HeadRush, Sonicake (and more brands) Release NAM A2 Updates

Recent weeks have seen some exciting releases for guitarists interested in Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) hardware.

First, HeadRush brought native NAM A2 support AND touchscreen integration with TONE3000's massive NAM library to their entire multi-effects lineup on July 31st. Then, Sonicake announced this week a NAM A2 support update across their lineup through their Soniclink app.

Although Sonicake's update appears to still use conversion to their proprietary format (I'll explain this more in a bit), I found this exciting because I own both a Pocket Master and an Ampcube.

NAM creator Steve Atkinson posted about using NAM on his own HeadRush Prime, and it looks super easy to explore different tones. Dare I say, HeadRush's lineup might now be the gold standard now for a UX to discover and experiment with guitar tones.

Mooer also announced NAM A2 conversion (so not native A2-lite) for GE150 Plus, Pro, and Max.

And on the bus after publishing this article initially, the Instagram algorithm thankfully fed me another I missed: NUX announcing native A2-lite support for their MG-50Li with the firmware V1.1 update.

Is Sonicake's NAM A2 support native?

Even though we would have loved to have native A2-lite, long story short is no.

Importantly and interestingly, this wasn't a firmware update; to load a NAM A2 file of my own combo amp onto my Pocket Master, I simply had to upgrade to version 1.7.2 of the Soniclink Android app on my phone. Since the update happened at the level of the app rather than changing the firmware, I think we can assume that the old conversion process was updated to accept NAM A2 files as input.

Even though this is most likely not native, I did hear a noticeable difference in sound A/Bing between an A1 and A2 capture. I'm not going to make claims about "better accuracy" without doing some quantitative testing (which I haven't had a chance to do yet). Assuming some sort of distillation process is used in the conversion, improving the upstream "smarter" model (A2 in this case) should still help, but we need to really clear that we aren't getting the rigorously proven (by T3K's team) quality and accuracy of native NAM A2.

The update covers the following products: Matribox, Matribox II, Matribox Pro, Pocket Master, Smart Box, Ampcube, and Amphonix II

If you own Sonicake products, it's ok to be disappointed that this isn't A2-lite, but the good news is that you will continue to be able to use models you find on TONE3000 now that A2 is the default format there.

Another announcement from Sonicake that caught my eye alongside this was a firmware update to add MIDI control over Bluetooth and USB (see patch notes here). In my time with the Ampcube, it already stuck out to me that people were going to want midi due to the amp's inherently limited controls, so this seems like a great feature addition for overall usability and flexibility.

Head to your phone's respective app store or Sonicake's dowloads page to get your updates. Make sure you are on version 1.7.2 or later of the Soniclink app, or it will fail when you try to load an A2 model.

(I have a full review of the Sonicake Pocket Master too)

Closing Thoughts

If you own any of the products I've mentioned here, then make sure you check out the necessary updates to run A2 models if you haven't already! And for those considering purchasing one of these devices, I think this information should be helpful. I think this is actually a good example of a concept I've talked about before of how you are paying partially for firmware and app updates that keep you up to date with the latest technology.

I haven't tried HeadRush's lineup, unfortunately, but their offerings seem to deliver an impressive value and experience, especially now that they support NAM.

Finally, if you're buying a product in this space, it's important to recognize the distinction between NAM as a file format (that can be converted to proprietary formats) and Native NAM A2 at runtime. Since HeadRush lets you run full-size A2 models, there aren't really any question marks about sound quality.