Watch It First
Quick housekeeping before anyone gets confused: this is not the Fender Mustang LTX50. That is a proper combo amp with a speaker in it. This thing plugs into your guitar jack and is roughly the size of a fat USB stick.
The original Mustang Micro has quietly disappeared from most shelves, replaced by the Micro Plus – which is the same daft idea with a screen bolted on and a lot more under the hood.
I have spent a while with one on the sofa, on trains, and once in a hotel room at an hour that would have got me thrown out with any actual amplifier. That is the review, really, but let me pad it out properly.
What It Is
A headphone amp that plugs directly into your guitar output jack. The body rotates so it does not stick out at a silly angle regardless of whether your jack is top-mounted or on the edge.
Inside there are 25 amp models and 25 effect models, a tuner, a global EQ, Bluetooth audio streaming so you can play along to whatever is on your phone, and up to six hours of battery.
The Plus adds the two things people begged for after the original: an actual LCD screen and app control. You get 100 user presets managed through Fender Tone, which is a lot of storage for something with no cable attached to it.
The Screen Changes Everything
The first Mustang Micro was a guessing game. You pressed buttons and cycled through models with no idea where you were until something sounded right.
Now there is a display telling you exactly which amp and which effect you are on, and what the parameters are doing. It sounds like a small thing. It is not. It turns a fiddly toy into something you actually reach for.
How It Sounds
Better than it has any business sounding. The cleans are the highlight – Fender have obviously spent their modelling effort where their reputation lives, and the blackface-ish sounds are lovely on headphones.
Mid-gain crunch is solid. High gain is fine rather than great; it gets a bit compressed and papery next to a serious modeller like the Line 6 HX Stomp, which is not a fair fight and I know it.
The reverbs and delays are genuinely good, and the modulation is fine. The Modify buttons let you tweak parameters on the fly rather than being stuck with whatever preset the designers liked.
Versus the Quiet-Practice Alternatives
The obvious comparison is the Yamaha THR30II Wireless, which sounds better through its own speakers and does far more. It also costs many times as much and does not fit in a pocket.
Same story with the Boss Dual Cube LX – better sound, more features, but you are carrying a box. And the Boss Waza-Air does the headphone thing with spatial audio, at a price that makes the Micro Plus look like an impulse buy.
The Micro Plus is not trying to beat any of them. It is trying to be the thing you never have an excuse not to have with you, and it wins that comparison by a mile.
The Bluetooth Bit
Streaming backing tracks straight into your headphones alongside your guitar is the feature that quietly justifies the whole purchase.
Fender have added audio and video sync, which matters more than it sounds – the original had enough latency that playing along to a YouTube lesson felt slightly off. This one is much better behaved.
It is not perfect. There is still a tiny amount of lag on some phones. But for learning songs and jamming along to a playlist it is completely usable.
The Honest Niggles
The jack. If your guitar has a recessed or awkwardly angled output – some Strats, plenty of semi-hollows – the fit is a wrestling match. The rotating body helps but does not fix everything.
Battery life of around six hours is fine but the charging is over USB-C and it will not run while charging from every power source. Slightly annoying if you play at a desk.
And the high-gain models are the weak spot. If you are a metal player looking for tight, modern chug, this will feel a bit soft and a bit fizzy. It is not what the thing is for.
Also worth saying: no speaker, obviously. This is headphones or nothing. If you want to be heard by anyone else in the room, wrong product entirely.
The Specs
- Headphone amplifier for electric guitar
- 25 amp models and 25 effect models
- 100 user presets, editable via the Fender Tone mobile app
- Integrated LCD display and tuner
- Tap tempo and adjustable global EQ
- Bluetooth audio streaming with audio and video sync
- Up to 6 hours of continuous playing time
- Rotating body for different jack orientations
- Thomann article number: 594228
Can You Actually Record With It?
Yes, and this is the bit that gets glossed over in most reviews. The Micro Plus works as a USB audio interface, so you can plug it straight into a laptop or phone and capture the modelled tone directly into whatever you record with.
It is not going to replace a proper interface and it never claims to. But for grabbing a riff before you forget it, or building a rough demo on a train, it is honestly excellent – and it means the thing earns its space in your bag twice over.
One caveat worth knowing: you are recording the processed sound, not a dry signal you can re-amp later. So if you change your mind about the amp model afterwards, tough luck. Commit or record it again.
Final Verdict
The Micro Plus is the answer to a question a lot of us have: how do I get twenty minutes of playing in without setting anything up or waking anyone up?
It is not the best-sounding thing you can buy. It is not close. But it is the thing that gets picked up, and a mediocre amp you actually use beats a great one that stays in its case.
IMO the screen alone makes this worth choosing over a used original Mustang Micro if you can find one. Guessing which model you are on was genuinely tedious.
Buy it if you live in a flat, travel a lot, or just want your guitar to be playable at eleven at night without a negotiation. It punches so far above its money it is almost silly.
