The 10 Best Rock Amp heads (2023 reviews)

We consider a rock amp head to be a worthy investment in the long run. We are here to help you choose the right one for your needs from all the best available products in market today.

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Our Top Picks:

Best Overall: Buy: Orange Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best For Orange Micro Dark: Buy: Orange Amps Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best For simple But killer Guitar Tone: Buy: Vox Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best For aggressive Rock styles: Buy: Bugera Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best For home recording: Buy: Peavey Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best For medium sized area: Buy: Joyo Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best For buck: Buy: Valeton Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best For jamming At home: Buy: Hotone Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best With windows: Buy: Boss Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best For Metal music: Buy: Marshall Rock Amp Head READ REVIEW

Best Overall: Orange Rock Amp Head

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Orange line of head come in a pretty wide variety of styles, so you can definitely find one that suits your individual preferences and needs. It doesn't take much to drive this amp into raging distortion. It can do really sweet, thick British cleans, fantastic Classic Rock crunch, and it can even reach into Classic Metal and Hair Metal territory. The tone knob gives you plenty of control and with a EQ pedal it gets even better. It is a solid metal build to add to that with one speaker jack.

The gain itself is more of a hard rock tone. The tone knob can bring a darker attribute, or super bright sound to enhance your playing. It's simplicity and big sound make it worth every cent. It's perfect if you want some grit at all times with the ability to dial in more.

• Works great at gigs, especially when you're lugging gear up/down flights of stairs
• Tone really sweetens up a lot and gain is very manageable
• About 30% volume and almost no gain, and it's plenty loud for home
• Has a lot of mid range to it for the retro feel

Best For Orange Micro Dark: Orange Amps Rock Amp Head

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The orange amps rock amp head gives the top-tier head a run for their money by offering flagship specs at a much more affordable price. This little guy is a standout with that thick Orange sound. It can power anything you plug into. With a P-90 equipped LPJ, the resulting tone is a gritty, overdriven roar that doesn't sound fizzy or scooped like some American-voiced amps. It is allows for a wide variety of tones from the amp and the gain control is responsive as well giving very clean clean sounds, very dirty dirty sounds and everything in between.

You can use it with headphones through the headphone output jack without a speaker cabinet attached. It will work with any speaker cabinet that has an 8 ohm load or higher. It holds its own against a lot of tube amps too considering its loud enough to gig with yet quiet enough to play in your apartment and still get a full distortion sound with the volume turned low.

• Very simple to use with a surprising amount of versatility
• Great clean tone and nasty/tasty gain
• Wonderful gain, great for metal and rock
• Classic orange gain sounds but surprisingly gets great clean tones as well

Best For simple But killer Guitar Tone: Vox Rock Amp Head

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Next on the list, we've got yet another head that manages to win our hearts. It's the vox rock amp head and it's widely considered as head that has the most suitable features. It sounds like a tube amp and it has the warmth and responsiveness of a tube amp. The clean gives you great clean warm tube sound in a compact head. There is a power meter with amber back-lighting that is a cool feature even if it's not necessary.

For small bar gigs, this amp is plenty loud. It gets plenty loud, has a wonderful clean sound, and plays well with peddles. There is no gain knob on the clean. The manual ohm knob allows some additional manual control of the output of the power amp. It is good for home use. There is also a standby switch instead of a power button or switch.

• Well built, and fine frontal design
• Small enough to fit in your pedalboard
• Drive pedals push the tube with a wonderful, sagging tube distortion

Best For aggressive Rock styles: Bugera Rock Amp Head

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The bugera rock amp head should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. This amp is a true el84 amp with tube characteristics and warmth. It can power 4-16 ohm and also it is lively around 5 1/. It breaks up musically and it has three power settings. For sound, it is very warm, which can be good in cleans,but it tends to turn muddy as you gain. It handles pedals very well. It is pretty nice for a tiny practice amp. The front panel push buttons and rear watt selector switch are. It gets very loud and sounds great.

• Packs quite a punch on 5 watts
• Lots of control and sounds great
• Very cool little amp with a strong "neat" factor, reverb, and good clean tones

Best For home recording: Peavey Rock Amp Head

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The peavey rock amp head is satisfactory and appropriate and fits well with your regular usage. This 20W mini head has the same monstrous tone that the larger model has. It's hands down the best mini-head for classic rock. It has a speaker defeat (mute) button that lets you play the amp without connecting to a speaker cab, for silent headphones practice or getting the tone out of your computer speakers/pa system etc. The crunch switch also significantly darkens the tone.

