I wanted a setup that let me just walk into the room, plug in my guitar and earphones and play, and that also made recording easy. I've been using this device regulrly for almost three months now, and it has suited my needs well here.
Its “form factor” is the greatest strength to me. I only play with earphones in, and I wanted my whole setup to easily fit in my guitar bag for travelling. I was previously using a tiny headphone amp with an integrated plug (VOX AmPlug), but I found it to be too inconvenient: it hangs off the side of my Telecaster-style guitar, making it uncomfortable to play sitting down; it span around, making it hard to orient myself; it centered the weight of all the cables onto the guitar; and generally it was very hard to see what I was doing. The ZOOM MS-80IR+ is also a small headphone amp, but because it is in pedal form, it avoids these problems: it sits on the floor, away from my hands and body; and I can easily see what I'm doing thanks to the bright, clear screen. It is also very convenient that I can do many common operations with just my feet, like activating the tuner, switching presets and bypassing the current amp, ambience or effect. Also, unlike many tiny headphone amps, you can fully operate the device without using a smartphone, which was critical for me.
The USB-C port is also very convenient. By connecting just a single cable to my laptop, the pedal can be powered from my laptop's battery, I can immediately record what I'm playing in perfect quality, and any audio played from my laptop is played back through the pedal. This last thing is great for consulting tutorial videos, or listen to music and play along to accompany it, etc. If I use an external power source, I can also do this with my phone. I like that no special app or DAW is required, so I can keep my focus on guitar playing.
Some particulars:
• The enclosure seems well-built.
• The user interface is very intuitive and easy-to-use. I didn't need to read the manual.
• The headphone output works well even with the sensitive in-ear monitor earphones I am using (Shure SE215). That can't be taken for granted since I've had problems with many consumer audio devices. The ZOOM MS-80IR+'s headphone output quality seems comparable to my main audio interface (Steinberg UR22mkII), there is no noticeable noise, and the volume level can be set low enough (4%) to be comfortable.
• It has a great variety of different kinds of tones. I don't feel like I am stuck with one particular sound; you can get gentle jazz tones and exciting metal crunch, for example. I have been fairly satisfied with these, but you will have to judge their quality for yourself.
• At low gain settings, there's no noticeable noise and interference in my experience: when my guitar is silent, there's no noise in my earphones. However, for high gain (metal etc) you may need to use the “noise reduction” effect.
• Despite belonging to the ZOOM MultiStomp “MS” series, the effects capabilities are very limited. You can only use one “amp” (includes a simulated cabinet), one “ambience” (a non-configurable reverb) and one “effect” at once. The selection of “effects” is very small and not as diverse as on the other MS series pedals. It seems that ZOOM chose to prioritise the quality of the amp and cab simulation over effects. So it makes more sense to think of this pedal as an amp replacement than as a multi-effect pedal.
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