Joyo Bluejay

When writing this, Bluejay has been my go-to home practice amp combined with a Harley Benton 212 vertical cab (original Celestion V30 speakers still inside, yet...) for about a year and a half. This little wonderbox packs a punch.

One channel with Normal or Bright voicing under a switch. Controls: Gain, Tone, Volume - couldn't get much simpler than that. Preamp has one 12AX7 tube, the power section being solid state. FX loop on the back. Includes Bluetooth connection for jamming with your favourite tunes - haven't tested, so can't comment. Robust metal housing, external transformer. (A slight minus for me, but saves the space, so...)

The sound: totally believable blues rock machine on its own and even surprisingly loud. You get the soft tube characteristics from the preamp, so I'd say the hybrid technology works here very well. Although tone stack may seem limited at first because of one control knob only, in action it gives you wide range of tones, all usable IMO. (Ive mainly used normal voicing, though - bright just doesn't do it for me.) To my ears the sound profile sounds a bit scooped in the mids, in the way of Fender style amps.

On its own it's not a gain monster, but hell yeah its an excellent pedal platform! Set this to slight breakup and drive your favourite fuzz or distortion in it, and the world melts appropriately. I have been very surprised to see that this small box has become my go-to Doom head in home practice.

Snobs will scoff, but ignore them. Good gear is good gear. This may look like a lunchbox plastic toy, but looks deceive. With the price of a lower moderate range pedal you can get a 20W head with this sound - it's a no brainer to have as an practice / home studio amp. One star out for small things: working but non-tweakable tone section, futile Bluetooth gimmick (subjective, I know) and no footswitch jack (I'd like to select between Normal and Bright modes by foot, however little I have use of the Bright setting), and somewhat fragile solution of wall wart instead of internal transformer (this being less of a hassle if you're not going to gig with it). 4 stars as an amp head in general, 5 stars with this price tag.