Great amp!

I absolutely love this unassuming little thing! The sound is fantastic, and digital effects adjustments, even through the phone app, work perfectly. Perfect for someone living in a small apartment – ​​at low volume, you can play with high gain and distortion and still sound great, which is what I've always been aiming for.

From Gear Setup

Best portable desktop amp

Tone wise, this is probably the best of the bunch. The phone app that comes with it is very intuitive. You don't need the app to be able to enjoy the amp but I would recommend installing it anyway. There are features that you don't need that are only accessible thru the app. Surprisingly, the "edge of breakup" tones on this is very tube-like. I wish it was cheaper (it costs more than the equivalent Katana, Positive Grid, etc.), and I wish there was an effects loop (you won't need this unless you want to gig this amp), and I wish there was a Yamaha branded footswitch (I use iRig Blueboard), but all these caveats are not dealbreakers. It's a desktop amp and it does not need all those features.

From Gear Setup

An amp for every occasion

After ditching out amps with 12" speakers (sad reality of living in an apartment) and having integrated to great success small studio monitors with 3" speakers in my bedroom setup I decided to give this amp a try, it should sound and feel as good as my iloud Micro Monitors. Well to my surprise it felt even better! The amp features slightly bigger 3.5 inch full-range speakers (a must for my Piezo equipped PRS), each outputting 15W to a total of 30W of power.

This is a phenomenal piece of gear that every guitarist must try. The convenience of having a totally wireless unit (also using the Line 6 G10 Relay) is amazing and invites you to take it everywhere. But besides this convenience this little fella puts out KILLER tones, Yamaha's VCM technology is still really up to date and doesn't shy away from ANY of the competition, Spider V, Katana, Catalyst... I tried them all and somehow the THR was the one that struck me the most regarding the amp's response to playing dynamics and volume changes on the guitar. Just unreal for a solid state amp. The Gain and Master knobs are the true magic of this amp and offer really impressive pre and power amp interactions. And then the extreme convenience of a global volume output let you dial ANY combination of Preamp and Poweramp at ANY volume. From perfectly civilised to outrageously loud for such a small amp. I have not gigged with it yet, but I have tried some louder settings and man, I really think it can hold up against a loud drummer, definitely suitable for small gigs. I can surely summon the police with ease.

The THR editor app for Iphone and Mac works like a breeze. Bluetooth connection is instantaneous and the handy "audio" knob at minimum position makes sure I don't get scared if my phone rings while I'm playing, and also allow to find perfect blend between Backing tracks and Amp volume. With the app you can access more settings and effects, like different guitar cabinets, a noise gate and compressor, as well as settings for the effects. Worth noting is that all the standard modes on the amp have their own combination of cabinet, and if you change say the noise gate and cabinet, toggle to another mode, and then go back to the previous, it has reseted to the factory setting again. The only setting that is actually globally memorised throughout the modes is the delay type you choose (digital or tape). So I'm not sure why the Reverbs, Compressor, and specially noise gate (which I never use and ruins the special mode IMO) don't behave like this. Fortunately there is a workaround (kind of), saving your changes into presets, my 4th and 5th memory presets are set as effect presets, 4th preset I have the Modern Lead Amp with noise gate off and Plate Reverb and 5th the Classic Special Amp also with noise gate off and Plate Reverb. It wastes two of the five available preset banks, so it's not great. The idea with the presets is that once you recall them you should only mess with gain, volume and EQ, if you touch the effect section or amp mode it will forget your setting and go back to factory setting. For example for preset 3 I have 100% wet delay and reverb with long decay, but if I touch the effect knob just slightly it will reset the whole setting... This is really the only slightly negative point I can find in this amp. But hey, this is designed to be simple and straightforward, not to be a full blown modeller. And I love it's simplicity and the factory settings for the effects are nicely tuned. I just really wished the effects types (Gate, Compressor, Reverbs and Modulation) would be globally set like the Delay Type.

I wont stretch to much on commenting on the amps, you have all the classics emulated and all share the same quality overall, of course I have my preferences, the Modern Clean, all the Crunches sound terrific, Classical Lead is amazing Marshall emulation, and the special modes are ultra responsive to volume changes.

The flat mode is also nice to achieve Solid State like tones or to plug other instruments. The piezo, mixed feeling, the mic emulations are not that great IMO, but the gain knob acts as a blend between piezo pickup and microphone emulation, in in between you can get very nice acoustic tones, I just don't really like it all the way to mic side. None of these modes feature cabinet sections.

The effect section are OK, not being the strongest trait in this amp, but their more than decent and good enough for me to ditch any effect pedal, I'm not interested in using external effects that defeat the wireless features. The amp features Compressor, Noise Gate, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, Digital and Tape Delays, and 4 Reverbs (Spring, Plate, Room and Hall). Each effect has control (via THR editor) over classic parameters such as tone, speed, depth, mix, delay time and repeats, reverb decay and pre-delay, etc. Very nice to have them on board. I just wish there was a wow and flutter parameter for the tape delay, as the stock is a bit too much fluttery for me. I just stick to digital delay with tone all the way down.

Finally there are the extremely cool Line Outs, which is just awesome to have since it turns this amp into a head amp that can go direct to a PA or sound interface.

The USB out works well and provides low noise and nice level at any gain setting. Unfortunately it's fixed 16 bit, with choice of running at 44 or 48 Khz. Not a big deal since you have the line outs, but worth noting. You do have the possibility to choose between Amp output or DI output for clean recording or use with other amp simulator VST's.

One last comment regarding the aux in... If you think this is a stone age feature you are wrong. You can use it with the line outs to create a Post Power Amp FX Loop! For example, you take the stereo line outs into a stereo looper/delay, then the outs of the pedal adapted to a stereo trs mini jack into the aux in. How cool is that??

Positive points:

• Classy looks (my girlfriend loves it)
• Possibly the best overall wireless desktop amp, portable and lightweight
• Line 6 GT10 integration
• Incredible dynamic response and volume
• Top notch amp sims with amazing pre and power amp interaction
• Great bluetooth integration for music playback and THR editor
• Line outs are a great bonus and make it possible to use as main amp in gigs and rehearsals

Negative points:

• Very weak headphone amp (can't drive my 80ohm Beyerdynamics)
• USB out limited to 16 bit
• Missing global settings for the effects
• Only 5 presets available
  • A bit on the expensive side