THR5 10-Watt Desktop Guitar Combo Amp

This amp feels like the cutting edge in 2023. I've played dozens of guitars thru many amplifiers (every major amp modeler, loads of average solid state and computerized amps from the past 3 decades, a few ridiculous tube icons) and I would say that this amp is as good as it's specs can give you. This is the best amp for $200. This is the best amp with 10 watts behind it. There are no unjustified compromises. This Yamaha has expanded fully into its niche and left hardly any room for improvement. The sounds are amazing. This is the most musical amp I've ever owned. You can just crank all the knobs in any direction and something decent will come out. The little dual speakers are perfect. This thing sounds huge. The bass is deep enough that it never feels like its actual size. The amp models are perfect. I don't really use the gain models, but they sound fantastic. The three flavors are entirely distinct and make up a comprehensive collection of lead tones. I'm especially happy with the "Modern" model. It is much more dynamic than your typical pot-and-pans racket EXTREME full-gain amp setting. The clean model has ergonomic headroom, the crunch model is flexible, and they're all vibrantly touch-sensitive. This is not the kind of amp where you think about other amps while you're playing it. It's everything you need for a living room. The sounds you're thinking about are in there, and the doors to get them out are all unlocked. The effects are not knockoff crap. They are real. The reverb isn't a "well, at least you've got one" muddy echo. It's a whole, beautiful, drippy reverb suite that I'd find good enough for a pedal board. Can't say enough good. It feels, looks, and sounds great. It is really the best of everything. I rarely have such unqualified praise for gear. This thing is ergonomic and functional enough to pull me away from Neural for practice and light jamming. It is forward-thinking. The interface is intuitive, and the controls are well-tuned and thought out. It has set a new standard for me; my old mini amps are basically useless now haha. Here are my dumb little Cons: 1. I wish it had a 3-band EQ. I don't need it. This tone knob is good. I just want it. 2. The tuner has less polish than the rest of it. I use it often, but accessing it is clunky. Turn the amp on, wait for it to wake up enough for the tuner, press and hold the Tap: Delay. Don't press it too soon. Don't release it too quickly. Oops, you missed somehow. Try again. And you've got that big ugly LCD screen just for this. The rest of the amp feels and looks so great that this little headache sticks out a lot. Maybe I'm dreaming, but I'd have paid extra for a cute little LED array and a dedicated control. 3. Need a computer to access everything. This amp has a built-in compressor and presets! You gotta plug it in for that, tho. At that point, I'd rather use modeling software and get literally everything all at once. I wish I had a compressor knob sometimes. I really want all the controls from the bigger models, but this wattage is perfect and it'd feel dumb doubling my wattage just for presets. These cons aren't a big deal, but they all definitely make the amp feel less like the "small model" and more like the "budget model" when the rest of the amp says the opposite. I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend quite this much on a practice amp. I'm glad I did. It isn't a "practice" amp. It just does that really well too. What a cool little instrument.

Awesome sound for such a little amp. Tones are incredible for such an affordable package. I own a kemper profiler but even that takes a lot of rigging. I think this little guy is a perfect gift for a beginner or advanced guitarist as it's small, super portable and sounds like a champ. I didn't expect it to be this loud too. Wish I had amps like this when I first started learning. No need for pedals or modelers to get going. I'm definitely looking into the big brothers now. [Thr10/ Thr30]

Live in a 1 bed in NYC. More than enough volume for my apartment - I play it at around half capacity (master/gain/volume) and it sometimes makes me nervous about noise complaints. Love the built in tuner and metronome, as well as the built-in effects. Pretty much all you need is this lil thing and a guitar and you're good to go. Made getting started really easy.

This is a good practice amp and I'm happy with it. At the time of this review this is the base model in the THR line so it doesn't have all the features of the more expensive units, but it's good for practice and low volume jamming. You can get decent clean and high gain tones and it has built in modulation, delay and reverb effects. My only complaints are minor. When using the amp knob to adjust the reverb and delay I find the lowest settings to be way more effect in the mix than I would normally use. For a practice amp that's not a deal breaker, and you have better control of the effect mix using the THR app on your computer. And you can't save presets. So considering this is the base model and it only takes a bit to dial in a good tone for practice that is also not a deal breaker.

