Hotone Nano heads

p90fool

I did a search on here and found there was a bit of a stir about these amps when they came out, but not much since. 

Did anyone buy one and if so what do you think? 

I just want to chuck together a little table top setup for when I'm learning songs at the laptop and these seem fun and fairly versatile, being heads rather than mini combos. 

Danny1969

I tried the British Invasion one which is AC30 voiced into a 4 x 12" and was pretty impressed with the sound for something so small and cheap 

impmann

I had one. Brilliant for the funds - can’t remember why I sold it Tbh. 

PhilKing

I have the Purple Wind - the Marshall one and used it for a gig once, with a 1x10 cab (just acoustic and mic'd vocals too).  It was loud enough to hold its own.  I like it as an amp for a sound but haven't really used it to record with, mainly because I have a Class 5 and a Silver Jubilee.

p90fool

Cheers guys, I've just ordered a British Invasion, watch this space!

57Deluxe

/\ fancied one of these for about 3 years or so now... Spesh after the Kingman demo

Babones

Looks like they have added some more?

Captain Sunset (Soldano SLO)
Vulcan Five-O (Peavey 5150)
Sica Boogie (Bogner Shiva)
Freeze B (Friedman BE100?)

p90fool

Well, I received the British Invasion and was disappointed tbh. Directly into my mixer or my interface it was pretty good, but I tried it through a couple of different combos loaded with nice old Celestions, a Ragin'Cajun loaded 2x10, and an old 4x12 with a mixture of different speakers and it just sound thin, with no depth whatsoever. 

I've run battery powered mini-amps through the 4x12 before now and got better results, the British Invasion made all the cabs sound like a 1x8, and it also had the Joyo AC-Tone style over-hyped treble while still somehow being muffled.

I decided to try the Purple Wind (!) version, supposedly based on a Plexi, that duly arrived and wasn't much better, so they're both being picked up by couriers today. 

I don't think I'm being unrealistic in my expectations, there is no reason a small amp through a 4x12 should sound tiny, I A/B-ed my Champ clone and my JTM45 through big cabs and both amps had broadly the same tone when played clean at low volume, a Danelectro Honeytone and a crappy 5w Crate practice amp were fairly similar too. 

I decided to give up and buy a normal practice amp for home use and was about to order a Fender Champion 40 when I found out a local (well, 30 miles away) music shop had one in stock, cheaper than Andertons or GAK. 

Every indication was that it would be perfect, apparently even having a little TOO much bottom end, so I went to pick it up. 
Plug in, switch on and.....shite, it was also really thin and small sounding.

Is it just me? 

Sassafras

My tiny amp of choice is the ZVex Nano Head. More expensive but sounds like a real amp (which it is) and will drive a 4x12 with a surprisingly varied array of sounds.

Maynehead

I'm using a Mojo Diamond for quiet rehearsals, into an Orange PPC112. I keep the cab at the rehearsal space so I just need to take my guitar and pedal board.

The Mojo Diamond is the cleanest of all of the micro amp models (based on a Fender Tweed), and the idea was to get my drive tones from an Xotic SL Drive, which in turn can be boosted with an EHX Soul Food, thus giving me effectively 3 channels.

For me this works very well. There's plenty of low end and lots of mids, slightly lacking in the top end sparkle, but I'm pretty happy with the overall sound. Certainly serves the purpose which I intended for it.

mbe

p90fool said:

Well, I received the British Invasion and was disappointed tbh. Directly into my mixer or my interface it was pretty good, but I tried it through a couple of different combos loaded with nice old Celestions, a Ragin'Cajun loaded 2x10, and an old 4x12 with a mixture of different speakers and it just sound thin, with no depth whatsoever. 

I've run battery powered mini-amps through the 4x12 before now and got better results, the British Invasion made all the cabs sound like a 1x8, and it also had the Joyo AC-Tone style over-hyped treble while still somehow being muffled.

I decided to try the Purple Wind (!) version, supposedly based on a Plexi, that duly arrived and wasn't much better, so they're both being picked up by couriers today. 

I don't think I'm being unrealistic in my expectations, there is no reason a small amp through a 4x12 should sound tiny, I A/B-ed my Champ clone and my JTM45 through big cabs and both amps had broadly the same tone when played clean at low volume, a Danelectro Honeytone and a crappy 5w Crate practice amp were fairly similar too. 

I decided to give up and buy a normal practice amp for home use and was about to order a Fender Champion 40 when I found out a local (well, 30 miles away) music shop had one in stock, cheaper than Andertons or GAK. 

Every indication was that it would be perfect, apparently even having a little TOO much bottom end, so I went to pick it up. 
Plug in, switch on and.....shite, it was also really thin and small sounding.

Is it just me? 

I use a Champion 40 for rehearsal jams and it can just about keep up with a drummer. My other rehearsal amp is an Orange Crush 35rt which is far superior to the Champion but I can't manage the weight to transport it for jams.

At home, I prefer playing through my Fender Mustang Mini to the Champion. I have a few other mini amps, Laney LR5 and VOX DA5 are good but the Blackstar ID Core 10 is so so.

A recently acquired Randall RD1C  one watt combo is phenomenally good. It has fx loop, speaker out and 4x12 emulated output which I haven't tried out yet.

hassleham

The Mojo Diamond also gets a +1 from me. Sounds great - better than the orange micro terror, in my opinion. I gigged it a few times but I had to sacrifice headroom to get it loud enough to hear over the rest of the band. If you're doing small gigs it does the job, or mic'ing up with a monitor then it's useable for larger gigs!

I've just got it back having lent it to a friend so i'm going to AB it with my peavey classic 30 and see how they compare tonewise. From what I remember, it does a good job at imitating fendery cleans and it takes pedals extremely well.

AND of course, it's an extremely useful backup for gigs, as it'll easily fit in my pedalboard case

LuttiS

Have you seen/tried any of the Joyo Bantamps? They are one trick ponies but they do that trick well... The Zombie (Mesa) Vivo (5150) and Jackman (JCM) sound particularly good..

They are little hybrid lunchbox amps, bluetooth, FX loop, 2 channels.. well worth it imo.

Bridgehouse

Anyone tried the Thunder nano bass head?

p90fool

Lots of food for thought here, but my new rule is to try before I buy, which is a challenge where I live. 

hassleham

@p90fool ;
I'm hoping to take mine to Merseyside guitar show this Sunday, if you're going?

p90fool

That would've been awesome, but I'm rehearsing a new band on Sunday, thanks.