Sounds great, At times I forget that others can't hear me through the head phones. I can blast and not piss anyone off. Had to play with tone on a few effects to get rid of background hum and hiss. Then Effects sound great.

This is the coolest! I can now play along with a CD. And, slow it down to 1/2 speed, & set in a repeat loop where I want to figure out the hard fast solos. You can increase the speed in increments as you get better, and soon I am playing hard fast solos at regular speed! Seriously, it has saved time 100% in learning really hard stuff! And made playing along with anything fun and easy.

This is the only CD play-along Guitar set out there. I used to have to use 2 headphones; 1 to listen to music, and 1 for my guitar. With this you get to use one pair of headphones and not have wires hanging everywhere.

This is the coolest way to practice a song and play along with it. Speeds learning time, Headphones keeps noise down, it is small, and an easy to use without a lot of cables.

Never had to use it, but I too did print out a larger manual off their site.

Nice and tight. It does what I need and is not big.

Active Musician

Rock/Alternative

the sound is good enough.

the loop and slow down features.

the product is easy enough to use.

Had now since it first came out ,holding up great.

Yes!

Have had no problems.

Great product.

Serious Hobbyist.

All types.

it's great. you can slow down the music, but keep the same pitch that you need so you know the note and rhythm as well.

Great features, but the battery life SUX!! Buy the AC adapter, because without it the unit will just randomly shut off.

works great, looks good, and does what it's suppost to do

it's the first thing like this on the market, so the price is iffy. But i would say, from how much it's helped me, it's worth it

haven't had to use it

looks good, and works great. I love it

alternative and anything acoustic

It's a great little personal amp, sound thing. I was using the Marshall MS-2, which by the way if you only have $35 is excellent, but this has way more sounds and options. You'll need good headphones or maybe some small speakers, my wife sez you need to smoke some dope, but the sound is great even if yer not high, because I'm not high and it sound good, it's got, like, 60 different tones. Super funky, heavy, blues rock......

It's got lots of tones, inputs, outputs, footswitch (which I've never used). You will need the AC/DC converter, good headphones, a 3-5 foot guitar cable. Don't drop it.

Plastic

It's kind-of a personal amp & CD player, but personal amps are cheap and so are personal CD players, it's kind-of combined, so it's different. It's more expensive, but more fun. For $100 USD, you should buy, for $150 think about it, it's the best personal amp I have, but not the best CD player, it will be great in your dorm or if your wife is asleep.

N/A

I wish I would have bought this earlier. It's fun. It rocks. Need headphones.

hobby

Rock, "Alternative", "Country", "Jazz", "Drum and Bass", "Techno", etc.

The sound is crappy. If you like listening to uneven constantly wavering and fluctuating CD's, then this is for you. It will prove very frustrating when you are trying to play along with it. The volume controls between the player and your guitar plug in are incompatible. You won't be able to balance the levels between the two sources to blend them. It will prove annoying. It will slow the riff down, but that's it. This deal even sounds bad at normal speed.

Fir the nearly two years I have owned it, it has sat on the shelf collecting dust. I tried to use it on a number of occassions, but always got fed up with its lousy sound and jerky-quirky speed characteristics. I even plugged it through the studio sound board in an attempt to improve the volume and tonal quality. It was a fun diversion for about two hours, but then it went back up on the shelf where it has been for the last 14 months. Don't get caught up with the features that are claimed. It has EFFECTS. You won't care for them. They are about as cheesy as they come. To some it up. I'm very dissappointed in the trainer. I have other Tascam products which I would highly recommend, but this thing is a hunk of junk. I don't know what Tascam was thinking about. It's a fine notion, but this doesn't cut it. It's not that useful. It's mostly just annoying. Don't waste your money.

It will run. You won't take it anywhere with you. You will need to get the power adapter. It eats batteries like crazy. I don't and wouldn't expect to depend on it. I will never wear it out. It's a piece of junk.

You can get the riffs from this, but I find it more of an annoying nusance than a help.

Haven't ever had a problem with my other Tascam stuff. Portastudios and stuff like that. I didn't call them on this because it does wht it says it will do. When you get the instructions, you'll be surprised to find that even in the instruction manual, it will explain that sound quality will be crap, but unfortunately it's not explained in the sales pitch.

I'm surprised and dissapointed that Tascam would actually market this piece of chinsy crap. Technical marvel? Doesn't even work as a decent CD player. Save your money.

classic and prog. rock

Sound is OK. The sound of the CD at reduced speed has a bit of flutter but judging from computer programs I have heard that seems to be an artifact of the signal processing algorithms and not a problem with the unit.

The ability to slow down a recording and loop on a phrase is probably the neatest feature. For the selling price, you'd think that an AC adapter would have been included. But don't pay the $20 - anything from 7.5 to 9 VDC will work (e.g., I found something pretty cheap at the big discount chain store that works fine) The effects section is hard to understand and not very good. For example, I have putzed around with it for hours and have yet to figure out how to produce a simple fat sound with moderate distortion (see the next comment for more on this).

The workmanship and quality seems to be fine. I would not recommend dropping the unit on a hard floor, but it seems rugged enough for a CD player. It's internal computer can evidently get confused. I was playing with the effects the other night (running on batteries) and the thing locked up. Had to power it off an on to get it going again and it reset the effects settings in the process.

You can find addins to WinAmp (Windows) and XMMS (LINUX) that will pretty much provide the same playback funcionality on your PC (maybe without the looping) and the effects are not very good. And for about the same money you can get a little practice amp with killer effects and a headphone jack.

Have not tried to contact Tascam but their web site has the same out-of-date user's manual.

Aside from the looping capability, there's not much here in the way of playback control that you can't do for free on your PC. And the effects don't hold a candle to those you find on amps with DSP effects.

Hobbyist

Rock

Sounds good, ( I had to play with the tone to adjust minor background noise- very minor though) After that it as Crisp and clear. It does get a little choppy when slowing down the playback, I can hear the notes fine and it has DEFINATELY helped me figure out some tough licks where I would have been helpless. It called a Guitar Trainer a it is AWESOME!

Does not include a power supply. I ordered the manufacturer's(9Volt 500mA) for about $23.00. Otherwise it eats 4 AAs in about 2 hours. I did find a 6 volt/400mA power supply in my house that runs it just fine too. The only thing is be sure the connector matches, there are so many different DC connectors.

Very well made. I keep it by a window and cover it from UV rays/Heat (common sense stuff) Minor caution, Like all things made of plastic.

This is the Best! Hands down.

Did not need to call support. Most questions were found on-line ( including a larger copy of the manual for easier reading).

Like I said, it is a Guitar Trainer. It has excellent effects that make my inexpensive guitar Sound Awesome while playing along with any CD, without waking the neighbors - via the headphones. Like my friend said when I first asked him how he liked it, he said "IT ROCKS"! I agree!