I’ve been playing the guitar for half of my life, literally. It’s a big part of who I am, and I always have it near me on a stand in my office. I am all about the Marshall full-stack sound, but putting the wear and tear on the tubes just for basic practice and jamming is something I really don’t care to do. Also, I wanted something very small that I could move around and take with me on the road to boating events.

I know I can’t expect too much from a very small amp, but I wanted something that would at least sound decent, and some reverb wouldn’t hurt either. I researched a lot of small amps, and came across the Crate GLX 15. This model had everything - 15 watts with full digital effects and an onboard tuner. That was good enough for me, and I gave it a try and picked one up for $100 new. Not bad at all.

:: Control panel lights up when amp is powered on - click on image to enlarge ::

I’ll say that this little amp doesn’t sound great, but it sounds incredible. Well, relatively speaking of course. The clean channel has plenty of headroom and the overdrive channel has a very good tone to it with more than enough available gain. The sound is so good that I don’t feel the need to plug any stomp boxes or effects processors into this amp, and that’s exactly what I wanted. The onboard effects sound very good and the tuner (located on the top of the unit) is very responsive and accurate.

A single rotary knob selects the effects, which range from variations and combinations of reverb, chorus, delay, flanger, and doubler. The control panel lights up when the amp is powered on, which not only looks great, but is actually useful. There’s also a speaker output, a headphone input, and a line-in for CD or MP3 players. My only complaint is the lack of a footswitch option, which really is a pity for such an otherwise well-equipped and fantastic sounding unit.

:: Simple one-dial control for all effects - click on image to enlarge ::