Saturday, July 26, 2008

Tiny Amp! Danelectro N-10 Honeytone

I just bought this. Isn't it cute?! It matches my guitar!

I have a little Marshall practice amp too, but honestly, it's too much of a pain in the ass to actually walk myself over to where it's plugged in and use it. You see, I'm extremely lazy. So I need an amp for lazy people.

The nice thing about mini-amps is that they run on batteries. They also don't take up much space, so you can keep one on your coffee table if you want and use it whenever the desire strikes. I looked at a few, settled on this one mostly because it was twenty bucks, but also because I love the vintage look. And I love Danelectro stuff, it's just so garage.

Mine's "burgundy", but they also come in vintage white and what they call "nifty aqua". They used to sell one in a mint green and that's what's pictured on the box. I would have bought this if I could have, but the pictures I've seen of the aqua one are a lot bluer than this.

Another view. It's got a real leather handle!

There's a belt clip on the back, so you can seriously walk yourself down the street rocking out to some Stones if you want. Make yourself a one-man parade.

Your standard volume, tone and overdrive controls. Yeah, overdrive! Not every mini-amp's got this - a lot are clean only. This one plays clean or distorted.

How's it sound overdriven? Well, about as good as you'd expect a little 2" speaker to sound when overdriven. Not great, but as good as any other tiny amp that has this feature. It is a very, very dirty sound. Sounds like a speaker that's being played too loud and is about to blow. I wonder what you could do with it if you tried to record it and then jacked up the low-end - it might actually sound pretty cool!

And clean? Sounds pretty good clean. And it can seriously get pretty loud - a lot louder than you'd expect a tiny little amp running on a 9 volt battery to get. I'm not sure what sort of battery life I'm going to get playing that loud, but it hasn't run out on me yet. You're not gonna play in a band with this amp, but the volume's plenty adequate for solo practice.

The entire amp is plastic, including the knobs and all the trim. The only metal bits are the jack and the belt clip. Hey, it's $20, what do you expect? It's basically disposable. The volume pot is a little scratchy on mine, but it works.

Love it - comes with a vintage power source. No more scouring Ebay for 50-year-old 9 volt batteries! :)

Seriously, the fact that it does come with the battery saves you a couple bucks and an extra trip to the store. And I'm saving mine when it runs out - a Danelectro battery is just too cool to throw away.

I bought mine from Guitar Center's online store, which is the only place I've found it for the $20 price. (Musician's Friend has it for the same price, but they're owned by Guitar Center.) If you want one - and I wouldn't link to something I don't recommend - then click the image below:

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous8:08 PM

    those are sweet little amps. my bro got one because it cost only $20 and doesn't take up any space (you can clip it to your belt!) it's pretty loud for its size, and the distortion is nice. wish i could get one, but i have more gear than time to play.

    ReplyDelete

About This Blog

This is increasingly not a blog about Alphabet City, New York. I used to live in the East Village and work on Avenue B, but I no longer do. Why don't I change the name if I'm writing about Japan and video games and guitars? Because New Yorkers are well-rounded people with varied interests, and mine have gone increasingly off the rails over the years. And I don't feel like changing the name. I do still write about New York City sometimes.

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