Excellent sound! I like the compact size too.

Best sounding amplifier that you can buy in this price range, for sure, and Yamaha makes amazing musical products. The perfect sized amplifier sounds incredible, with any guitar, has a wide variety of possible sounds, extremely valuable amp for what you pay for it. Never been happier with a new amplifier. Yamaha is always my favorite choice for guitars , and technology. Top of the line

This is an awesome amp. A bit on the high side, but in this case, you get what you pay for. First I tried the Blackstar FLY3PAKGREEN. Not a bad set up if all you want to do is hear yourself. I will offer my review on that product, but I would not go to it again unless ... that was all there was. On the other hand, it was just ~$100. So, instead of two speaker cabinets, you get them house in one at twice the price. However, for twice the price I get 5x better quality and fun. I do travel for my job and take this with me on my trips. There are plenty of options for sound and I even run this to my acoustic amp if I really want some sound. However, with this by itself, there is plenty of sound. I have dropped this one *OUCH* but it has kept pumping out sound. I have to be careful when plugging in my acoustic guitar because I can get lots of feedback especially on the distortion settings, but not so with my electric. Since this is for travel, I don't take my acoustic. I use my Traveler Guitar for this purpose. For as small as this is, it sounds really nice. Much better than I expected. The construction is a metal cabinet with a solid metal handle. It has a tuner onboard which is really nice. I used to use the power cord (no pun intended) to run this, but am using batteries. Alkaline batteries are cheap & I like not having the chord around so that I can snag it and drop it ... again.

Received it and it goes dead after a minute of use. fixes when replugging in jack but it doesn't make sense to have to do that, it makes the amp useless. unfortunate because it sounds pretty good otherwise.

Taking it out of the box, it seemed sort of small. That first impression was replaced with being impressed with it's retro design and solid build. The handle is not flimsy as some reviewers have suggested. There's a built-in tuner which is handy. There are five Amp sounds: Clean, Crunch, Lead, Brit Hi and Modern, that reproduce popular amp sounds. In addition, there’s an Effect knob with Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, and Tremolo. There's also a Delay/Reverb knob with Delay, Delay Reverb, Spring and Hall. Finally, there's Gain, Master and Volume knobs. All together, the Yamaha THR5 can create a wide variety of sounds & effects. The general audio quality is very good and it can get relatively loud. Depending on the patch cord used, there might be a slight buzz. Lastly, there’s a USB socket and supplied software for connecting it to a computer. All in all, a very capable, great sounding mini-amp that takes up very little space and looks good. I'm impressed.

This mini Yamaha amplifier is a bit expensive but, at the same time, really good and easy to use. The sound quality is astonishingly impressive. I was about to buy a different brand but I was convinced by a professional musician to go for Yamaha instead and that I wouldn't regret it. It is a mini amp; it is only 10 and a half inches long by 6 and a half inches high, and is light in weight. It has a bit of a vintage look, and, when activated, the interior lights up with an amber color similar to an old lamp amplifier. What is nice about it, is that you can connect an auxiliary device to it (such as a phone or a recorder, with the provided wire), and the volume control of the amp does not have any effect on the output of the device connected. A disadvantage I see, for the price, is that Bluetooth technology (for the auxiliary device connection) should have been added to this mini amp. Beside's that I love it. I highly recommend it !

This "little gem" sounds great and is very versatile.... works with batteries or included power adapter. When combined with the available Android THR app ($11.00 cdn and we'll worth it) it has most of the capability of the THR10 with a $100. saving. I have tried some of the other practice amps and imo this amp sounds much more realistic....I found the others had a much more processed sound. Yamaha is known for quality products and this is a very well made and thought device that has me playing and enjoying my guitars more. You do have to be careful when using battery power....if pushed too far with gain and volumes it will cut out and loose power. Once you know and adjust for limitations it works just fine. Use good quality batteries to improve performance.

