I play solo acoustic fingerstyle. I got one of the Roland 30 watt acoustic amps to play through at home, with the aim of getting used to amplified sound. This is the model that can be loaded up with batteries to play out where there is no mains power.
It's fine in the average lounge room, and would probably be OK in a very small public space with 30 or so people. Definitely not loud enough for pub gigs or anything bigger.
I also found that it was very hard to get a 'realistic' tone that stayed consistent as the volume was wound up. The problem (and it was the same in many of the acoustic amps I've tried in music shops) seems to be in the mid-range, where it's easy for the sound to get 'farty'.
The only real fix was to get a decent preamp, and run the guitar signal into this before the amplifier itself. I use a Radial PZ-pre, and this made it much easier to dial in a consistent sound.
When I went shopping for a 'real' amp I tried most of the usual suspects. I thought the AER models shaded the Fishmans, although AER is very expensive. None of the amps I could try in music shops worked for me relying just on their own tone controls, and the 60-110W ones were all heavy and clumsy to move around.
I ended up with one of these:
http://hkaudio.com/products.php?id=376
which I use with the Radial preamp. So far I've been able to get the tone I want out of all of my guitars through this setup, with the added advantage of a bigger bass and more throw than with the cabinet style amps I tried.
I bought the Nano online for cheaper than I could find it locally, even with delivery fees.
I should note that my guitars have Fishman ellipse blend pickups, UST combined with internal microphones, so this (at least the microphone) probably influences the mid-range sensitivities I notice.
So, short answer, you need to take the guitar you are using to the different amps and try them out.
Kym
