Every beginner or amateur guitarist is looking for a simple option for connecting a guitar, while being as functional as possible and not costing a lot of money. MFX 20 fully satisfies these qualities. This combo is an excellent option for both the bedroom and the country house, or a small impromptu stage. I have been using it for over a year now, and it has performed excellently in all scenarios.
Briefly about the really unobvious strengths of this amplifier: 1. Design. It's very solidly built and all the buttons and switches work really well even after a long time and even after my little daughter fiddled with them a lot.
2. Sufficient power for most scenarios. At home I play at a quarter power, but I had enough power to play in an open space in a country house with other musicians, the whole neighborhood could definitely hear us.
3. Parallel path of effects. Usually effects are applied to the guitar channel sequentially, and at the output we get the sound in the effects. This combo features two parallel channels that are mixed at the output into one signal: a guitar channel and an effects channel. This allows you to fine-tune the volume of the effects mixing with the guitar sound in a more subtle way than simply adjusting the effect volume level
4. Good reserve of low frequencies. The closed design of the combo amplifier, together with a sufficient diameter of the speaker (usually for this money we get a smaller speaker, devoid of low frequencies) gives a good low end that allows you to realize your desires. I even play through it at home using my bass guitar, and with the right setup it fits perfectly into the backing track mix.
5. Digital things. USB and bluetooth technologies make life a lot easier. It’s very easy to turn on a backing track, metronome, or YouTube video from your phone, playing along with it, it’s just as easy to connect a combo amplifier as an audio card, and without plug-ins, directly record demo audio with the desired sound into your computer or smartphone. Oh, there is also a good tuner for tuning before recording.
6. Flexible sound. The combo implements all the necessary patterns of guitar sound: clean (which, by the way, can be overloaded after 2/3 of the gain position), thick blues British crunch like the AC30, piercing lead sound of Fender amps, and two types of distortion sound, one low and velvety for good riffs, another biting with a good emphasis on mids and highs. Having played guitar processors occasionally, which have a lot more tonal options, I realized that this combo amp has enough audio channels for any scenario.
Now about the disadvantages, unfortunately, they also exist: 1. It is impossible to edit presets. If you saved the sound, you can’t adjust it anymore, you can only re-record it to another one. Therefore, these are more likely presets for specific tasks than setting up universal sound options.
2. The setting knobs operate in stepwise manner. In principle, this is not a disadvantage, but it does not seem to work like the analog combo knobs.
3. The sound from the aux output does not simulate a guitar speaker. The sound is sharper than when playing through a speaker. on the other hand, by turning the high and mid frequencies you can achieve an acceptable result, and I play with headphones quite often.
Of course, this is primarily an inexpensive combo for the home, for hobbyists. But if you don’t play professionally, don’t work as a musician, but play at home for fun a few days a week to relax and have fun, then this solution can be considered very interesting for the price. It will give you everything you need in one box for experimentation, introduce you to different guitar sounds and effects, and allow you to quickly (sometimes this is very important) record high-quality demos before inspiration wears off or your free time runs out.
