Danelectro HoneyTone Mini Amp

Seriously, this is a really nice mini practice amp. Only one channel and no bass control, but why would you want one with a 2" (3"?) speaker? The best thing about it is the overdrive. Turn it up a little and it subtly brightens your sound, turn it up more and you get a real nice blazing distortion.

The clean sound is limited -- you can't get any kind of bass out of such a tiny speaker. Sounds ok on the bridge humbucker, but don't expect to get a full acoustic sound out of it. Like said above, the overdrive is very effective and goes from subtle to a nice distortion tone. Only thing is be careful not to overdrive the input or you get a hashy clipping sound: turn your guitar's vol knob down if you have humbuckers and turn the amp's vol knob up to compensate. Also, I prefer using a 9V wall adapter with it.

I had to stick a shim in the battery compartment to make sure the battery touched the contacts. More reliable to use a wall adapter. Amp finally stopped working after 4 years and a few drops. But for $30 bucks you can replace it instead of servicing it. I ended up buying a Guitar Research/Mega VL-10 from Sam Ash instead, for $10 more. The VL10 has actual bass and goes a lot louder. It's decent clean, but the overdrive on the Honeytone was much much better.

I've been playing about 5 years and used it with various single-coil and humbucker guitars and was always happy with it. I wish Danelectro made a wall-powered version with a 5" speaker and maybe 5 watts power. But if you want a tiny, battery-powered practice amp, this is as good as it gets.

I've been playing for 30 years. I've played through Bogner, Dr. Z, Blackface, Matchless, Marshall, Mesa, etc... NOTHING touches the tone of this amp. It's so versatile that you can spend weeks dialing in a different tones and never hear the same sound twice. One watt gives you miles of clean headroom(think polytone), but once you turn up the gain, it's over! It screams like a banshee in the dead of winter. If I were dying alone on a cold mountain, this would be the amp I used to serenade myself to deaths door. I use it in the studio, live, and as a friend for my guitar to confide in. If Jesus were alive, he would use this amp.

If it were stolen or lost, I would die. If there was a way I could legally marry this amp, I would. There are things I'd like to share about this amp, but they're too personal, so I won't mention them here.

OLD BLUES! Actually, I'm just writing this in response to that Victor guy who posted one saying he wants to find a way to use it line out. Go to Radioshack, buy an adaptor which changes any 1/8 inch to a quarter inch, plug 1/8 inch into headphone jack and then run that into a patch cord and into the PA. Unless of course you don't want to spend a whole $4 on the adaptor.

I have a PRS Santana SE, one of the fantastic originals, not the new, sucky version, and I get a tone kind of like Brian May's when he used that little half watt Deacy. It's goin on my next record, somehow.

Unless a fat guy sits on it and it goes up his butt (something that's never been said about an amp before), it should be fine.

I DON"T KNOW, leave me alone

I play and it sounds like a bat eating a rat. Marshall Valvestate, PRS, and I record through a toaster that I wired with plutonium. My duck is named Norman.

Features? For this price? Tone and gain controls are a bonus already. Headphone line out comes in pretty handy but can be quite a mess with all the cables esp if you're using a 9V adaptor. I use it in my congested campus hostel accomodation where noise pollution is a serious issue and even then sometimes my neighbours get to groove along with me.

All the nu-metal/punk/emo/rapcore/craprock/metalheadz out there are not going to like this amp at all because it sounds like crap for anything other than real downhome blues. Think Muddy Waters / Elmore James / Hound Dog Taylor slide with lots of cheapo transistor crunch, recording hiss and compression. No creamy tube distortion ala SRV or sweet singing tone like BB King, just some damned grouchy sounding "Woke up this morning still stuck in the cotton fields" kinda growl. It's gonna take some serious mojo to get a decent sound out of this guy but once you nail it it's there. I play a Gibson BluesHawk and with tone all up, just a few degrees on the gain and volume as the surroundings permit. Ahhhh...slide heaven.
Yeah yeah I know playing a Gibson guitar through a SGD$50 amp yadda yadda blah blah blah...at least I know how to get the tone I want while the rest of the gearheads go through their mesa-boogies and marshalls.