This amp has two and a half channels, and they are all useful. The wattage can be set to 20, 5, or 1 watt, it’s pre gain can be set to your desired distortion level and the post gain can be turned down for great sound at bedroom levels that will not hurt your ears. The amp easily covers it all with excellent tones for every genre.

• Great tone, easy to get any sound from crunch
• Minimum hardware requirements may be needed for use with recording software
• A variable wattage, headphone compatible, and awesome sounding amp
• Served well as a great starter tube amp

Best For medium sized area: Joyo Rock Amp Head

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The joyo rock amp head should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. This amp isn't as tonally sophisticated as the "MB" amp it is inspired by, but it's still absolutely capable in both the stage and studio. The tone is scooped like a ditch and even on a 1x10, with the tone dimed out, palm mutes will rattle your teeth. The amp also has a clean channel that can take pedals really well, which makes it flexible and a great little companion for many situations where your "big" head is too much. The tone control really has a wide range on it.

Wow this is a killer cool light weight amp and it can be loud, sounds very close to a real tube amp as well. The fx loop enables you to put your time based effects or modulation effects behind the drive section and keep the effects sharp and prevent them from sounding too muddy. This is a great sound amp and the value is almost mind blowing. It comes with a foot switch for channel switching. This is a great sounding amp and the value is almost mind blowing.

• A very easy rig to move around
• Sounds great through 12in celestion seventy 80s, karana speakers, and alpha 8a
• Lot of satisfied buyers

Best For buck: Valeton Rock Amp Head

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If you want nothing but the best desirable head, then valeton rock amp head is the one you should definitely consider, as it manages to bring a lot to the table. If you need a small guitar amp, this is the way to go. The Valeton, Asphalt Tar-20G sounds remarkably nice for a tiny, solid-state unit. It can do completely clean, crunchy to haywire, and anything from subtle reverb to surf. It is great for recording & playing in a room.

The sound is clean and the reverb has a nice chime to it. It gets plenty loud enough for small gigs, or band practice, even with a drummer, if your band isn't playing really loud. It is surprisingly good sound though lacking low end frequencies. You can definitely use it with headphones only, with the guitar and also with an auxiliary input.

• Great for home use or small club
• Simple controls easy for beginners to dial in their tone
• Tiny metal design is sturdy, and light
• Great combination for recording live guitar

Best For jamming At home: Hotone Rock Amp Head

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We know from years of feedback from readers, customers and amazon sellers, what most people want in a convenient and appropriate head. The hotone rock amp head is exactly that - it's a simple head that hits all the right notes. The Black Star mini amp "fly amp" easily gives the sound a run for its money. It has seen several different guitars with several different pickup configurations. It can even mic for the right gigs. The Tone is pretty amazing, the Bass, Middle, Treble and Gain controls really change the overall tone drastically. It is a good option for a bedroom practice amp assuming you already have a speaker cabinet. It comes with the gain and volume maxed, which is close to vintage van halen brown sound. It's fun to play.

It's really a fun little amp & very usable. It's perfect for night time practice after the kids go to sleep.

• Amazing power and tone in an amp head the size of a pedal
• Great monster rock sound for home play and practice
• Crunchy-munchy tone with cascading od going in
• Great little amp with a vox vibe

Best With windows: Boss Rock Amp Head

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Compared with other head in this category, the boss rock amp head has a convenient design. The Boss Katana does nearly everything you'd ever want from an amp and certainly everything you need. It is a super versatile, loud, jack-of-all trade amp. The 50 watt Katana amp has a power consumption listing of 47 watts. It does deliver a more natural, less fizzy distortion and pick attack dynamics.

The Katana amps do not use flat response speakers. There is a foot-switch from Roland that works well, in addition it is able to support a volume pedal and an expression pedal. This is a solid amp with great sounds preset but very easy to customize. The amp plugs in to a USB-b to usb-a cord to your laptop or laptop. This is a real gift to the musicians of the world from Boss and anyone who can save up for one of these can use one, knowing they're not missing much over any higher end amps.

• Definitely keeps the front of the amp simple and sleek
• Lot of satisfied buyers

Best For Metal music: Marshall Rock Amp Head

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The marshall rock amp head should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. This amp is more for the old school sound from bands like ac dc and van halen. While it doesn't have the gain of the EVH it has plenty for classic rock style music especially with an overdrive pedal. The sound without pedals is great and very eerily reminiscent of as stated above a marshall plexi with pedals its godly.

This head is an inch wider than the ORI212 angled cab. It has good tone on clean and gain channels, and is quickly shipped, overall great experience. It is perfect for metal music. This amp sounds VERY different with volume on.

• 50 watt and use four speakers capable of handling 350 watts
• Good investment for long term