"It's nice, but not nice enough"
This reviewer purchased this item from Same Day Music.
Sound:
Amp simulations sound nice, and the included FX presets are just OK. Not a total waste of electronic components, but did not blow me away either, not even close.
Feature:
Give me lights, buttons and knobs and you can keep me entranced for hours on end. The flexibility of this unit is great, lots and lots of options and settings to play with. However, the unit was damanged in a flood, and I didn't get a chance to really play around with it as much as I wish I had, but I wasn't impressed enough by it from what I DID do with it to make it worth paying to get it repaired.
Ease of Use:
It's not very intuitive, but relatively easy to figure out; even more so if you read the manual. Once you understand it, it's pretty simple. I doubt the average person will be able to get the best from it by pulling it out of the box and winging it.
The footswitch is nice, but since you have to access the unit directly to change banks, it's rather limited in real usefulness.
Quality:
I don't like the plastic housing (though I suspect this kept the price down), also the lack of an on/off switch is a terrible idea; who wants to keep plugging and unplugging the thing all the time? On the other hand, the carrying bag is awesome.
Manufacturer Support:
I always rate support at '5' if have never used it, and I haven't needed to use support.
Value:
Not a bad price, but unimpressive sounds make it less a value than it would otherwise have been. It's great as an amp simulator, but as an FX box, it leaves much to be desired.
The Wow Factor:
Ever talk to a woman on the phone who you've never met, and she sounds so alluring and beautiful, but then you meet her and you're either just not all that impressed or it takes all your strength to keep from running away?
Well, if you've had an experience like that, then you understand my feeling about the V-Amp. That's what it was like for me. I didn't want to run away, but found myself really wishing I'd gone with the Zoom B2.
Overall:
I danced back and forth between this and the Zoom B2, and settled on the V-Amp because it has more patch locations and seemed to be more flexible, given all the buttons (see my FEATURES comment).
However, I have to say I was not really impressed with the sounds I was able to get. While I liked the unit and the sounds, what I mean is, they didn't blow my sock off. Usually, I can come up with some very nice composition ideas just from playing around with different sounds, but this unit inspired nothing. Maybe two or three of the sounds I played with (and I did go through all the presets and amp combinations) were able to excite me, but that's it. Overall, I feel I made a $100 mistake and should have gone with the B2 instead (see my review of that product).
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