First, build quality. It feels very cheap and any mishandling will break it. Weighs nothing. Hollow plastic feel.

But most troubling is the sound. Pretty harsh. Thin and shrill. And low notes (low E string) sound like they are over taxing the amp. Just bad. The ISF control has only very subtle changes. A real tone control would have better.

The range of sounds is pretty wide, from clean to metal high gain. It's just that they sound poor.

I'm not expecting warm tube smooth sound,just something ok. This fails in my book.

Effects are ok. They can add a bit to the sound. I'm not a huge user of effects normally, so just being able to add a little reverb is good.

Used different guitars and headphones. All the same.

Overall, it feels like a cheap toy, not a serious product

I'm keeping it as it functionally does what I need. But I don't look forward to using it.

The sound aren't good or bad, pretty mediocre. But consider the size and the price, it's a good small headphone guitar amp for practice outside.

The product description makes it sound like it has sophisticated sound qualities. It does not. It is thin, shrill, and the effects are set too high, with no way to reduce the intensity. I tried it with multiple headphones, nothing helped. I'm keeping it because I am taking it on a trip and I'm limited for space. Total crap!

They're fun eat batteries would I buy it again probably not.

This is exactly what it's meant to be. I use this to warm up before getting on stage and use it for practice when traveling on family trips. For those wondering, you can plug this in to the end of you pedal board signal chain and use your pedals with it as well.

I use this device every day, so it goes without saying that I find it very useful. I put on my headphones, plug my mp3 player into the Aux jack with a backing track, and jam out. To others in the room, I am barely making a sound, but to me, it sounds like a massive rock concert. Pretty cool.

The tones on this thing are decent, not as good as my amp, but fully usable. The green channel goes from totally clean to moderate overdrive, I find that I like it set in the sweet spot where light playing is fully clean and digging in more gets a little dirty. The orange channel can also be relatively clean with the gain rolled back and will play that clean/dirty game, but it is with the gain rolled up a bit where this channel shines, has a lot of drive and can get very distorted, which sounds pretty good to me. The red channel is in the metal zone. With metal not really being my thing I can say that this channel has a lot of gain, too much for me, and for that reason I do not use it.

The built-in digital effects range from useful to not good and are limited to one non-adjustable preset each. The delay sounds OK, it is set to about the eighth note of 77bpm, making it usable in many songs. Reverb is also OK, it is kind of a big sounding verb and is set a little higher than I would prefer, but I don't find that it bothers me as I play, and in some songs I rather like it. The chorus. I am a minor fan of '80s-sounding chorus; however, this is not that. It is bad.

The build quality is so so, it's made out of plastic that feels like it could break with a good wack. Still, with it hanging out of the guitar jack as it does, I would rather it break than my guitar, so maybe there is a good balance being struck here. To be fair, I have had no problems whatsoever.

Battery life. I get about 4 or 5 days out of a set of two AAAs playing about one or two hours a day. When I saw how many batteries I was going through, I got rechargeables.

Overall, I like this unit a lot, and I am glad I bought it. It has its limitations, but hey, if you want to get distracted nerding out on endless variables, plug your guitar into a phone or something. On the other hand, if you just want to rock in a way that does not disturb yourself or others, this will do it for you.

This was a Christmas gift for my grandson who owns at least 11 guitars. He says "It works really well and sounds surprisingly good". I would order from Sweetwater again. The service was exceptional.

When I saw this Advertised at Sweetwater I checked it out..Cool..Watched the videos.I Liked it..Plug into the Guitar put Headphones on WOW..sounds Great..I think it has 9-Different sounds..Clean..Distortion..Crunch..and some other sounds..I have a Blackstar Amp i-260 that's Power House..I bought the Fly so I could play in a different room..Overall the Flys Great..Little pricey..It's cool..I'm Happy If you don't want to use your big Amp
Plug in the Fly..Thanks Sweetwater

I know a line signal comes out. just get the right ends on your chord to run out of Headphone jack direct to another amp's input. I have heard blending amps is very common among players. I have amps. I think, I'll buy one of a month of these headphone amps.

