Tonex Plug: A Tiny Headphone Amp with All Your Favorite Captures
IK Multimedia recently announced their brand new Tonex Plug Headphone Amp, and I had the opportunity to take it for a test drive. The Tonex Plug is a tiny, battery-powered headphone amp that you can take with you anywhere, plug in, and load up your favorite Tonex preset. The thing I love about it the most is being able to just sit down, plug in your guitar and headphones, and practice without any other gear needed.
The Features
The Tonex Plug has a few really important features. First, it allows you to load up to 30 Tonex presets. A preset is a signal chain consisting of a capture and effects like delay, reverb, and modulation. The next big feature is the way you control the headphone amp and edit the signal chain. This is done through the new Tonex Control app which allows you to manage presets, edit parameters, browse ToneNet, and even pull up a metronome to practice with. You can also, stream bluetooth audio to the Tonex Plug from your phone or any bluetooth device. This is super handy when you are practicing along with a song. Finally, you can use the Tonex Plug as an audio interface by connecting a USB C cable to the unit and then to your computer. Doing this allows you to quickly record ideas and demos right into your DAW with your favorite Tonex preset.
My Experience
After using the Tonex Plug for the last few weeks I’ve wondered what took me so long to get a headphone amp like this. There are a ton of similar products out there but they have never struck me as something I needed. It might be that I am not into those other ecosystems in terms of gear but being able to have my favorite Tonex captures in my guitar case where I can just pull out my guitar and practice at any moment has been really nice. I mostly have been using a simple Vox AC30 preset that I created in the app using one of my captures and a bit of reverb. That simple preset is one I continue to use most of the time. Connecting my phone to play along with songs I am trying to learn for an upcoming worship service has been super easy.
Future Updates
I really hope that IK Multimedia adds this app control to the other Tonex units like the pedal and Tonex One. It would be awesome to be able to manage and tweak presets using the Tonex Control app on those units. The app also makes me wonder about a larger Tonex unit that is hopefully coming in the near future. I feel like all they need to d is add more effects and DSP and they could have a really great all in one unit.
Check out the full first impression video I did about the Tonex Plug on the Sunday Tone channel below.