Hotone Nano Legacy Mojo Diamond

Jeg har længe godt kunne lide lyden af en klassisk Fender Tweed forstærker der begynder at forvrænge en lille smule, men Tweed forstærkere er desværre rimelig dyre, og de fleste kun tilgængelige som combo'er, hvilket ikke er hensigtsmæssigt når man bor i en lejlighed der praktisk talt ikke er lydisoleret. Den her lille forstærker gør egentlig et ret godt job i at efterligne den lyd.

Forstærkeren har de features man forventer af en moderne forstærker: 3-bånds EQ, Gain, Master Volume, FX Loop og selvfølgelig input og speaker-output. Derudover har den også AUX Input og udgang til høretelefoner. Hvordan de har pakket alle de features ind i sådan en lille forstærker aner jeg ikke, men de features jeg har brugt indtil videre virker upåklageligt. Forstærkeren er stort set på størrelse med en standard BOSS pedal, måske et par millimeter større, men det er marginaler vi er ude i her, så den vil nemt kunne klemmes ned på et pedalboard, hvis man gerne vil have en god clean back-up forstærker, og har plads på sit pedalboard.

Det eneste minus jeg lige vil påpege er, at knapperne til at styre Gain, Volume og 3-bånds EQ er rimelig små og sidder meget tæt, så det kan være lidt bøvlet at indstille den præcist. Derfor kun 4 stjerner i betjening. Men overordnet er det en overraskende god forstærker, der heller ikke koster det helt store beløb.

HoTone Nano Legacy Mojo Diamond

I bought this little amp for home use together with the palmer greenback cabinet.

First impressions;
I seems surprisingly sturdy built, and has a nice weight to it. Housing is all metal. Good rubber feets that attach very well to the surface you put it on. Pot-meters has a nice resistance and feels tight when you turn them. In the package there is labels you can put on the pots for easy locations of them, because the labels underneath is really small and hard to read. However you don’t need them. All you have to remember is that Gain is on the left, Volume on the right, tone is the ones left in the middle. It will look way better without the stickers. Ok, so then I plugged it in and fired it up. As I am mainly interested the clean sounds. I put the gain on nine o’clock and volume on full. All tone controls on twelve o’ clock. Together with my Ibanez jazz box it brings me really nice and jazzy cleans.. Volume adjusted to neighbour friendly volume with lowering the output of my pickups.. Just great!

Ok, so now the other way around; Gain on full and volume on nine o’clock. I am a fan of tube amps, mainly because it is so easy to find the sweet spot where you have really nice clean sounds when you pick the strings gently, and when you use a little more force it breaks up in a beautiful, mellow bluesy way. Well, this is not a tube amp. You have distortion, and you can to some extent control it with your attack on the strings… I’ts just not a tube amp in the way it breaks up. The amp has an FX-loop and a line out which I haven’t tried out yet. The «tube amp problem» could probably be fixed with a pedal in the tube screamer family, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

My preliminary conclusion; It is a great litte amp for home use. It will probably not keep up with a loud drummer without breaking up. I wish it had a built in reverb. It seem a little bit harsh to not give it five stars all over, but it is what it is. For me at this point in life, it is just perfect. The over all must be five stars considering the price point. … Oh, and I almost forget to mention that it adds no hum what so ever.

I really like this. It has a great Fender-type sound and would really be worth taking out on a gig just in case your main amp blew. Brilliant for recording.
It's tiny...much the same size as a foot-pedal, and comes with its own adaptor.
I use mine with a reverb pedal in its effects loop, into a 1x12 cabinet, and it gives a great sound.
They make other ones to emulate Marshall, Mesa, EVH, Vox but I haven't tried those.
Seriously, buy one