All user reviews of 2/5 for the Vox DA5

This is a small, portable digital amp with 5 watts. It's basically only good for practice. There is one guitar input and a mic input in the rear of the amp. There is some amp modeling, 2 clean amps, 3 blues, 2 "crunch" settings, 3 Hi Gain amp models and one labelled "drive". There is a gain knob, a tone knob, and a master volume. There are also effects, which include reverb, delay, chorus, tremolo, flanger, phaser, compression, auto-wah, and some combinations. There's two buttons and a knob for adjusting the effects.

UTILIZATION

The general setup is easy. It gets a little more difficult when you start working with effects. The manual explains how to use them but even then it is time consuming and sometimes annoying to really adjust the effects to your specifications. The most annoying thing about it is that there are two knobs that adjust everything, so you either have to remember what each knob does for each effect or refer back to your manual every time. This gets old quickly. The manual is pretty clear about explaining everything, but it shouldn't be necessary to refer to it all the time.

SOUNDS

The amp is pretty good at simulating a diverse array of sounds. Don't expect pristine tone though. This amp really doesn't have too much too offer in terms of quality. You can get a rough idea of certain sounds from playing with Different amp settins, and the effects can be cool in limited amounts. Overall though, you'd never do anything beyond practice with this if you knew better. Recording and gigging are not an option with this. If you need to work on solos in your dorm room, this might be a great idea though. Considering this, I was a little more lenient with my grading.

OVERALL OPINION

I've been using it for two years. I didn't have much use for it after I moved out of my freshman dorm, once I had more room to practice and was able to use a bigger, better amp. I don't like the effects, as they tend to sound pretty terrible most of the time and are somewhat hard to use. I tried some other models, some by Marshall and Fender (the model numbers escape me now). Those definitely sounded better but did not have the same effects. This is the issue that is the deal-breaker. I think the price is pretty reasonable for this amp, considering I didn't pay too much for it, but you have to make sure you're actually going to get enough use out of it. Also, be aware that it breaks easily; my roommate didn't admit it, but he broke it accidentally somehow. I had to replace it and i realized later that it probably wasn't even worth. I'd say that unless you really don't have the little bit more cash necessary to buy a better practice amp, stay away.