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The Hotone Nano Legacy Thunder Bass 5-watt micro head puts SVT-style bass tone in your hand, in your backpack, or in your gig bag. With its diminutive size and sub-2-pound weight, you're able to carry the sound of a 300-watt behemoth with you wherever you go. The Thunder Bass is also loaded with player-friendly features such as an effects loop, auxiliary input, headphone output, and an ability to effortlessly handle 4- or 16-ohm cabinets. There simply is no bass amplifier as compact or convenient of the Hotone Nano Thunder Bass micro head.

Features:

• Bass tone much larger than the amp's physical size
• Volume and gain controls for tonal variety
• 3-band EQ for shaping your sound
• Speaker out automatically supports cabinets of different impedances
• FX loop for using external effects
• Headphone output jack for practicing and recording
• Aux in jack lets you play with an external music player
• Extremely compact configuration for portability

Specs

• Solid State
• Single channel
• 5W
• 3-band EQ
• 1 x 1/4" (instrument), 1 x 1/8" (aux in)
• 1 x 1/4" (4/8/16 ohms), 1 x 1/8" (line out/headphones)
• Yes
• 18V DC power supply (included)
• 2.34"
• 5"
• 2.95"
• 0.97 lbs.
• TANLA4

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Until I saw this, I really didn't appreciate just how tiny it is. Even with just 5 watts at it's command it is surprisingly loud through proper bass cabs. Enough for playing with unamplified or slightly amplified acoustic instruments or house jams (say if your guitarist has a Hotone or Blacckstar fly) and ideal as a practice amp.

It claims to be inspired by the Ampeg SVT and the gain up sound on this is pretty growly, it doesn't leave any sonic prisoners although not as smooth an overdrive as real valves IMHO. I can imagine people using this as a preamp for an FRFR powered speaker.

OK, I was using this with a very 'hot' (but not active) bass and it was almost impossible to get a clean sound on the low notes. Not a big issue for me, as I want a valve-like growl with some gain dialled in is what I prefer, but i can see this being an issue for some purchasers.

So I tried it clean, and found that it gives a good clean sparkly sound like the British Invasion (Vox styled) in a youtube demo I saw. Yes, I watch a lot of those, perhaps pointlessly. It does get some crunch with the gain after 1-2 o'clock, later than other amps and it somewhat depends on the pickups. Raising the eq knobs also raises the gain, like the other Hotone amps in the demos.

Tried it crunchy and added a Klon clone, but wasn't into it. I also didn't like the Nano Metal Muff or Mooer Blade, with the amp set clean or dirty.

However, I did like it with the Joyo Ironman Metalhead and the amp set clean and a closed back 4x10" cab. It's has slightly less gain than most metal distortions, but only slightly less so and the amps and cabs seem to make a make a lot of difference to me for this pedal, some combinations sound a lot better.

Also like it set clean with the MXR Fullbore Metal.

So I eventually tried it with bass using a ported 1x12" bass cab. With the eq knobs in the middle, I got a great bass tone, maybe one of the best I have heard. Even better with the gain knob set at around 2 o'clock. After that it distorts, and I'm not a fan of how it sounds. I've gotten better dirty bass sounds with Muffish pedals and the fuzz set low.

The Hotone sounded better than my Hartke 1400 head with its eq knobs set in the middle, but it got closer to the Hotone's sound if I turned up the bass and low mids knobs. Didn't spend much time tweaking the knobs, but I could get low volume sounds just as well on the Hartke. The 1400 even made a low volume sound with the volume knob on zero, and the taper on the Hartke was good enough to dial in any low level.

The Hotone is really not very loud with guitar or bass. It could be ok for playing with a folk singer and congas, but would probably not keep up with a loud drummer, saxophone or loud guitar. But it can get louder with the volume on a dirt pedal cranked.

I don't really need this, and I've also gotten some interesting tones with my Greta with the volume set low and a bass cab if I wanted to record bass. But the Thunder Bass is a cool amp.

• 2

Joined Dec 10, 2020 Posts 831 Age 43 Location Ithaca, NY

Nice review! I’ve looked at these, mainly as a headphone amp, for both guitar and bass.

I think I remember reading somewhere there was noise, either on the headphones or aux in? Can you confirm or deny that?