The guitar news is starting to wake up again after the summer, and this week’s episode had a few things that actually caught our attention.
First up, Ibanez has unveiled another ridiculously extravagant Steve Vai PIA — and when we say extravagant, we mean $15,000 extravagant. The new model features an ornate gold-leaf finish, gold hardware and the usual PIA design, with Vai’s signature DiMarzio Utopia pickups and Tree of Life-style inlays (but not the actual tree of life, this one is somehow different?).
It’s certainly not a guitar designed to disappear into the background. Whether it’s worth fifteen grand is another question entirely, but there’s no denying that Ibanez knows how to make a Steve Vai signature guitar look like a Steve Vai signature guitar.
And while we were discussing ludicrously expensive gear, Tone3000 has quietly dropped something considerably more interesting for the average guitarist: a new NAM plugin.
The new plugin takes the old NAM experience and turns it into something much more like a complete virtual rig. Rather than simply loading a capture, you can build a signal chain with multiple NAM profiles, amp and cab captures, pedal profiles, EQ and even convolution reverb.
It also connects directly to the Tone3000 library, meaning you can browse and load profiles without having to constantly jump between the website and your DAW. We were pleasantly surprised by just how much more useful it looks compared with the rather basic NAM loading experience we've had previously.
Then there’s NAM A2, which continues to make its way into affordable hardware.
After getting native A2 running on the Valeton GP180, the big takeaway was just how good it sounds. The profiles have a noticeable sense of clarity and openness, with more of that full-frequency, amp-like feel you get from playing through a proper amplifier.
That’s pretty exciting when you consider how affordable some of this hardware is.
In fact, we’re getting to the point where the budget end of modelling is starting to seriously close the gap with the expensive stuff. And that might be the most interesting bit of guitar news of all.
There’s plenty more A2 testing to come, too — including the possibility of a proper blind test between A1, A2 and a real amplifier. That could be interesting… and potentially rather humbling.
There’s something rather exciting happening at the budget end of the modelling market.
The gap between a £160-ish modeller and the high-end, expensive stuff is getting smaller. And the latest example is NAM A2 running natively on the Valeton GP180. Well, A2 lite at least.
No conversion. No clever workaround to make an old profile fit. Just native NAM A2 profiling running inside a box that costs around £160.
And, more importantly, it sounds good. I mean, really, really good.
The first thing that struck me when listening to the A2 captures was just how amp-like they feel. There’s a really convincing response to your playing, particularly when you start digging into the strings. It doesn't just sound like a digital approximation of an amp — it reacts like one.
Don't get me wrong, NAM A1 conversion was good, but this is something else.
The Catch? DSP
Of course, there had to be a catch.
A full NAM A2 profile on the GP180 is seriously hungry for processing power. The NAM block alone uses 74% of the available DSP.
Add a cab and you're already getting dangerously close to the limit. Throw in a reverb and you're basically done.
In the example from the video, the combination of NAM, cab and reverb pushed the DSP to around 99%.
That's not leaving much room for your fancy effects chain.
But there's a clever way around it.
Put the Amp and Cab Together
The solution is to use a full NAM capture containing both the amp and cab.
That means the NAM block is doing the heavy lifting for both parts of the signal chain, rather than using a separate cab block and eating another chunk of DSP.
And suddenly the GP180 becomes a much more versatile tool.
Instead of having a NAM profile, cab and reverb eating virtually everything, you've got enough DSP left for the rest of your signal chain like compression, modulation, delay and drive, to name but a few.
That's a massive difference in usability.
You lose some of the flexibility of having the amp and cab completely separate — you can't endlessly swap combinations around and sculpt the sound in quite the same way — but you gain a much more complete pedalboard.
So you have an important choice to make.
Run A2 with a separate cab and you get a digital amp replacement. One sublime core amp tone, which you can augment with the rest of the pedals on your board..
Run a combined amp-and-cab capture, though, and you've got all of the versatility built into the unit itself.
You could also go for a hybrid approach... but that is a story for another time.
The Bigger Picture
For me, that's the really exciting part of this.
A few years ago, genuinely convincing amp modelling was very much limited to the expensive end of the market. Now we're looking at a sub-£200 unit running native A2 profiles that sound remarkably close to the sort of tones you'd expect from much more expensive hardware. Even rivalling stuff like the Tonex, which is the absolute gold standard for me.
