Are JOYO banTamP amplifiers good?
What is banTamP?
Don’t let the size of this mini amplifier head fool you into thinking that it can’t produce some killer tones. The JOYO Bantamp FireBrand excels at creating powerful high gain tones, and it also has a very efficient and nice sounding clean channel. It has 20 Watts of RMS power and can easily push a large 12” speaker, which is the setup that I used to test it with.
Official JOyo bantamp firebrand SPECS
Preamp circuit：Operational amplifier + 1 x 12AX7/ECC83
Power amp：CLASS D
Amp power：20W
Channel mode：CLEAN / OD
Aux in function：Bluetooth music playing
Bluetooth version：4.0
Input：AC 110-240V 50/60Hz
OUTPUT:DC18V/2.0A
Dimensions：163mm*110mm*140mmWeight:1200g
Power adapter INPUT AC 100-240V 50/60Hz OUTPUT DC18V/2.0A
Headphone Impedance Standard 32Ω Minimum 16Ω
Bluetooth version 4.0
Speaker Impedance 8Ω
Controls Gain, Tone and Volume
Switch Clean / OD - Bluetooth - Power
Fx loop
6.35mm *2
Speaker output 6.35mm
Headphone output 3.5mm
What DOES BANTAMP DO?
The BantAmp series features a vacuum tube in preamp section and a solid state power section. So it’s considered a hybrid amplifier with Class D power. The front panel is pretty simple. You have a manual Clean or Overdrive channel selector, and a Bluetooth on/off selector. I’d prefer to see some type of pedal to allow switching between the channels, but that wasn’t an option with this model. The Bluetooth option allows you to stream music through your BantAmp for playback. The rest of the setup is fairly straight forward. You have a Gain, Tone, and Volume knob.
The back panel features the speaker out and headphone out. For the speaker out, you need to run a speaker with a minimum of 8 ohms of resistance. Because this is a class D amplifier, you can run the amp and use headphones, while not connecting an output speaker. This makes the amp a great tool for quiet at home practicing.
Another great feature is the FX LOOP which isn’t something you would typically expect on such a small amplifier head. FX LOOPs are generally kept for larger more expensive amps. It’s great to see that JOYO is listening and giving customers the options they are looking for.
WHY WOULD YOU WANT A BANTAMP?
This could definitely be loud enough to use in a full band setting, or as a practice home amplifier. It’s a super versatile amplifier that has a lot of features you normally don’t find at this price.
For a full sound and feature demo, check out my YouTube channel. I walk through all the features in detail and provide tone samples for both the clean and overdrive channel. If you’re looking for a small amp head, check out the BantAmp series of mini amp heads. I think they are a great value.