I bought this little Blackstar as an alternative to the Vox AC30 headphone amp that wasn't in stock locally. What a great little device!
With subtle adjustments of the dials and the effects, I am able to coax all kind of great tones out of this thing.
Do yourself a favor: don't use little, cheap ear buds. Get a set of decent headphones ( mine are AKG K240's) .
It really has a dimensional sound. It will go from sparkly clean to ripping( musical) distortion and anywhere in between!
Vox makes a number of different versions of theirs, Blackstar has one. If you sit down and really get used to the 3 dials and effects, you can get
so many useful sounds. This thing is fun!

The delay effect does not work!!! I am sure I use tube Blackstar for practice n studio and it rocks but this delay issue is a No Go!!

ok, first I feel the need to manage expectations a bit. This is not gonna sound like a vintage tube amp through a pair of greenback speakers. It is a transistor-based headphone amp for practice. And it is a very good one when you accept it for what it is.

I chose the Blackstar over similar Vox amplugs because of the versatility and listening to demos on youtube and liking the sound of the Blackstar better. It is also $5 cheaper for some reason, despite clearly being made in the same factory/by the same company. I like driving the clean channel with the gain around 7-8. You can get a really nice subtle breakup that cleans up with the guitar volume knob. The crunch channel is also quite good if you keep the gain lower. Don't really use the lead channel for much as its not my style. For FX, I mostly stay on the reverb settings, which sound fine.

I really enjoy the ISF (Infinite Shape Feature) instead of a simple tone knob. When the knob is turned lower, it scoops the mids for a more blackface "American" type sound. When the knob is turned higher, it boosts some of the mids and higher freqencies more for a more "British" sound. To my ear the American side of the dial sounds better.

You also get the aux jack to plug and play along with tracks, which is awesome. It's pretty easy to balance the volumes of the amp and the audio, which is something I was worried about.

I just wish they managed to squeeze a tuner into this thing, then it would be an all-in-one travel option.

Still a great bang for you buck piece of gear, and if something happened to mine, I'd replace it immediately for less than $60.

it's easy to use, sounds very good, easy price, effects add more than they subtract. I do wish they were a little less pronounced. I use it often. I have a maybe $50 head phones. I would recommend something a little better than "Walkman" style headphones. Worth the $ even if for the novelty of it.

I didn't expect a lot out of a $ device but it does what I was wanting it to do. Great for listening with just headphones and not bothering other people in the room. Not a lot of bells and whistles but a clean channel, distortion channel, and delay. I also like the line in to listen and play along with stuff on your phone. I'm giving it five stars due to Sweetwaters outstanding customer service as always.

By far, the best bang for your buck I have spent on Guitar gear. Tones are amazing with all my guitars. You can run a cable from your headphone jack on your phone to the Aux on the Fly 2 and play with backing tracks. I love this thing so much. I highly recommend it.

Let me first state, this isn't a typical amp. There are some harsh reviews I've read, as well as good ones as well. This thing sounds fine. I run it through a pair of Sony studio monitor headphones. I keep my volume at around 3, and each channel sounds just fine. Clean is nice and clear with a nice break up as I turn up my volume, and the dirty gets pretty tight and nasty. I like this product and recommend it. Great for practicing or working on that sound you got ringing in your braincase. Excellent product people, just make sure you have good headphones for it.

So I am writing this review after using it for a week straight and my conclusion is this: great sound for your buck.

I've been reading some of these negative reviews and it's unbelievable that these reviews leave you thinking that this device should sound and act like a $500 amp but in all reality it is not. It's a practice amp used for those situations where noise level is an issue.

It has great tones and great effects. Yes it's very limited, but you're not locked in to any one tone. Roll of on the gain and you have some Texas blues tones. As for the effects, they are good. Not the best, but good. If you're looking to jam out and practice your chops just get it. Don't listen to those negative reviews.

Love it! Don't piss off everyone else in the house now. The multiple sounds are wonderful.