I'm seriously considering bringing this to my next jam session and miking it up and if it goes well who knows? It could see some real gigging action...but all that's a huge if. Had to spray the pots once but apart from that this guy's pretty tough. Been dropped a couple of times with no scratches to show for it. I sure wouldn't do that with a tube 2x12 combo.

zilch

Been playing blues for 6-7 yrs using a Gibson BluesHawk and a Cort ES335 copy as my blues axes. Amp-wise I'm stuck on a tweed Pro Junior which does an excellent job for blues (can get some good biting slide tone too but not as primitive as described above). I love the fact that this little thing is so simple and yet can still churn out decent (to my ears) tone. The Marshall mini-stacks seemed to be less value for money vibe and dollar wise. One thing I wish it had was a line out so I can hook it up to a larger speaker or something. Probably the folks down at Danelectro never expected anyone to find gig-able tone out of this little bugger. Maybe I'll get down to it once I obtain the knowhow.

If your lifelong ambition is to play like Steve Vai or Malmsteen or Satch and your dream axe is a flourescent glow-in-the-dark Ibanez with a Floyd Rose then you'd do best to pass on this one. And good luck on your next tapping solo extravaganza.

For those of you who play some serious metal(slide) on metal(strings) stuff you'd want to give this guy a go. You might just be surprised...shocked even.

Just 3 knobs w/ a mini headphone out that I think can be also used as a line out if you use a mini to 1/4" adaptor. Great for outdoor playing in the park, street begging etc. Plenty of punch w/ Radio Shack 9v adaptor.

Been using it w/ my Aguave blue "tequilacaster" loaded w/ graphtech nut & saddles, SD Hotrails w/ push/pull to split the rails. I mostly play old Led Zepp, ZZ Top, Classic Rock styles & it really gives me exactly what the Dr ordered. Can actually get that controlled feedback thing going nicely. Been playing since 1970's and have been through Twin Reverbs, Boogies, SF Champs. Never had such fun for so little $$$

Have not taken it to gig but I'm certain it would not really cut it even if miked to the PA. Only had it for a few days but I'm certain it will last longer than $30 bucks in my pocket would otherwise.

Haven't had any experience w/ the Danelectro folks so I really can't comment here.

Been playing for 26 yrs I also have a Line 6 Spyder 112 & a SF Champ that needs to be worked on. If the Honeytone was lost or stolen I'd get my lazy ass back down to Guitar Center & get another one quick. Real no brainer!!

I hope this isn't too technical, but I want to put in my two cent's worth. I'm a guitarist for over 30 years, in a band, and am also an electrical engineer (day job) and attempted to "fix" this amp at my cousin's request (he had bought one for his son to use for practice) because he said it was "cutting out". It was doing this because it had drained the battery and it would emit sound, battery voltage would drop, and it would die until battery voltage came back. Anyway I looked over the circuit and decided I'd designed better audio circuitry back in college. This thing pulls MUCHO current - I used a regulated Rasdio Shack 9V 300 mA wall adapter which put out over 11V when not connected, it drooped to a little over 7 volts, indicating large current draw (I will measure it at some point and get back on this). The internal circuitry only has about 3V of headroom at 7V supply, so if you use humbuckers it will quickly cause the input preamp to clip, and NOT musically - that's what the famous "buzzing" is, folks! If you want some more headroom and a better sound (albeit with the chance of damging the little power amp IC inside!) do what I'm gonne do - get a big (500mA to 1A) regulated 12V adapter from Radio Shack, the circuitry will run at 12V and the higher current capability of the adapter will keep the voltage from drooping (which incidentally is called "sag" tube amps, however it acts as sort of a compressor for tube amps due to their soft clip characteristics but causes hard clipping in solid-state amps). Single-coils sound better because they have lower output and will not drive the preamp to hard clip as easily. Sucker's case buzzes like a bee as well, maybe some hot glue...Anyway, that's my two cent's worth...

I'm a simple man. Light Distortion and Clean are the only two sounds I need. Because it is so light it falls over easily, but I just prop it up against something. I can't really think of any other features I would need in a practice amp. The AC adapter is worth it for $10 because the amp seems to be louder when plugged into the wall, and you'll otherwise go through $10 worth of 9V batteries pretty quickly.

