Joyo MA-10E Portable Guitar Amp

I was very skeptical about this amp, but I was getting a guitar and I needed a small amp for my apartment. I bought it based on previous reviews.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the sound quality. It is simple in features but you really need little more than clean and OD for a practice amp. I also use it a speaker for my phone and computer and it sounds very good (with a little EQ on those devices), noting that since this is a guitar amp, it is mono, so playing music off it will leave certain parts out.

EDIT: after a little over a year using it, I discovered that the battery source does not work, which is sad because a repair for that would probably be around the same price as the amp. I wish I'd checked that while my warranty was still good. I have upgraded to an Orange Crush 35, but REGARDLESS, I think I would buy this again for a portable yet great practice amp.

Since I didn't have a more fractional rating system, I resorted to giving this small amp a 3.0/5.0, though the grade should have probably been slightly higher, given the price point (but not a full 3.5, mind you). Why?

Well, on the plus side, the Joyo MA-10E is:
- Decently equipped for its price, providing both a clean and an overdrive channel, as well as a Gain control.
- Rather decently sounding on the overdrive channel, especially if you use it on batteries (it uses 6 AA batteries), which eliminates the inherent noise that these amps seem to have when plugged in an outlet.
- Easy to use and understand.
- Among the few mini amps to come with an included power adapter (see how expensive these can be for other brands).

On the minus side, though, the Joyo MA-10E is:
- Very quiet for its supposed power. A Spark Go, for example, which is 1/4 its size, will sound about two times louder (I know these are different brands, but why take up so much size with a speaker you won't use?). This is very visible on the clean channel which is very weak, even compared to smaller amps.
- Kind of bland, especially since it lacks any kind of reverb.
- Pretty noisy on outlet power, so you might consider a noise gate.
- Mediocrely built, which is something you'd expect from a plastic amp. It doesn't look bad at all, but you won't have any great surprises either. My main problem was with the foil that was meant to protect the device and which ended up blocking its knobs and buttons.
- Prone to having its on/off button switched, as it is poorly placed. Not a problem if you run on outlet power, definitely a problem if you run on batteries.

All in all, for this fantastic price, the Joyo MA-10E is a great bargain, just don't expect too much of it.

It's literally 30 Euro with an included PSU. You can't really go much cheaper than that. And for the price, it does its job. It is small (similar size to Katana Mini, a little bit larger) and plastic, so it sounds sort of boxy, the quality isn't the greatest, but you can still get nice tones out of it if you play around a little. But let's be honest, nobody buys an amp like this and expects a top-notch sound quality.

Both clean and overdrive channels work well. Build quality looks pretty good, the plastic is solid (oddly battery cover seems to be made of different plastic to the rest of the casing but it's okay quality-wise too) and the speaker mesh is metal. It does buzz on PSU power, but not as much as I feared it would and the buzzing is barely noticeable when you have fingers on the strings. A clip-on grounding cable would probably do the job too.

I bought it along studio monitors to have a small, handy mini-amp for whenever I want to go somewhere else to play or whenever I'm too bothered to actually plug into my virtual amp setup but still want to practice. And for that, it does its job perfectly well. It fits in a regular backpack easily, and you'll still have plenty of space.

I have no idea whether I received a defective unit, or it is supposed to be so noisy, but I found that buzzing unbearable. Having tried plugging it into two different wall outlets and used two different guitars as well as two different instrument cables, I finally gave up and put it back in its box to be returned for refund. Yes, it is small, affordable, relatively well made, and the concept of a desktop amplifier definitely has legs (as proven time and time again by Yamaha and other manufacturers), but when the buzzing is literally as loud as the guitar (possibly, even louder!), what is the point?