I bought this because I live in apartment, love to play at night and don't want to blast my neighbors. This little amp can give you tons of sounds! Between the delay, reverb and chorus, with 3 channels: clean, crunch, and lead you can get all kinds of tones without pulling out amps, pedals and wires. And the amp sounds incredibly good for a 1x3 amp. If you are even considering this convenient little practice amp, just buy it.
Its totally worth it. At first glance I thought it was a cheap little gimmick, but after trying it out, I was impressed
Read the instructions. You have to hold the on button down for about 2 seconds, then push again to change from clean to dirty, etc.

I like it. Good sound. Wish they could have balanced out the gain structure between the channels, but that's nitpicking. Just be careful with it. Feels kinda fragile. Having the aux input is a nice addition.

So I got this shipped to me today via USPS. I actually tried to get it through a website called Discount Warehouse and they kinda screwed me over so I ordered from Sweetwater instead. Enough about that. Sweetwater came though for me like they always have. So a completely brutally honest review on this thing. It seemed to function ok for what it is. Some of the amp modes were a bit louder than the other ones, I was kinda hoping for transparent gain staging... It did come however with 2 AAA batteries. So I figure out the there's a gain, an american/british mix control and a volume control. So far no noise issues that I have found. The clean tones I found to be very beautiful. The reverb, chorus and delay all worked very well. The amp modes on the side worked fine. There's lead, crunch and clean mode. Very interesting tones. Turning the gain up was different in all the modes had different meaning and that's of course how you get your distortion. Some of the distortions I did not really enjoy but there was one that I kinda liked. Still nothing like using a real amplifier with a speaker in it. I've always been really anal about my distortion sounds, but the good news is you can actually use a real distortion pedal and plug it into it, if you're so inclined. And you can also record with it directly into an interface or use it to go into an effects loop and or a real amplifier if you have the right adaptors.

Overall… you can't really expect much more, I mean it performs the basic functions of a real rig, and it also keeps my family happy if it keeps me from turning on my halfstack at 3 in the morning.

After putting this through all the different setting I could think of, this is what I think of this product. First, I like the size and that it can be rotated and adjusted on my electric depending on the guitar type and if I'm sitting or standing. Second, it has 3 different channel tones (clean, crunch, lead). The clean tone is very nice and the crunch setting is great for the type of rock that I play. The lead setting is disappointing. Third, I like being able to attach these to my headphones to play anytime of the day or night without disturbing others in my house. Fourth, it comes with three built-in effects which is nice.

It's OK for its price but the reason I didn't give it more than 3 stars is that I'm disappointed with the lead channel option.

First of all, What's with all the 5 star reviews for this thing??!! I'm sure it has to do with what you expect from this little device. I have to say that I was underwhelmed by it when I practiced with it. I practiced with it for 2 hours trying all the settings in different configurations. Here's my rundown, I'll start with the negatives because they are glaring to me.

Negatives:
1. Does NOT deliver on the searing lead distortion sound that it has in the video that is on the Sweetwater page for this product, which is one of the main reasons I purchased this. The closest you get to a searing lead metal sound is a muddy, fat, crunch sound. Not sure what was done to achieve that heavy meatal sound. But is you turn up your volume to high to try and get it, it'll hurt your ears.
2. No instruction manual. It's basically easy to figure out, but still...
3. The Chorus setting is TERRIBLE!!! I have a stereo chorus on my large pedal board that is amazing, but the built-in Chorus on this reverberates too much.
4. This ISP wheel is supposed to change the tone between a British tube amp and a modern digital amp. All it really does is change the tone from a little muddy to bright (not effective).

Positive:
1. The size of this product is great for remote practicing on the electric guitar. It's small, compact & I can play my guitar at different locations around the house or other places I want to go practice with out having to take a larger amp.
2. I can practice without disturbing other people in the same room.
3. I wrote above under Negatives, that the best it can do with its distortion is a fat, crunch distortion sound. Well, I play a lot of AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, and blues based rock so that fat, crunch for me is positive (However, still refer to No. 1 under Negatives about lack of metal distortion).
4. Has a nice clean sound and I like the Reverb and the Delay settings.