I play rock/folk/country/blues with a Les Paul. The clean sound isn't the cleanest, but it's acceptable. If you have both the gain and the volume up it buzzes loudly, so I would advise playing with the volume on your guitar all the way up and the volume on the amp pretty low to minimize the droning buzz. The distortion is a nice mellow honey sound that suits me well. If you're into punk or hard rock/metal you might not care for it. It is plenty loud for just practicing in my house -- if I really want to blast it I can hook it up to my home stereo system via the headphone jack. I also don't mind hooking it up directly to my computer to record stuff for posterity. Since I don't play in a band or live, this is the only amp I really need. I give it a 7 because of the buzzing, and I have no frame of reference because I have never tried any other similar kind of amp.

I've only had it for a couple weeks and it hasn't broken yet. Since it is plastic I would be careful travelling with it. I kept the box for such purposes.

I've never dealt with the company. I don't own any other Danelectro products. They gave me a warranty card, but I can't find a serial number anywhere, so I haven't sent it in.

Seriously, for such a minor, inexpensive product I don't think the quality differs too much from brand to brand. For what it's worth, though, I have heard great things about a similar product from VOX at about the same price. I bought this one because they didn't carry the VOX at my local guitar store and I didn't think it was worth the wait and the shipping cost to order one online. A buddy of mine had a Fender (or Squire) mini amp that I last heard about 7 years ago, but it was very tinny if I remember correctly. I was impressed by the sound quality from this thing.

Small, about 4.5" wide, 5" tall, and 2 3/4" deep with a Leather Strap Handle that looks cool, but is useless to use. Aqua colored with Chrome colored Grill and 3 Chrome colored Knobs that control Volume/Off, Tone, and Gain. It also has a Red LED Power Indicator, a 1/4" Input Jack, an 1/8" Headphone Jack, a Belt Clip, and a Handy Little Booklet with suggested amp settings.

Runs on 9 volts via a battery, or through its Power Adapter Jack, to produce 1 Watt of high shrieking power to drive the 3" Speaker.

Oh yeah, a 9-volt Battery came with it too.
(See my review of the battery in the Effects Section for more details about the power it provided.)

Sounds great and crappy all at the same time. The handy little booklet gives some setting suggestions. When you follow them, you'll notice the distinct difference in the different sounds this amp is capable of producing. But some of the sounds are just the same sounds from a different page with the controls just slightly different, so it is not as versatile as one might think. I noticed that this amp works best with 'strat' style single coil pickups. It is ok with P-90 pickups, but it doesn't sound so good when used with humbuckers. For the most part it has a very tinny and plastic sound. The plastic casing makes as much noise as the speaker does. These sounds tend to clash with the sound of the humbuckers but not the single coils. The small speaker just breaks apart and starts to crackle and shriek when overdriven. Feedback and hum is excessive especially when the speaker falls over. It was not really designed to be used as a tabletop amp because the guitar cord plugs into the top and topples it over. You can get a clean sound out if it, but it tends to be a bit thin. If overdrive is what you like, well this has plenty of it. When the battery gets low and you're playing hard, the sound will start to cut out. This also makes the power light dim.

Not very reliable. It consumes batteries like a fish drinks water. You're much better off with a power adapter. As its power gets low, the sound cuts in and out on you. As I stated earlier, it's not designed to be used in its upright position without falling over and humming, but if you are going to use a power adapter with it, then you are going to have to use it as a table top model. You can't very well walk around with it hooked to your belt and plugged into the wall with a six foot power cord holding you back.

I do not use the headphone feature because the headphone jack was poorly installed. The jack came loose from the circuit board and caused the amp to not function at all. I disassembled it (voiding the warranty I'm sure) and reattached it properly. It was upon reassemble that I discovered why it was broken in the first place. There is simply not enough room to assemble the unit without pushing the jack to one side. Once in place it fits fine. When I attempt to use the headphone jack, simply pushing on it can cause the sound to cut out, so I just leave it alone.

