The Steel Guitar Forum

I tried a Yamaha THR5 battery powered amp on Saturday with my 1954 Fender Champion and was blown away with the tone, volume (loud) and the size.

I pulled the trigger and ordered the next size up - the THR10. Same wattage (10 watts) but bigger cabinet for reportedly more bass response.

The thing only weighs 6.5 lbs. I currently fly to gigs with a Roland Cube Street which weighs in at 13 lbs. With airlines getting pickier & pickier the less weight in a checked bag the better.

Anyone else have/tried one of these?

Brad's not going to be happy with this new and latest THR thread...

I'm just back from the PO and have my new THR10 next to me with the manual open. I don't have to wonder if I'll be a happy owner, I've done months of research and am just wondering how much better it will be than my workhorse MicroCube RX. I'll know within the hour. Rick Aiello is said to be awaiting one as well.

YES - I mentioned this amp a few weeks ago. It "IS" all about lap steel - just the other part you need for an electric Lap Steel Guitar. I am amazed everyday and every time I play. My little Ricky A22 sounds better than through my tube amp and 15" speaker. You all will enjoy the sound. Enjoy - Ray

Moved to Electronics section.

Got the THR10 last night. Spent about 3 hours playing with it.

Initial thoughts: Excellent tone, very loud (good loud) & easy to dial in a good tone. The only effect I really care about is reverb and I find these (spring and hall) a bit too thick and deep. This bummed me out at first. But then I discovered the PC editing software that comes with the THR10.


I hooked up the THR10 to my computer via USB and started the editing software. This software gives you much more microscopic control over all the tone/effects and also gives you a compressor. Using the editor I was able to tame the reverb and add a bit of compression to fatten up the overall tone. Once I programmed a decent tone I was able to save it to a library on my PC and also easily store it on the THR10 in one of five preset buttons.

An issue arises if you bring up a preset on the THR and then manually change a knob on the amp. When that is done you have essentially overridden that tone/effect. So say for example your preset has the bass set to "3". If you manually move the bass knob you have lost the "3" setting for the bass. Same for effects - for example, in my steel guitar preset I have the reverb set to "1". There is no way I can get this low a reverb setting using the knobs on the amp - the knob will not get this level of reverb. But if you totally screw up your preset by twiddling knobs you can easily bring up the preset again just by pressing the preset button - setting it back to the preset you have stored.

The sound is BIG, loud and nice.

I also made a preset for my uke (MI-SI under-saddle pickup). Again a touch of compression and taming the reverb. Stored this one in preset number "2".

I can't get over the size and weight of this thing - tiny and light - 6.5 lbs, 14" wide, 5" deep. This amp can easily fit in a backpack.

You can also turn off the faux orange-glow tube lights that shine through the grill - hopefully saves on battery life. This is done through the PC editor.

This is my new airline travel amp.

I'm keeping it.

BTW - much better tone than the Roland Microcube.

Still waitin' on mine

Thanks for the review and tips about the reverb ...

As good as the unit is on it's own, it's the USB interface capabilities that really opens it up and expands this thing's positives to the top of the heap, above any amp on the market for what it is. In comparison to the MicroCube RX (my usual go to amp), the THR's sound is more real/direct/expanded, making the RX sound very boxy, but that's still OK, I like both and enjoy the vast difference in sound that each offer. Plus, I often run either into my old BOSE boombox which adds further audial dimensions. BTW, you can't run it into an external speaker source unless that source is self-poewered.

Couldn't resist. I just ordered one.

b0b wrote:Couldn't resist. I just ordered one.

That's funny, and very cool to hear, bOb. Please post your thot's about it as you explore.
The THR is what it is, and it's not what it's not. Another handy tool in the box.

To practice lately, I use earbuds to listen to my mp3 player, and then have big phones over them hooked to my Line6 Pod XT. Not ideal. So this looks like it will really solve my current problem.

Does it have stereo reverb and stereo delay?

Peter den Hartogh wrote:Does it have stereo reverb and stereo delay?

In spades.

How is the headphone output quality? My vox DA5 is really weak, the Fender Mustang I is very good.

Just curious but how is the THR10 with various OD, boost and fuzz pedals?

Battery Life:
I had about 4-5 hours playing time on a fresh set of batteries mostly uke playing at moderate to high volumes.

This morning I hooked up my Fender Champion Lap and fed my iPad backup tracks in as well. Played both at a high volume level. After 30 minutes the THR10 cut out, completely shut off. I've read that this is normal for the THR10 - when the batteries get below a certain level the amp just shuts down. It doesn't gradually die.

