The first thing you'll notice is hiss. Hiss before you play, hiss while you play, and hiss as you let a note sustain. This is accentuated by the fact that it can't handle passive pick-ups at or above half volume, and the unit has to be turned up almost fully. Occasionally you'll hit a note or two that causes some warble, with the note cutting in and out. Hitting the mid-boost or treble-boost also kills the bass range, rather that simply enhance said frequencies. That all ignored, it sounds almost late '80s Trace Elliot-ish with punchy, rubbery tone, which I like. Acoustic guitars sound good through it, too. [I play it through pro DJ headphones.]

A great way to practice. It could be a terrible product at the price, but it's not!

I've had mine around 25 years and it is the best practice tool I own. It blows the Korg Toneworks away. Very simple to use, and you can connect your ipod or portable cd player to it and jam in private. Worth twice its price.

I've had this unit for a few years and use it occasionally. I haven't tried competing products like the Bass-in-a-box or Pocket Rock-it but this thing hasn't changed since I first saw one in the early 1980's. With all of the high tech micro gadgetry around today, I wound think someone could come up with a much better unit that has amp/cab and effect modeling built in. It works but the headphones suck and it has a constant hiss esp. When using the mid and treble boost functions. If you want to go retro, this is for you!

I have been using the Bass Ace for over a year now, and I love it. I've been using it on both bass and guitar. On the guitar, I get a very wide range of tones, it's awesome. The headphones kind of suck, but I just used some better headphones, and everything sounded great. On Bass, the range of tone is smaller, but that's what I would expect with lower frequencies. Overall a great product.