I've never dealt with the company, but other seem to have nice things to say about them. I don't remember what the warranty was.

List price: $39.00. I paid $29.00 at Guitar Center.

I originally bought this amp so I could test some homemade harmonica pickups/mics. At best it can only be used as a remote speaker for that type of application because a harmonica plays louder naturally than this amp can be turned up to without massive feedback.

I have since tested it with various guitars in order to try to appreciate this little wonder. Although you can get some interesting sound out of it, I would only use it in the most desperate of situations but then again I'd most likely be playing an acoustic guitar in those settings.

It is so cool looking and unique sounding that I try very hard to find a place for it in my array of equipment. I could always use it as a practice amp but my Pockit Rockit sounds so much better. I've been thing of cannibalizing it in putting in into a homemade travel guitar.

It's to cute to give it a poor overall rating, but trust me, it's not that good overall either.

Features? In a 30 dollar battery-powered amp? come on...volume, tone, gain. Headphone jack, ac jack.

I play several old 60's "sears catalog" type electric guitars and also have an old kay acoustic with a soundhole pickup. I bought this thing hoping to do some street busking with it...I doubt that's gonna happen, instead of "Honeytone" they should call this "Chainsaw tone". Doesn't have much to offer by way of clean sounds and I was rather disappointed when I first got this (but it was cheap so I wasn't too troubled...). After I tinkered around with it a bit though, I discovered that, while too nasty for the average street busker, this little monster does crank out some good sounds. It definitely is treble heavy, I use my neck/bass pickups on all of my guitars and still get a lot of high end and not much low. Heavier strings and tuning down a bit will give you a bit more bottom. This thing is capable of some nasty, MEAN, sustaining distortion. Not death metal type stuff, just wicked balls out overdriven blues or rock or whatever. Easy to get that snarling "Hound Dog Taylor" sound and worth the price for that alone. Like I say, for a tiny, plastic amp, this thing is LOUD. Seriously. A bit noisy with these old single coils but nothing out of the ordinary. Oh, this is great for getting that dirty, overdriven harmonica sound too. I'm thinking of using this for recording some harp as I've always found it hard to get
a good overdriven blues harp sound without also getting a lot of unwanted noise and/or feedback. This does the job very well. I'm giving this fairly high marks in this category. It seems a little unfair to compare a $30 battery-powered amp to fenders and marshalls but on the other hand it can nail some good sounds at volume levels that won't have the neighbors calling the cops (again...).

Haven't had it long enough to tell.

I've been playing for about 10 years, have a few old tube amps. This doesn't really compare with those in terms of overall sound yet there are some sounds I can get out of this little beast that I can't get out of the old tube amps. I wish it had less high end bite but it's only a 4 inch speaker. If this were lost or stolen, I'd definitely consider getting another, if only for the good harmonica sounds I can get out of it. great art deco looks too.

3 knobs: volume, tone and gain. A plug for a 9 volt adapter which I never use, a 4" speaker, a tiny leather handle, a cream colored plastic enclosure and probably some cheap PC board and miniature transformer inside. Solid state. More than enough features for a $30 practice amp.

I couldn't believe how good this thing sounds!
I'm no slouch when it comes to treating myself to mondo expensive gear to get good tone. I've got a $4000+ tweed 1960 Fender Bassman and a 1969 50 watt Marshall, I have no idea how much that thing is worth now.
For 30 bucks this little POS Danelectro can dish out some GOOD tone. Where it shines is in the overdrive department. Playing my '58 reissue Historic Les Paul, I can get some raunchy rock 'n roll sounds out of this thing. Depending on how you set the gain, it's perfect for playing along to Cream, early Jeff Beck and even Elmore James records. And I can ape those sounds fairly well, considering it's coming out of a cheap solid state amp with a tiny 4" speaker. It's a low-fi sound for sure, but that's what makes it fun. It's pretty loud for such a tiny thing.
The only stipulation is it can lose some top end if you crank the volume and gain all the way.

It's plastic, don't drop it!

For what it's worth this thing rules. It's not very versatile but for that swampy, overdriven, low-fi sound, it's hard to beat!