I personally find it sightly infuriating when demoers announce something as gamechanging which is anything but. In this sense TONEX is largely playing catch-up with the industry’s current leaders in that space - Boss, Fender and Nux.

Each of their solutions has compelling reasons for acquisition - but in truth it’s mostly about what core platform you’re mainly subcribed to. If you largely play though Boss Katana Amps like I do - then the Katana : GO is the natural extension for that ...

Whenever I see a pedal like this, I immediately think of the many ’Headphone’ only pedal shows that I attend - for which this ’Easy Listening’ mini pedal would be the perfect headphone amp at the end of any of those pedal-chains.

Inside you have an Analog Amp Simulator circuit - which is voiced to sound like that most classic of Fender ’65 Deluxe Amps. You have just the one control - a Master Volume - and you can connected the pedal direct to a set of headphones, a mixer, or front of house ...

Most of you readers will be aware of the Boss Katana : Go story - where this superb Headphone Device originally launched in March of last year, but had to be retired not too long after - as Fender bought up all those remaining chips used - worldwide, and Boss as a consquence was unable to source more of the same kind. As a result Boss had to seek out an alternative chip which then required the device to be re-engineered to a degree- once the new supply was secured. All of this took time!

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This article was prompted by the recent NAMM show, the new Walrus Audio Canvas Rehearsal in particular, and my thoughts about the big forthcoming UK Guitar and Pedal Shows. This post also hints at the return of a personal favourite!

I initially had the list and visual arranged in alphabetical order - but it made more sense to arrange those devices per the above visual - which has the sort of guitar jack micro multi-fx and headphone amps listed first, followed by the mini, and then compact ...

The Walrus Audio Canvas Rehearsal is an interesting new hybrid device - which combines smart end-of-chain stereo connectivity with a headphone amp, and a practice pedal with metronome and bluetooth backing-tracks playback, as well as AUX-in support.

You can tap in a tempo from 40-250 BPM, and control various parameters of the device via 3 main mini knobs and a handy OLED screen. You also have full MIDI In / Out to control the pedal remotely.

In some ways it competes with the Boss Katana...

Most of you will be familiar with the $399 / €399 / £339 Boss Waza-Air Wireless Guitar Headphone Amp - which delivers the Katana Amp ecosystem within a wireless Bluetooth Headphone Set. The Amps and Effects selection is controlled by a Bluetooth connected Mobile App - and since all the processing is done inline within the Headphones you don’t suffer any wireless lag. That proposition though is rather dear for many, and very much limits the choice and style of headphone you have at your disposal...

Boss re-tools its Waza-Air Wireless Headset to deliver the ’Waza-Air-Bass’ - a dedicated version for Bass Players that is re-calibrated to work better with those lower frequencies.

The same sort of Bluetooth Wireless Headset plus WL-T Transmitter and Mobile App make up this package, while the dynamics have obviously been enhanced to cope with the expanded low-end range. ...

Boss’s new launch kind of brings me full circle on when I started guitar in my teenage years. I had a great guitar at the time - an all-black Ibanez RG440 Roadstar, but you could not really get decent home practice amps in those days as far as I recall - so I ended up with a rather crappy headphone amp - which rendered a singularly flat and undynamic output which did nothing to encourage or inspire playing. In fact I drilled said guitar pretty much to destruction in changing pickups and ...