I'm going to keep this device because I wanted a portable device for my guitar and headphones. I know that you get what you pay for and this is not built to be the same as a larger, more capable guitar amp. So keep all of this in mind!

Blackstar have once again knocked it out of the park!
This little unit delivers with 3 different patches, killer clean, chunky rhythm and a OMG setting
that could rattle your teeth, it fits nicely into the guitar has an Aux and 3 wheels with effects
gain and volume. This blows them all away.

Rick

I read the glowing reviews. Didn't expect much, but hoped it might sound OK. Got what I feared, a less than mediocre sounding headphone amp. Distortion and metal settings are useless, seriously, why bother? Muddy. No sparkle. Nobody plays guitar because of these sounds. Clean sounds are the only marginally useful settings and that means it's merely tolerable.

I spent 2 evenings practicing parts. A G&L ASAT sounded terribly thin. A Nashville Tele sounded good enough to continue playing but still quite harsh. Tonight I worked thru some exercises on my 335 for an hour. When I came back from my break, I just didn't want to put the cans back on my head. That says something. I played acoustically. Bummer. Who writes these impressive reviews? This product is nothing like the reviews I read. Best I can say is that it works, so it gets 2 stars. Build quality is not encouraging. Meh.

...Don't expect high fidelity sound. What it does is allow extraordinarily easy, silent practice in multiple amp modes with some basic effects. I travel a lot and can practice by carrying my guitar, headphones and a Blackstar. I wish I had bought one of these years ago.

Terrific and versatile amp with Very useful Chorus, delay and reverb as well as clean, crunch and lead settings! Colton was my sales rep and he followed up with an email and shipping info. Very pleasant experience!

Sounds great, works well priced excellently.

I have a Helix and a Kemper which I use for recording / live. It is not feasible to practice with them while sitting in the family room watching football. This ampPlug is great and the tone is excellent. Event the overdrive and distortion channels sound warm and tube'y. Perfect for keeping your chops up on the couch while watching Red Zone.

Three different modes, 3 different effects, gain , ISF and volume controls all in a pocket sized package. Can't beat it. Make sure you have good headphones or earbuds. Love to jam along with this and not disturb anyone else.

Purchased this sight unseen and, audio unheard, but I love my little Fly 3, so why not?
Works great for solo noodling, sound quality is pretty good with older iphone headphones equiped with a 1/8" jack. I wish it had one more dial to adjust the level of the effects...
I'd like more features with more robust construction and that is why I dropped it a half a star. In my opinion it's a very good value,

Had high expectations after those 5 star reviews. But, that thing just sounds dreadful to my ears. This takes the fun out of practice very quickly.

First of all, Sweetwater is the best!!! This may seem silly, but to me, it means they are truly devoted to customer satisfaction!! With a previous order, I commented about the free bag of candy they give you...just mentioned I like tootsie rolls better....Lo and Behold, these awesome folks include a bag of nothing but tootsie rolls!! Just so cool, folks!

As far as the Amplug2, I have just recently become a Blackwater fan...and all I can say is it a great tool for private practice...effects INCLUDED!! Buy one or 2 so you can practice anytime, anyplace and still have great sounds!!

SWEETWATER ROCKS!!!!!
A fan for life....

This thing is amazing. Not to shame the other amplugs but this one blows them away. Its plenty plenty loud and has just the right amount of effect on all settings. no hum either. love it and glad I risked getting this on a whim ;D

Ladies and gentlemen, I just received this from Sweetwater and am blown away by the whole experience. After the purchase I received a very nice message from my Sales Engineer, Brent Luethold letting me know he appreciated my business and was available anytime for questions or concerns. How often does that happen when you make a purchase today? Now about the Fly. This little amp is amazing! It takes a few minutes to get accustomed to the button sequences but once you do you now have the best "pocket studio" on the planet. As an engineer and a musician I can only say " how can you do this any better?" Outstanding job Blackstar!