It's not perfect. You don't get the same level of deep amp-and-cab tweaking, and the DSP limitations are very real, but there is no denying that this is a huge step forward.
Just listen to the core tones, they're seriously impressive. And if this is where the budget modelling market is heading, the expensive manufacturers might want to start looking over their shoulders.
Because that gap is getting smaller. Very quickly.
If you fancy one of your own and want to support the channel, consider using my affiliate link. Valeton GP180 (affiliate link): https://thmn.to/thoprod/636408?offid=1&affid=2735
NAM A2 Isn't Just Better... It's the Moment You Realise What You've Been Missing
When I put together my recent video comparing NAM A1 and the brand-new NAM A2 architecture, I deliberately kept my opinions out of it.
The idea was simple: same guitar, same riff, same profile, same signal chain. The only thing changing was whether the profile had been created using the original A1 architecture or the new A2. Then I left it to you to decide what you were hearing.
Having spent a lot more time listening back to the clips, though, I think I've landed firmly on where I stand.
Clean Tones? Honestly... It's Hard to Tell
Let's start with the clean examples because I think this is where a lot of people expected there to be a dramatic difference.
Personally, I don't hear one.
Or at least, not one that really matters.
If there are differences, they're incredibly subtle. Perhaps there's a tiny bit more openness here or a touch more detail there, but we're talking about changes that could probably be matched with a slight tweak of an EQ control.
If somebody swapped between A1 and A2 in a blind test on a clean Fender-style amp, I'm not convinced I'd confidently pick one every single time.
That's not a criticism of A2 either. It's more a compliment to just how good A1 already was.
Then You Add Gain...
Everything changes.
The crunchy amp comparison was the moment that made me sit up.
Don't get me wrong, the A1 profile sounds fantastic. If you'd told me a few years ago that we'd have access to captures that accurate for free, I'd have laughed.
It's thick and punchy.
It has all the characteristics you'd expect from a great cranked amp.
If all you'd ever heard was the A1 version, you'd probably think, "That sounds incredible."
Then you switch to A2.
And suddenly your brain goes...
"No... that's incredible."
The best way I can describe it is that the entire sound seems to open up.
It's almost like someone has pulled back a curtain that you didn't even realise was there.
The 1080p vs 4K Comparison
Trying to describe sound is always difficult because we end up borrowing words from other senses.
A1 is like watching something in 1080p. It looked fantastic for years. Then somebody puts the same footage next to a true 4K version. Suddenly you're seeing textures you didn't know existed.
The 1080p version didn't suddenly become bad...you've just realised what was missing.
That's exactly how A2 feels to me. The harmonics become clearer. There's more sparkle on the top end. The note separation improves. Everything just feels more three-dimensional.
Higher Gain Makes the Difference Even More Obvious
If the crunch comparison was impressive, the high-gain Soldano example removed almost all doubt for me.
That's where A2 really stretches its legs.
Higher gain naturally compresses a guitar signal, so any extra clarity is incredibly valuable. Instead of everything blending together into one wall of distortion, individual notes retain more definition. It's not a completely different sound. It's simply a more convincing version of what was already there.
So What Does This Mean Going Forward?
This is probably the part that excites me the most.
We've already seen several manufacturers publicly say they're working on bringing NAM A2 support to their hardware.
Companies like Sonicake, Valeton and NuX have all posted that they're looking at implementing the new architecture across compatible products.
At the time of writing, nobody has confirmed exactly which units will receive support or when that might happen.
Realistically, I'm not expecting every entry-level modeller to suddenly gain A2 overnight. Ultra-budget devices with very limited processing power may simply not have the horsepower.
That said, one of the interesting suggestions surrounding A2 is that the architecture is actually more efficient than A1.
If that turns out to be true, it opens up some really interesting possibilities.
Could even some of the smaller, cheaper units eventually run A2 captures?
Right now, that's just speculation on my part.
But it's exciting speculation.
Budget Modelling Just Keeps Getting Better
One of the things I've loved watching over the last few years is how quickly affordable modelling has evolved.
What used to require expensive flagship hardware is now appearing in units that cost a fraction of the price.
NAM A1 already felt like a huge leap forward.
NAM A2 doesn't make A1 obsolete—it simply refines it.
It's another step towards making genuinely world-class amp captures available to just about everyone.
And if this is the direction things are heading, I don't think we're anywhere near the ceiling yet.
