ToneWoodAmp Multieffekt for Acousticguitar

This incredible product has expanded my musical horizon.
I first saw a demo of this product on the Andertons Youtube channel in the Interview with Mike Dawes, an incredible fingerstyle player from the UK. This is not an amplifier in the usual sense, it will not make your acoustic guitar sound louder. It will add effects like delay, reverb and modulation to your acoustic guitar. It does so by vibrating the back of the guitar and the result comes out of the sound hole.
You will need a nylon or steel string acoustic guitar with some sort of element built in. The back of the guitar has to be flat. The signal goes in to the Tonewood Amp which attaches magnetically to the back of the guitar. In order to do this you will have to install a magnetic X-brace to the inside of your guitar.
The online manual will help you there and having some scotch tape ready beforehand is a good idea (the kind that does not leave residue on your guitar).
When properly installed you can explore 8 different effects anywhere you feel like, Three reverbs, Hall, Room, Plate, then Delay, Tremelo, Lesly, Autowah and Distortion. The latter works best with a soundhole pick up and sounds awful with a Piezo. Fortunately you can upgrade the firmware via micro usb from a PC or Mac and change the distortion effect to Chorus. Great improvement.
Also there is an IO cable available to send MIDI generated music from your IOS device to the Tonewood amp for extra effects or backing tracks. I have an Android phone so I did not try this. It is not supported because there is no MIDI in Android yet.
The Tonewood amp comes with one X-brace. You can order more separately but they are a bit expensive which is a downside. Also a big downside of the series I got is that it will not take common rechargeable batteries. These usually have a slightly larger diameter than regular batteries and get stuck in the housing or can damage the PCB inside. Tonewood has promised to widen the cavity in the next series but for now recommend using special brands of rechargeables or taping them together or even worse loosening the screws on the housing to release stuck batteries.
As to build quality it feels solid and the knobs have a nice feel to it when turning or pushing. The different menu-knob combinations can be a bit difficult to get at first but that is what the manual is for.
Connecting a USB cable is a bit glitchy, the connector has to have a long tip. Also do not move the amp or cable around when updating.
I have played my guitar and tonewood amp at home, outside and in bars. To much amazement and delight to the audience and of course myself. Also I have used it as a Direct In (DI) to a mixer which is a nice feature. A downside there can be the power save mode you will need to disable up front. Also it does not work on external power as far as I have found but it will work for 8 hrs with fresh AA batteries.
Every guitar and pickup is different so you can store guitar profiles with their relative gain and volume settings and every effect has ten memory slots available. Also you can filter out feedback frequencies if necessary.
Seriously, to have reverb or delay coming from your guitar is awesome. Having Autowah (frequency filtering) available when you do a Stevie Wonder or Jimmy makes everyone goes whoo. You will get it once you play with it. And you will never want to play without it.
Yeah it is exactly like a Yamaha Transacoustic but you can put it on more than one guitar. I have installed X-braces to a Yamaha AX 6 and a Yamaha AX4, A Thomann Classical Fusion 8 and a Fender DG8-S (both with a Fishman Presys built in) Have fun!

Many reviews are raving about this device, and it is quite fun and shocking to hear effects coming out of the soundhole out of your acoustic guitar. But once the surprise wears off, I feel it takes away from the natural sparkle and projection of my guitar. It ends up only really sounding great when amplified (either with a mic - which is why all the ads sound so gread - or by plugging it in), which kinda defeats the purpose of the device. Because in an amplified scenario, a pedal would be cheaper, have more functionality and could be operated by foot mid-song.

The dials are not very precise. You need to turn it several clicks to move to the next effect. Quickly moving over a few effects at once isn't possible, because it will register four quick clicks to the right as moving over one effect. Then wait a second, en then turn again for the next effect. This might get frustrating during a show.

There is a slight constant high-pitched buzz as long as the device is turned on. All the effects do have an unpleasant, high-pitched ring to it and at any volume that I was able to hear them, muddied up the natural sound of my guitar.

For the fact that ToneWoodAmp is a genuine new invention that holdsup to its promises, I would definitely give it a 5 stars because of the wonderful possibility to open the doors of acoustic possibilities without even the use of external equipment. Yes, it is truly a genius idea and a pleasure to play with it. Unplugged will never be the same anymore. I am pretty sure that I will not play without the ToneWoodAmp in public if I am not using a PA / amp.
This said, is it worth the money?
I'd say yeah! And if you are a left-handed person, it would be well advised to ask the company to send you a left handed one. Because they could do it. Inverting the display so that you can use it. Otherwise, it won't do at all!
However, it will not be a truly lefty device, since the knobs will be on the other side.
Nonetheless, I am glad to have it!
Only negative point in this. The power consumption is not up to par with this device. As you may want to do ,is to use rechargeable batteries for it . However, there is two drawbacks to that.
One is that batteries will not last as long since the device use quite a lot of energy. Two, you may have a hard time removing them from the device, as they are often larger than non rechargeable alkaline batteries.
I had to use a rounded file to file the plastic in order to have the batteries fit without getting stuck . Doing so, I forfeited the warranty. So, this isn't a great thing.
I hope that in the future they may have a new model that can be USB recharged. This would do great for the future of this amp/effect device.
Other than that? Well, there are plenty of essential effects and enough tweaking to get a sound that you will be so happy to play with.
All in all! I recommend this to all acoustic guitars players out there.
Pro or not!

The tonewood amp is easy to install and provides a very unique experience to an acoustic guitar. The effects are really good, with the latest update you also can replace the drive with a chorus, which is much more usable. The buttons and interface are good, but I missed some options, like a tap tempo.

The tonewood amp also has an effects loop, which allows you to also play around with your existing pedals.

The down side for me was that the battery compartment is very tight, and depending on the batteries you bought, changing them is a hassle.

Overall, I am really satisfied with this purchase and I would definitely recommend it.