I'm suffering from analysis paralysis. I intend to get a Railboard, and I have no intention of gigging, although Robstafarian's epic equipment thread was both entertaining and educational. Initially, I will play mostly through headphones, and later with a small amplifier. I do not think I will ever need to fill anything larger than a room in my house. If I do, well, that's another day and another purchase.

I like quality equipment, but it does not need to be feature-rich. I generally try to learn the price-performance curve in a new field, then try to buy before the point where the slope levels and you start chasing smaller and smaller improvements with more money.

So... a headphone amp with a line out for the future? If so, which one? Something like the Zoom H4n? A small head unit with headphone jack, and add a cabinet later? If so, which? A small full combo? Small size is good, too.

I have read threads until I am blue in the face and feel that I know less than when I started. So, please help confuse me even more.....

How much are you Willing to spend on an amp?

That's part of what I'm trying to determine. I had thought to try to keep it in the neighborhood of $300, but I can go higher for the right gear. I just watched Greg Howard's demo of the StepAbout, and it looks really nice, but is $700. I'd have to think long and hard about that. It's a preamp - while it would work well now for headphones, I would still need an amp and a speaker.

Some of the small coffeehouse size acoustic guitar amps like Fishman are good small scale hi-fi amps. And they have multiple channels to accommodate to stereo Stick pickup and usually built-in basic effects.

There aren't that many stereo headphone amps.

Andreas Richter (the guy that makes the StepAbout™) has also a great small headphone amp with integrated pre-amp, that is certainly a lot less expensive than the StepAbout:
http://www.richter-ee.de/headamp2.html

The HA-2 has stereo input and stereo output, and I think it uses the same headphone circuit as the StepABout. The sound is great! The only disadvantage: the case is a bit "homemade" and has sharp edges.

You have to contact Andreas directly for the price and delivery times.

How about just getting a small interface for your phone or iPad (apogee makes one for about 70 bucks) and then get a Bluetooth speaker, or use headphones. I practice with my IPhone XS like this all the time, I use GarageBand on the phone and put the Stick into mono mode - it actually sounds pretty good.

if you stretch your budget a bit

you can try the roland cube street ex

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... -combo-amp

If you want it in stereo, there is the iRig Pro Duo. And if you want I think you can use it as a headphone amp - without phone or iPad.

The irig looks like it has phantom power for the xlr inputs so that might be a nice match for the railboard electronics


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Interesting ... I thought that the iRig was Apple-only, but it appears to support Android, so that is an idea. I've not tried Bluetooth buds with a live music source. I use them for music playback, but had read that the latency made them less than ideal for guitars, so by extension also true for the Stick.

The HA-2 also looks good.

I don't understand the whole phantom power thing. If I have it right, that term means supplying power to normally unpowered pickups to increase gain. Is that so? I saw the video comparing the three Stick pickups, but the Railboard appears to have a fourth design. Is it half of the same pickups as the PASV-4 in a new case?

While I don't have any instrument amplification, I do have multiple older high-end audio amplifiers laying around, both tube and SS. Any chance that some of these might work? Of course, that would mean I need 1) a preamp, and 2) speakers for playback. I'm always cautious regarding just hooking pieces together, as I really do not understand pickup differences. Is I have a preamp with both a line-level input and a phono input, what exactly is the difference? How does the audio concept of 'line-level' translate to the instrument amplification realm?