Electro-Harmonix 5MM Guitar Power Amp Pedal

This little amp has become the heart of my home digital rig, and it is the most powerful 2.5 Watts I have ever heard.After working through all the normal stages of making digital work for me, I ended up here. I was almost there running my modelers and preamps into the effects return of my tube amp, but I had all manner of problems with ground loops and other misc. noise that left me constantly frustrated. I could get it working by lifting a ground somewhere only for it to go sideways again because I plugged in a USB cable or something.Then I saw a YT video on the amp's discontinued 22W big brother. It supposedly does a convincing emulation of a tube amp's sound and response? Sure. Right. I'll believe that when I hear it.When the 5mm came up on sale for $35, I decided I had to try it, and I am very glad I did. It works exactly as promised and is plenty loud for a home rig. As you can see in the photo, the Helix volume is at 50% and the 5mm volume is at 25%. That is loud enough for family friendly-practice. Turning either one up a little more yields satisfying family-not-home goodness.If I just want a louder version of what I am hearing, I turn up the Helix. If I want more saturation and compression, I turn up the 5mm.I mainly use this with the Helix, but I also use it with the effects send of my Friedman IR-X tube preamp. That is also a quite satisfying combo.Further, this works very well in a simple analog rig. You can use an overdrive pedal set however you want it as a preamp. Or a simple clean boost as a preamp.In the attached photo, the Helix is plugged into the 5mm, which is plugged into the bottom cabinet, which as a closed back, deep 1x12 housing a Celestion Heritage G12H-30-55 speaker.Five stars. Much like.

Using the 5mm to drive a 1x12 speaker cab for amp sims and a BOSS GX-100 pedal board. It's a perfect little power amp for bedroom level playing and will get quite loud if needed.

By the time this pedal gets noisy the volume is way past where I use it in the house. For household volumes its good. I use it with my pedalboard and a looper pedal to create rythms the plug into my other amp to play over the top. Perfect for my uses.

Works great, i have it barely at like 2% volume lol and it still almost blows up the speaker. Very loud and efficient.

Love the solid state sound this is a great buy for $38 if you can get it on sale! plenty loud enough for the bedroom. Only plug output into a speaker cab.

It worked perfectly to drive my 4x12” cabinet. The power supply is very small, the size of a regular pedal. It’s loud enough to keep up with drummers.

I read all the reviews and decided to give this product a try since I wanted a power amp as a secondary device into which to feed a preamp pedal for basic practice at home, sparing my tube amp. Does it work? Yes. But it is a 2.5W pedal that distorts before you even hit 9 o'clock, as others have said. I knew that but thought minimum volume would suffice for home practice. But it is too low of a volume even for that.And so, the practical application of this pedal eludes me. I don't want cheap and cheap sounding distortion. I want a transparent power amp while the preamp pedal and the cabinet provide the tone. If I need some sort of a backup, well there are better offerings, including from the same brand. So while I appreciated the low price point, I found no reason to keep it.

It drives a 12" celestion vintage 30 watt just fine...Does much more than I would expect a little 2.5 w amp to be capable of.Very nice for a bedroom guitarist like me. I'm using it with preamp amp sim pedals, and its fantastic.