167

 

 

Then I bought this new Joyo DC-15B (around 185 GBP): it sounds like a real bass amp and has all the features of the expensive Boss Dual Cube Bass LX you reviewed (less the app option, plus 3 electric guitar amps sims and 1 FRFR acoustic guitar sim, which is my favourite for my fretless basses).

 

Everyone trying it at home with a guitar or bass is simply amazed.

 

I even rehearsed with it with my bass duet and it was fine sound wise.

 

Funnily it's the size of a car battery...

 

 

All the specs are here: https://www.joyoaudio.com/product/291.html

[mcnach]

6 hours ago, Hellzero said:

Thanks for this interesting review @mcnach !

 

I've owned the Joyo MA-10B for years and even recorded a small demo with it on a 6 strings fretless bass and it handled the low B quite decently ... at a low level.

 

I also owned the Caline CA-100 B (around 85 GBP) for a moment, but didn't like it as much as the Joyo MA-10B, because it had to have the compressor and booster always on to get a usable sound.

 

All the specs are here: http://www.calinemusic.com/index.php?m=home&c=View&a=index&aid=167

 

 

Then I bought this new Joyo DC-15B (around 185 GBP): it sounds like a real bass amp and has all the features of the expensive Boss Dual Cube Bass LX you reviewed (less the app option, plus 3 electric guitar amps sims and 1 FRFR acoustic guitar sim, which is my favourite for my fretless basses).

 

Everyone trying it at home with a guitar or bass is simply amazed.

 

I even rehearsed with it with my bass duet and it was fine sound wise.

 

Funnily it's the size of a car battery...

 

 

All the specs are here: https://www.joyoaudio.com/product/291.html

 

 

That white Joyo looks great. Yes, the Boss one has a few additional features, but nothing I would miss and this one has bass and guitar amp models already. I hadn't seen this one at the time, otherwise I'd have probably bought one too

 

The Caline looks funky...

[Hellzero]

This white Joyo is brand new on the market, that's why you didn't see it.

 

The Caline does indeed look funky and was certainly the main reason I bought it... 🤦🏻🤔😂

[Hellzero]

If anyone ever buys the Joyo DC-15B, I've even found the perfect carrying solution, this: https://www.thomann.co.uk/flyht_pro_gorilla_soft_case_gac126.htm

 

[Crusoe]

I have the Spark Go. I haven't used it with the bass yet, but it's dead handy for guitar. It sounds ok, but when you play through headphones it sounds really good. Spark have released a set of headphones for silent practice. I'd be interested to find out what they are like.