Behringer V-Tone GM108

The Behringer GM108 is an inexpensive practice amp. This one was $59 at Guitar Center. I wanted such an amp to place near my computer for practice sessions as well as one that was relatively portable for informal jam sessions at a friend's house or at lunch at work. This is what I settled on to fill that role.

The amp is your typical low cost practice amp with a twist. The twist is that it has a built in analog modeler that's a lot like the SansAmp GT2. The amp model switch has selections for 'Tweed' (aka Fender), 'British' (aka Marshall), or 'California' (aka Mesa Boogie). The mode switch selects the amp 'modifications', either 'Clean', 'Hi Gain' or 'Hot'. The last modeling switch is for the speaker and the choices here are 'Flat', for no speaker modification, 'UK', for a closed back cabinet effect, and 'US' for an open back cabinet effect. Other controls on the amp include a Drive knob, Low, Mid, and High EQ knobs, a Volume knob, and jacks for Input, CD Input, and a Headphone out.

Like many low end amps, this amp has a problem with strong bass frequencies and will rattle and clip in a nasty, solid state, fashion. Keeping the volume low and the bass turned back helps but only so much. Another quirk of this amp is that if you use the Tweed setting in clean mode with Drive set at 1 there is almost no output from the amp even when the volume is on 10. My most common configuration with the amp is to have my V-Amp 2 plugged into it. This gives me better tones and gets over the clean volume problem.

After using this amp for several months I'd say that it's not too bad considering the money spent but spending a $100-150 more would get you a much better portable practice amp.