Whether you’re on the go or in your bedroom, each of these 10 headphone amp options represent a quick and easy way to plug in for silent guitar practice—without having to look at that phone you’ve likely been staring at all day.
joyoaudio.comHeadphone Amp
This pedal-sized headphone amp from OBNE will, of course, allow a guitarist to play silently, but also permits a buddy listener thanks to the second 1/4" output jack.
Headphone Amp
This true-bypass amp is enclosed in cast aluminum and features a pro-grade switch for long life, Neutrik jacks, audio-grade active components, and military spec silver-plated wire.
amPlug 2 Clean
Boasting a folding mechanism that rotates 180 degrees, this little Vox was designed to deliver fat, boutique-inspired clean sounds, and features effects for delay, chorus, and reverb.
I-Plug
This little amp with built-in overdrive runs on a pair of AAA batteries, has controls for volume, tone, and gain, and houses an auxiliary in for external devices.
Headphone Amp
This plug-and-play amp from EHX is ultra-lightweight and portable, and is built to handle high-gain pedalboard input so you can dial up your favorite tones and let it rip—silently.
Rock Bug
This 9V-battery operated rehearsal unit was designed to deliver the audio sensation of playing through a good tube amp. Features include open- or closed-back cab simulation and an XLR out.
AxeHead
Offering up to 15 hours playing time from each USB charge of its lithium-ion battery, this headphone amp houses controls for volume, tone, and drive to dial in clean to dirty.
Pocket POD
With 32 amp models and 16 cab models onboard, this battery-powered, headphone practice unit (and much more) can serve up tones to feed your inspiration whenever and wherever.
Bighead
Designed for low enders, this amp features a 2-band EQ, has a runtime of eight hours on its rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and functions as an interface or analog preamp as well.
Guitar Ace
These headphone amps provide built-in compression and an auxiliary stereo input/output, as well as settings for clean and two different flavors of distortion.
Diagram courtesy of singlecoil.com
We've talked about wiring up a 4-conductor humbucker before, and also dealt with coil-split versus parallel wiring, so now you can apply this knowledge to hot-rodding a guitar with a single humbucker. This 4-conductor humbucker can be located in either the neck or bridge position—all you'll need is access to the start and end of each of the two coils.
Here's the special sauce: Instead of adding an extra toggle switch to squeeze out all possible tones, we'll simply use a standard Telecaster 3-way pickup selector. You can use the switching matrix of this blade-style selector to substitute for a 2PDT on-on-on toggle switch, which is the standard way to get all three possible sounds out of a 4-conductor humbucker. The wiring of the blade-style 3-way switch only needs a little twist and you're done. We'll end up with a single humbucker wiring that yields three sounds, plus master volume and master tone. How cool is that?
each of the two coils.
Let's review. A 4-conductor humbucker offers three potential configurations: standard humbucker wiring (both coils together in series), single-coil-sounding humbucker wiring (both coils together in parallel), and coil-split humbucker wiring (splitting to the south or north coil).
Option 1 is the factory standard for all traditional 2-conductor humbuckers. It's also the way almost every guitar that's loaded with one or more humbucker pickups is configured. It produces a warm, loud, and fat tone with maximum output, and the hum-cancelling function is engaged.
Option 2 gives you a quasi-single-coil tone, but retains the hum-cancelling function. You don't get a crystal-clear Strat or Tele tone, but to me it's at least in the ballpark—maybe closer to a P-90 than a standard single-coil.
Option 3 splits the humbucker in half, shunting one coil to ground and leaving the other coil engaged like a true single-coil pickup. In this mode, the hum-cancelling function is defeated, so you're subject to hum and noise, just as with any single-coil. But don't expect a true Strat or Tele tone from this option. (If that's your goal, there are humbuckers made from two real single-coil pickups. The downside of this special breed is they don't sound great as a full humbucker. As always, it's about compromise.)
Diagram courtesy of singlecoil.com
Here's an important consideration: Splitting to the humbucker's south coil, which is the screw side, is only recommended for a neck humbucker. Splitting to the north coil, which is the slug side, is recommended for a bridge humbucker, because it yields a fuller sound compared to the screw side.
As usual, I'll use the Seymour Duncan humbucker color code to illustrate the wiring. For other humbuckers, a little research will help you translate the Duncan code into that used by the manufacturer of your pickup. You can apply this wiring to virtually any guitar with a single 4-conductor humbucker and a standard 3-way Tele switch.
Fig. 1 is for a bridge humbucker that splits to the north coil, which is the slug side.
Fig. 2 shows the version for a neck humbucker. Here we're splitting to the south coil, which is the screw side.
That's it, folks! Next time, we'll continue with a very flexible mod for all dual-humbucker guitars. Until then ... keep on modding!