Very impressive little amplifier. The tone is so full and tasty, yet its the size of a lunch box. The built in effects are pretty slick too. For the price I think it's a superb piece of kit, and I'm super happy with it.

It seems like I got off on the wrong foot with this amp, and I wanted to share my experiences to save you some time. After some research, I liked that this amp was powered by AA batteries, but I wasn't sure how many batteries it took. Yamaha's online resources, and various newsgroups didn't seem to be much help. I ordered a rechargeable 8-terminal charger with 8 x AA NiMh 1.2V batteries. It turns out this was the magic number. The amp in fact takes all 8 x AA batteries. Learning point #1: This amp is powered by 8 x AA alkaline or rechargeable batteries. Speaking of the adapter, the model I received had this missing from the box, but was promptly sent separately by the seller. Learning point #2: the adapter for this amp is a 15V, 3A positive tip DC adapter that resembles a laptop adapter, and is common to the THR series. Now about software - I was intrigued by the idea of editing sound options through USB. I read online that you can download software to do this. The box came with a "Get CUBASE AI now" flyer with a download access code, so I went to click on the download with my shoddy wireless connection. The download link was for "Steinberg Download Assistant", and at a weighty 108 MB, I figured it was big but worth a few minutes wait to play with the amp. It turned out to be a program to download CUBASE AI, which was a whopping 15 GB. After several failed download attempts (connection failed, etc.) my poor little laptop downloaded this overnight, plugged directly into the router. This morning I was eager to install CUBASE to start playing with the sounds on my amp. The lengthy install also added some extra supportive software along with it, like C++ 2017, some other drivers, and a smattering of third party applications. Finally it loaded, asking for an activation code I was fortunate enough to write down yesterday, and brought me to a big recording interface window. Where are the controls for my amp? After a quick google search, I discovered that the software I was actually looking for was freely available through the Yamaha website downloads section, no download code required. The two files I actually needed were the Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver, and the THR Editor V1.1.0 for my OS. Both files together occuply less than 10 MB. On the bright side, if I ever want to record and produce music, I have some free software to learn, or I can just delete CUBASE and get my 15 GB back. Learning point #3: RTFM (download instructions were in the manual). On to the amp itself. Wow what a powerful little guy! The two x 5W speakers fill a room quite nicely, waning a bit (understandably) on the lower end. The physics of a smaller speaker just can’t deliver bass as well as a larger one, but at a lower volume performs admirably well. I bought this amp to play guitar for my little guy at night. He likes a bedtime song, and I like the practice. Power is therefore not an issue, but it is there if I need it. Lots of effects are considerably split between two potentiometers. I like the little fake orange tube-amp glow. I like the solid metal construction of the amp. It feels bulletproof. I also like the look of the front grating. It is vintage-meets-modern. I also appreciate the built-in tuner which is responsive and easy to use. Yamaha marketed this amp as "A new kind of amp", and I can see why. What's new about it in my opinion is the reduced size. This amp has all of the aesthetics of a lunchbox amp head, and I suppose in a way it could be used like one, with the headphone out used as a line out for a powered cab. But the USB out (including audio out through USB - thank you!!!), the easy-to-read knobs, the many built-in effects, and the fact that this battery and wall-powered makes this amp incredibly portable and useable for small to medium-sized rooms. If the price tag weren't so large at over $200, this could be "the" next busker amp, which I suppose is a market Traynor hit with their classic Travelmate battery amp series. But Yamaha isn't marketing to buskers, but rather hipsters like me, who are looking for boutique-like sounds in a little box to play in our basements and dream of our earlier glory days when we weren't rock stars, but desperately wanted to be, and now are willing to pay $20 for foreign craft beers that taste, let's face it, just like domestic. All in all, a rocky start, but 5 stars for Yamaha on their THR5.