Harley Benton has expanded its DNAfx practice amp lineup with a super-compact 10-watter with an entry-level $92 price tag.
The DNAfx AmP10 is very much like the MusicRadar-approved DNAfx AmP20, only smaller, and more affordable. Those 10-watts drive a 6” full-range speaker. It is but one Class D guitar amp but with its digital brain it contains multitudes.
Players can avail themselves of four onboard amp models (Clean, Blues, Rock, Lead) covering all the main food groups of electric guitar tone. You know the drill – “sparkling cleans and warm blues tones to aggressive rock crunch and saturated lead sounds,” read the official Harley Benton tasting notes.
And you get some effects to sauce your sound. There is flanger, phaser, tremolo and chorus all nested under the Modulation dial, with spring and hall reverbs, delay, and delay-and-reverb all nested under the Delay/Reverb knob. These multi-modal effects knobs have LEDs to let you know what setting you are in and there is tap tempo for the delay.
There are controls for Bass, Middle and Treble, plus Drive and Master Volume, and once you have dialled in a sound you like you can save it down to one of four user presets.
The idea here is that you’ve got everything you need from a practice amp. So of course we have a stereo headphones output for silent practice. We also have a line in and Bluetooth for playing external audio sources through the amp.
There is also a built-in chromatic guitar tuner. We had a few reservations with the DNAfx AmP20’s tuner – it doesn’t give you a reading of the not, only if it is flat or sharp, but it is better than having nothing.
Harley Benton Fusion IV HH FR review
If you’re looking for a rock-solid modding platform, the Harley Benton Fusion IV delivers enough improvements over its predecessor to make it a tempting proposition for those who don’t mind getting stuck into soldering. If you’re after a great value guitar, it also fits the bill, but you may find that the additional switching doesn’t offer as much as you might think on the face of it.
Other features we like are the weight, or lack of it. The DNAfx AmP20 was no heavyweight at a hair under 6kg but at 4.5kg this really is a grab-and-go option (and the kind of amp you might find yourself taking into the office or the kitchen to snatch some practice time.
We often bemoan LED menus (an invitation to tinker and mess around that we often don’t need) but they can make dialling in sounds a little easier, ditto with online apps.
You don’t have that here but if its bigger sibling is anything to go by, dialling in a sound is pretty easy, even if you don’t quite have such exacting control over the effects. And, again, those presets will come in handy.
The DNAfx AmP10 is available now, priced £69/$92 (approx). Heck, we’ve spent more on that on a tuner. In today’s money that’s loose change. You can pick one up direct from Thomann and see more over at Harley Benton.
