Quick Hit: Vox Adio Air BS Review

Vox’s 50-watt Adio Air BS bass amp can certainly serve as a simple desktop “practice amp,” but it’s also loaded with onboard amp models and effects, works as a recording interface, houses an onboard tuner, and is equipped with Bluetooth for both streaming music and pairing with the amp’s free Tone Room app.

The personal boom-box-sized amp is powered by plugging in or with eight AAs. It’s unmistakably Vox-looking, with its diamond-pattern grille cloth protecting the two 3" drivers. The topside command center has a multitude of knobs and buttons to run all its features, but it’s a smart and clean layout making it quite user-friendly straightaway. I dove right in to the “modern” amp model and topped it with the onboard fuzz effect for a pleasantly full, grinding rock tone. When I got the easy to use Tone Room app running on my iPhone, it allowed for a host of deeper tone tweaking and explorations of preset sounds.

One of them was “wah funk,” a combo of the app’s T Wah and hall reverb effects going through Vox’s “classic normal” tube-head model, which served up a convincingly warm and funky auto-wah sound. The Adio Air BS is a fun little amp and I was impressed with the low-end and volume it could muster through its diminutive speakers while traveling down its rabbit hole of modeled tones.

Sure, you can spend much less than $300 for a 50-watt practice amp, but the Adio Air BS is much more than just a practice amp, if you take advantage of all it has to offer.

Test gear: Orange O Bass, Fender Precision

Recorded with Fender Precision using Adio Air BS as interface in Garageband.
Clip 1 - Wah funk preset. EQ flat.
Clip 2 - Modern amp model_Gain at 1’oclock, treble at noon, middle at noon, bass at 11 o’clock. Fuzz effect engaged.