Boss Tube Amp Expander

After playing guitar for forty years, of which ten years as a guitar shop owner, I thought I had seen it all. That is almost arrogant, of course because that is not possible at all. Those who know me a little know that I’m more on the critical than the encouraging side when it comes to digital ripping so when I heard about the Boss Tube Amp Expander I wasn’t very enthusiastic at first. A device that will digitally absorb the analog blows of my beloved tube amps and reproduce it at bedroom level? I do not think so. I thought…

Digital truck box for the analog mind

You already feel it coming: nothing turned out to be less true. As soon as I unpacked the Boss Tube Amp Expander, I could breathe easily. It was not very light at all, not particularly compact and was black with a well-organized number of large buttons on it. A wave of recognition. Of course I knew that thing would be much better on the inside, but also looks a little bit like my espresso machine. I have no idea how the thing works, but making coffee has been fine for me so far. You physically tie the thing between your tube amp and the speaker(s). The Boss TAE has a well-arranged edition on the back of which a number are for the final hand and one for the later brilliant hand. More on that later.

The first thing you hear is your amplifier as it was intended on the drawing board. Very, very hard! Because that just sounds better. The magic button is located at the bottom left of the Boss and is called SPEAKER OUT. Turn the volume up to an acceptable level and guess what? It still sounds crazy good. I’m a complete freak when it comes to the small nuances that a good guitar amp produces at the right volume (the “sweet spot”) and so like to think of the volume control on a guitar amp as a Tone control. I know there are countless attenuators that do their job well but this is the next level.

Just nice and hard but without getting nauseous

In addition to absorbing the power of the amp, the Boss TAE also simulates the sound of the speakers that are having a hard time. That’s not new either and you can use all the “impulsive responses” available online but on the Boss you can set this up just with a button on the front. So within two minutes a top sound, no such USB cable is used. The sound is phenomenal. I really didn’t understand it. How can this sound so good at low volume? Suddenly I made sure that all those 100 watt Marshalls and high powered Fender twins have not been saved for nothing.

Because this is sound, my dear guitar friends and girlfriends, this is real sound. The room felt noticeably warmer, whether it was my excitement or the hard-working tubes and transformers, I don’t know, but in all those years I felt for the first time that I was hearing what I’ve always wanted to hear: my sound. Without concealing boxes or complicated wet-dry-wet systems. It just sounded right the first time. The last time I had such a big smile was when I got a Tomos 4L moped for my 16th birthday.

Just an example

Pump up to stage volume

Taming a 100 watt plexi goes well. In addition to a powersoak, the smart guys at Boss have also built in a 100-watt output stage. “What does that mean!?” I hear you think. “Don’t we want softer or even in-ear?”. Yes indeed, but suppose your favorite amp is a 5 watt Fender Champ? With that you will not make it at rehearsals and performances in terms of volume. The Boss TAE gives you the opportunity to grab the sound of a 5 watter and send it to, for example, a 112 cabinet, at a usable volume. You can again influence the sound of your speaker with the low and high resonance buttons on the front. Very handy and above all fast.

The heart of your set-up

An equally clever feature is the built-in effects loop. That Fender Champ has no fx loop and a delay for an amp running at full power doesn’t always work well, let alone a nice reverberation. You can now. You can actually use your existing setup as it is now, only then sound even better and you can do that with any amp. In the rare case that someone does not have an impressive collection of delay, reverb etc pedals: those are also included in the Boss TAE. With some extra “deep editing” you can conjure up all the reverberations and echoes you need from the Boss.

It also does the switching of channels on your amp for you. Most of the features can be saved as a “Rig” and called up via the optional footswitch. If you don’t prefer this (like I do), you can also switch the fx loop, internal reverb, internal delay, solo/eq level and channel switching on and off with your foot. In my case, my old pedalboard reduced to just the Boss TAE’s footswitch. Also no more 220 voltage needed in front of the stage, so very handy. In just one week, the Boss Tube Amp Expander

has become the proverbial heart of my guitar setup. Whichever this one is, the Boss is the conductor, arranger and technician so I or you can just do what you enjoy most: play guitar.

Boss Kauffmann himself.