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Yamaha THR10ii Wireless
I picked this up in a small music store "Sound Alchemy" in Singapore whilst I was over there. In Singapore, the main place to go for musical instruments is the basement floor of Peninsula Shopping Centre which is near to St. Andrews Cathedral.
As an aside: I was hoping to get to ring the bells at St. Andrews whilst I was there. St. Andrews is famous in bell-ringing circles for being one of the few working bell towers in this part of the world, and because it very recently had a brand-new set of bells installed which, by many accounts, sound and feel great. Unfortunately Coviid happened, and bell-ringing was one of the first casualties of the restrictions.I had been considering getting one of these amps previously when I was in Tokyo and was visiting guitar stores in Ochanomizu and Shinjuku but, at the time, none of the stores had the new mkII model.
It's a fairly basic practice amp, but it also works fantastically as a Bluetooth speaker and, in both modes, it was a bit of a lifesaver (or, at least, sanity saver) whilst I was stuck in my small apartment in Singapore. It was perfect for that environment because it's possible to use at low volumes or with headphones and it can play backing tracks from a phone or PC.
It doesn't have the biggest selection of amp models in the world, but that suits me: personally I just want to dial in a quick and appropriate sound for the thing I'm playing. I don't really care that much if it's an accurate representation of a specific amp.
I've been through the stage of systems that model dozens of well-known amps and of trying to match them to the song I'm learning and I've realized that is a bit of a fools errand. Unless you are specifically trying to re-create a "sound-alike" recording, there really isn't much point in trying to match the tone on a given track. Even the artists themselves generally don't do that. IMO if (as a learner) you are always obsessing about the nuances of an amp model, then you are focusing your mental energy on the wrong thing. Such things are a distraction from learning and playing the guitar.
Of course you want to have appropriate tones and, as a general rule, the THR10II has them. It supports acoustic, electric, and bass guitars as well as a "clean" setting that can be used with keyboards or other instruments. For electric guitars it has clean, crunch, lead, high-gain and "special" (extra high-gain).
The previous THR models came in different physical versions with the "classic" models, but a separate "boutique" and "modern" models sold separately. The THR mkII has all of these combined into a single unit, so for each of the settings you have a choice of amp variants. On the THR30 you can select between these variants on the top panel. On the THR5 and THR10 you have to use the app. The app also lets you tune the tone by setting the amp parameters and the cabinet modelling used, as well as giving you finer control over the effects parameters.
The audio from the THR10II is pretty good for its size. You won't be gigging or even rehearsing with this thing any time soon, but it's perfect for bedroom practice. It lacks a little on the lower bass frequencies, especially when using it with a bass, but it's still good for practice purpose and the sound is always well balanced.
Compared to the Spark 40 amp, I think overall the THR is better. The Spark has better lower bass reproduction (probably due to it's bigger physical size) but always sounds a bit unbalanced and, sometimes, the bass can sound a bit "processed".
The construction of the THR series is rock solid, and it also looks great too with it's looks suiting something which is as much a Bluetooth speaker as a guitar amp. It wouldn't look out of place on the side in most living rooms. When powered on the THR has a nice amber "tube" glow, thanks to a couple of internal LEDs. When I returned from Singapore, I carried this thing as hand luggage with no problems.
I got the wireless version as I see opportunities to use this in the garden in the future. In fact I briefly used it when we had a fire-pit evening a couple of months ago. The battery seems to last for 5 hours or so in use.
It can also support a Line 6 wireless transmitter (at additional cost). This plugs into the top and charges from the THR, so when you want to use it you just unplug it from the THR and plug it into your guitar. I didn't have this in SG, but I picked up one recently in the UK. It's a bit of a gimmick in some respects, but there's situations where I can see it being quite useful, like the garden situation where passing a guitar around people sitting around a fire-pit could be tricky when there's a cable involved. Also, because the amp is physically quite small, with the cable there's always the danger of accidentally pulling the unit over, which wouldn't be good if it's on a high shelf.
I'm not using this amp that much at the moment because I don't need to but I can see myself using it quite a bit on occasions in the future, whether that is in the garden, going to friends or family (when we are allowed) or future business travel.
Cheers,
Keith
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