So I would say battery life is about 6 hours like Yamaha states. I'm sure lower volumes will conserve the batteries a bit.

Not as good as Roland battery amps. But I'll live with it for the Yamaha's tone and weight. Time to hit Costco and stock up on double A's.

Got mine yesterday. It's an amazing little practice amp. Gerald's right about the editing software. I spent an hour or so tweaking the settings for some nice presets, doing things that you can't do with the controls on the amp itself. Once you've done that, this amp sounds really nice!

The built-in rock distortion sounds are pretty bad, IMHO. I was able to run through my Line6 Pod XT with the THR10 amp emulation set to "Flat", and that gave me the exact effects that I know and love. So basically, I can come pretty close to my stage tone when practicing with this little amp.

The mini aux jack works perfectly with my iPod. It's real easy to match up the volumes to practice along with tracks. The two Output volume knobs (Guitar and USB/AUX) work independently of the patch settings - couldn't be simpler!

The amp can get loud enough for living room jam sessions. You'd probably need to mic it if you were performing with it. 10 watts of solid state power isn't very much. Still, it's the best sounding mini amp I've ever heard for pedal steel. They really got the Clean channel right!

Thanx for the excellant overview, bOb. It's the sweet cleans that I bought mine for and whatever else that is worthy is gravy. I'm happy and I've not even hooked up to my laptop yet.

Has anyone compare the sound and volume of the Yamaha THR10 with a ZT Lunchbox?

Well, the Lunchbox is a 200 watt amp, so I expect it can get at least 4x louder. They advertise peak volume at 120 db which is enough to damage your hearing. I don't think that you could use the Yamaha THR10 in a rock band. The Lunchbox, no problem - it's a lightweight stage amp.

The Lunchbox doesn't have effects, so it can't get the range of sounds that the THR10 can get. The two amps aren't designed for the same kind of players.

I haven't played through a Lunchbox. It doesn't have the features I was looking for. I'll stick with my Mesa/Boogie for stage work.

b0b wrote:The two amps aren't designed for the same kind of players.

It's like comparing apples to elephants.
Most people just aren't grasping the depth of reasons for the THR's existance, and it may never fully happen for many...

Yesterday I compared the Yamaha THR10 to a Fender Twin Reverb. The Fender was much louder and had richer bass. The Yamaha sounded small and thin by comparison. I actually think that the Fender sounded a lot better. If I had my choice in a recording studio, I'd take the Fender Twin Reverb, hands down.

As a stand alone A/B between a digital lunchbox meant for low volume vs a beheamoth tube amp... your result would be expected. But pump the THR into a self-powered external speaker system, like I can with my BOSE or a studio monitor set up, and it makes it a fairer comparison. The THR could possibly whump on the twin in a fairer setting.

How do you do that, Ron? Do you use the headphone jack?

Tone-wise, the THR10 doesn't sound at all like a tube amp to be. Tubes have this almost organic gain structure, where the tone changes dynamically as you pick harder or give it more signal from the volume pedal.

As much as I like this little amp, it has none of the characteristics of a tube amp. Maybe you could get it to sound like a Peavey or a Webb by running it into your Bose, but I doubt that it could ever sound like a Fender or a Mesa/Boogie.

Yes, lead out from the headphone.
I think the 'tube-like' selling point has been over-hyped no matter how much the YAMAHA techs tried to achieve it, we're still not there yet, but getting closer. The THR isn't as sterile as most digital modlers, a little more 'organic' sounding, kind of a happy medium, at least for the cleans. Digital distortion has it's place, but I'm still waiting for a convincing peach-fuzziness edge. I'm gonna try a compressor pedal into my THR and see what that gives, as soon as I decide on which one/s.

Just got mine last night and didn't get a lot sleep as I was extremely pleased with this little bugger.
For electric guitar I was fronting the THR10 with a blackbox, Keely compressor and a Blackstone overdrive.
As b0b stated not a complete tube tone but a unique clean,compressed and slightly overdriven tone. I was A/Bing with my tube Swart AST head and cabinet and on some tunes actually perferred the THR10. Very unique tone. I noticed the lack of tube tone most on harmonica. But again it was a differnet tone and not a bad tone/sound. Acoustic instuments more than compared to some of the solid state amps I've played through. Because of the modeling efects most of the sterile tones weren't there.