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This great looking, affordable, and sweet sounding tube amp gets you the famous Vox tone at reasonable volumes. It doesn't have much clean headroom, and lacks reverb & headphones output. If you can live without those, it's hard not to recommend the AC4TV. Read more
Marshall offshoot Blackstar brings you an extremely versatile small tube amp. Tons of features equals a high price tag, and it doesn't have the same tonal character as its competitors. Still, we recommend this one if you want the most features and the best overdrive tone. Read more
Best Tube Amps 2024: The Best Choices For Rich Sounds
Bedroom warriors beware - this amp is louder than the others on our list. That said, nobody does glassy cleans better than Fender, and the spring reverb is sweet. Overdrive is not its forte, and it's a bit on the heavy and pricey side. Read more
Bugera (Behringer's amp division) has made the ultimate affordable recording and bedroom tube amp. Reminiscent of the Vox AC4TV, but less expensive. It's voiced a little darker, and not well suited to metal guitarists, but with all its features and amazing budget price it's hard to pass up. Read more
This being just an amp head, you'll need a cab to go with it. It's a one-channel amp and a bit of a one-trick pony, but it's so good at what it does. Unmistakable British Orange tone, superb portabilty, great features like a headphones output, and very budget-friendly. Read more
Best Tube Amps 2024: Unlock Your Tone
The guitar amp you use is a hugely important part of getting your perfect tone. There are thousands of amps out there of all shapes and sizes from hundreds of manufacturers, but one category that has been catching fire over the last 2-3 years is small, low wattage tube amps. There’s nothing quite like the tone achieved by an all-tube amp, but it seems many (if not most) guitarists are not in a situation where they can turn the gain and volume up to 11, which is what’s needed to really push those tubes and make the amp realize its tone potential. Maybe you live with your girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse/roommates, maybe you have a small apartment with thin walls, or your neighbor’s house is close enough where they can hear you play. For these reasons, a low-watt tube amp which lets you crank up the gain and hit the tone sweet-spot while keeping the volume low sounds pretty appealing to most players. We all want that creamy, overdriven tones from our Vox, Fenders, and Marshalls... we just don’t need 100 watts of power.
The problem is nearly every amp manufacturer makes one of these types of small tube amps now, so choosing the right one for you is an exercise in frustration. Luckily, we did the hard work and figured out what the top recommended ones are, taking into account various playing styles and budgets.
Some guitarists argue that for the bedroom warrior, a solid state or digital modeling amp is the right choice for its ability to provide pretty decent tone even at low volume levels. While solid state and modeling amps have lots of bells and whistles and have come a long way tone-wise, there’s no substitute for the tone of a real tube amp.
How To Set Up Your Bedroom Tones
Which brings us to our point: The reason to insist on a tube amp is purely a matter of wanting the best tone. With a low watt tube amp, you can have the best of both worlds - versatility/portability, and that tube tone. It’s not
Apples to apples, since with a tube amp you’re giving up some versatility as compared to a digital amp like the popular Fender Mustang I V.2. The Mustang has numerous amp models, built-in effects, a USB port, and more. A tube amp will be more limiting, since it doesn’t have onboard effects (except for maybe reverb), and it’s going to have a single particular tone and character. However, that tone is unmatched by anything in the digital world, and moreover tube amps tend to respond to effects pedals much better.
Low-watt tube amps generally have less headroom, meaning that the point at which the clean tone starts to “break up” and you achieve that natural tube overdrive comes much sooner than their high-watt big brothers. You’ll typically have a gain knob to push the preamp, and then a master volume knob which lets you turn the overall level down, but still achieve that tube distortion. However, if you think 5 watts or even 1 watt makes for a quiet amp, you’re mistaken! A tube amp even at those watt levels can be incredibly loud. In our reviews below, we’ll make sure to note if the amps are good for quiet bedroom playing, band practice, and small venues for live playing.
Best Practice Amps 2024: Great Practice Companions
Rather than just listing 5 small tube amps with no rhyme or reason, we set out to discover what guitarists across various online communities are recommending. From reddit, to Gearslutz, to The Gear Page, our own community, and many more, we spend several days looking for discussions around “what’s the best small low watt tube amp.” We gather people’s recommendations and tally them up, to get an idea of what the popular ones are. We then took the top handful, read reviews, watch YouTube demos, and form our top 5 list. Finally, we go out to our local guitar shops to take them all for a test drive.
We like this approach since the word “best” is so subjective. Someone with an unlimited budget that loves metal might have a different definition of “best” than someone with $150 to spend that loves classic rock. By tallying up the amps that are recommended by guitarists across the web, we get a good cross section which includes models for most budgets, skill levels, and playing styles.
Disclaimer: While we say these are the top 5 small tube amps under $500, one is actually a tube/solid state hybrid, and one is slightly over $500.
A Beginner's Guide To Bass Amps: Fundamental Sounds
British amp manufacturer Vox is a legendary name when it comes to guitar amplification. Vox amps are known for that quintessential British Invasion sound of the 1950s and 60s, famously used by bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, the Yardbirds, and many more. While other amps are often compared to that Fender sound or that Marshall sound, Vox amps have a unique sound all their own. It’s no wonder then that when looking for a low wattage tube amp, guitarists turn to Vox to check out their offerings. Well, it turns out the Vox AC4TV combo amp is the most recommended small tube amp based on our extensive research. The AC4TV is essentially a reissue of the 1961 Vox AC4. This is a 4 watt tube amp that not only gives you the famous, unadulterated Vox sound in a “practice amp” package, but it also comes with a very interesting feature to let you push those tubes and get a sublime overdriven tone at bedroom volume levels.
Visually the Vox AC4TV is striking and elegant, and while some amps just blend into the background, this one might get you a few compliments. Its looks are supposedly inspired by the “TV” front styling of the 1958 AC15. As we mentioned, this is a 4 watt, all-tube combo amp. You’ve got a 12AX7 preamp tube, and an EL84 power tube (it comes stock with Russian-made Sovtek tubes, which are very nice). The speaker is a decently-sized 10” (it’s a specially designed Celestion VX10, which is also very reputable). The Vox AC4TV comes with just 3 very simple controls. The first knob next to the guitar input is TONE, which basically adjusts how bright or how dark the amp sounds. The knob after that is VOLUME, which as you might have guessed is the output level control to ensure that your roommates/neighbors/spouse/etc. don’t hate you. The third knob is OP LEVEL which stands for Output Level, and is arguably the most interesting one. It’s a 3-position knob which lets you select between 4 watt operation, 1 watt, and a quarter (0.25) watt; basically a built-in power attenuator. Provided you keep the VOLUME knob in the same place, going from 4, to 1, to ¼ watt cuts down the power of the amp for more manageable volume levels, maintaining the integrity of your tone. Remember, with a tube amp you really need to push it to get the best tone possible out of it, so if you’re in a situation where you can’t be super loud, just switch the Vox AC4TV to 1-watt or ¼-watt mode and turn up that volume knob to achieve distortion. Another interesting inclusion is a 16 ohm speaker output on the back of the amp, so you can hook this amp up to a bigger speaker cabinet when you’re playing live for instance. In terms of portability this amp is nice and compact, weighing just under 20 lbs.
The tone
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