Monoprice 5-Watt, 1x8 Guitar Combo Tube Amplifier with Celestion Speaker - Stage Right Series

This is a great little amp. I love how it sounds. The largest problem is that it is to loud for an Apt building. Even on the 1 watt setting your neighbors will hear you if you turn it up more than half way.

I've been looking for a low watt practice amp that was inexpensive and "all tube", not a hybrid or solid state junk box. The idea was to run my pedalboard thru it to get tones set on all my effects to give me a good idea of what things would sound like when I'm out preforming live with my much larger and louder 30 watt tube amp. After quite a bit of searching, listening to demos, and reading reviews I kept coming back to this little Monoprice 5 watt tube amp. I found a sale price here and grabbed it thinking that If I didn't like it I could easily sell it for what I paid. Fast forward to now and I can honestly say I think this is the best bargain on a low powered small tube amp out there right now! I thought I'd be using it at 5 watts but it was a lot louder than I expected it to be so having the option to run it at 1 watt (still a lot louder than I thought it would be!) was ideal for my next door neighbors who don't appreciate screaming electric guitar power chords and guitar solos after dinnertime the same way I do! Playing clean thru this amp my guitars sound warm and full of sparkle and cranked up it just breaks up in the best way! Sweet sustaining notes and thundering chords just fall out of this thing!!! Kicking on pedals its even better! If you've been looking around and are on the fence about grabbing this Monoprice 5 watt amp trust me I've been there. No regrets here, in fact at the 5 watt setting its easily loud enough to take it with me to rehearsal with Bass Player and Drummer and if I need more thump I can run it thru a 1x12 speaker cab via the "external speaker out" on the back of the amp. How cool is that? Don't know about how it will hold up over a few years but tubes are easy to replace and at the price this amp is a keeper!

I plugged it in and started playing after letting the tubes warm up and it sounded ok. It has nice sounds, very bright, almost too bright, but you can turn the tone down to compensate. I suspected that it had more potential and I was 100% correct. It was obvious it could use a better speaker, which I expected for this price. After reviewing 8" speaker options I opted for the Celestion Eight 15 G8C-15 8 Ohm speaker because: 1. It was only $29 with free 2 day shipping via FedEx from ZZsounds. They even delivered on Easter Sunday! 2. The Celestion website spec's the Eight 15 speaker at 20 Watts, although ZZ's spec's showed it as 15 Watts, which is what the amp came with anyway, so even if it's only 15 Watts that is still fine, but I tend to believe the manufacturer's spec's. 3. I noticed the magnet in the Eight 15 speaker weighed over twice as much than the stock speaker. The difference in the sound was very noticeable right away. Not a little better, the difference was day and night. Now, with the new speaker it sounds wonderful and "chimey" like a fine boutique tube amp. I couldn't believe what a difference the new speaker made and definitely recommend the additional $29 for the upgrade. It's an easy upgrade to do for most any DIY'er. However, it was a real challenge, incredibly difficult, unexpectedly took a lot of effort to remove the chassis because the tolex had bonded to the chassis, maybe excess glue from the tolex? I had to carefully use a large clamp with cushions and a rubber foot to avoid marring the surfaces to apply enough pressure to get the chassis out. I couldn't believe how much pressure it took to break it away from the tolex, but I was able to work it out without damaging anything. This amp takes pedals well. I like to use a Tube Screamer type pedal to get the natural break up at lower volumes and this has worked way better than I expected. I was feeling ok with the purchase even with the stock speaker, but the incredible difference an inexpensive speaker upgrade made encouraged me to write this long winded review. I recommend the amp, with or without the speaker upgrade.

Muy buena compra, excelente amplificador. El sonido de la amplificación es maravilloso claramente de bulbo y con una salida para otras bocinas de más rango. Muy buen amplificador. Lo recomiendo ampliamente !!!

I've had this for three days now, and it's been given a pretty good workout by both me and my son. I play a 335 copy through it, he plays a homemade Tele. First impressions: it's loud, it sounds good, it appears to be well built. It came well packaged in a double box. Outer box had a rip, inner box was fine, amp was unscathed. It doesn't get any simpler than this - a volume and a tone control, and a 1w/5w switch. Controls are good looking white chicken heads with a black pinstripe on them. Red jewel power light looks good. Not a fan of the mirror finish on the control panel. Everything is put together well, the amp covering is kind of a gatorskin sort of texture, fit well, metal corner caps are solid. The handle feels plasticky. The volume and tone controls turn a little too freely for my liking, feel cheap. But there's no crackle or noise when you adjust them. The amp starts to break up nicely when the volume gets around 2 o'clock. It takes pedals well (overdrive and reverb). It has a really good tone, sounds beautiful clean, sounds nasty cranked and with an overdrive pedal added in front. Gets great classic rock tones at reasonable volumes - I don't think there's any way to reproduce Malcolm Young's tone short of a Gretsch double jet and cranked Marshall stack, but this does a very good approximation and won't tick off the neighbours. I run it most often in 1w mode, which sounds like it cuts about 1/3 of the volume from 5w mode, but keeps the same tone. Very useful. There is an extension speaker jack on the back, I've yet to try it. The only criticisms I would have of it are a few things it doesn't have - a headphone out, mp3 input, and reverb would be awesome. Not to knock the amp per se - it's a very basic thing, no bells or whistles, and it fulfils its basic purpose well. Overall, this is an impressive little amp. Dirt cheap, but nicely finished, and with a killer sound.

Es lo mejor qué hay. Un precio increíble y un sonido magnífico. Trae una bocina de 10” así que no se puede pedir que suene como un amplificador grande pero la calidad del sonido es sorprendente. Para quien no tiene o no quiere gastar una pequeña fortuna en un amplificador de válvulas es la mejor opción. Es muy simple y ese es justamente su enorme valor. Seguro está basado en el circuito del Fender Junior, volume y tono es todo lo que ofrece pero por eso mismo es excelente, no hay ningún circuito extra alterando la señal. Un verdadero lujo para los oídos.

Very happy with this amp for the price I paid. It works really well for the 60's style of music I play. For nice full sounding cleans, turn the amp volume up to three quarters aka 3 o'clock (I use the 1 watt setting) and then use the volume on the guitar to bring it down to a manageable level. Since guitar amps can sound a little flat without the help of pedals, I highly recommend using a reverb pedal. An overdrive pedal wouldn't hurt either, since there isn't a lot of natural breakup available at lower volume levels. When I first received this I was probably thinking something along the lines of "sounds pretty good, but is this all it does?". However, over time I've come to really appreciate this little amp. I also own two other small tube amps that I really like (a Vox AC4-TV and a Bugera V5 Infinium) but to my surprise I usually choose the Stage Right over the others. Especially when playing a guitar with single coils or P90s. This amp delivers pure, honest, and clean tube tones and after a year and 4 months I'm still very pleased with how it sounds (but it really does need that reverb pedal to help bring it to life). Bonus pedal tip: To change things up you can use an EQ pedal to scoop out the mids and get some nice Fender-like cleans with this amp.

Buen equipo llego bien embalado, me gusta mucho, sin embargo al final se elevó el precio que iba a pagar por que según en la compra ya estaba incluido aparte del envío gratis estaba incluido el pago de importación y si me lo cobraron cosa que aumentó el precio del amplificador Monoprice que compré, eso fue el unico inconveniente de mi compra.