You are currently viewing Fender Mustang LT25 Review – Beginners Dream Amp? (In-Depth Tested)

Last Updated on March 2, 2024 by Teemu Suomala

If looking for a good-sounding and versatile, but still easy-to-use amplifier, this article and Fender Mustang LT25 is absolutely worth your time!

I had Mustang LT25 on my testing and spent 20+hours playing and doing research about it. This post goes through everything I found out and helps you to decide if this electric guitar amp is worth your hard-earned money. Welcome to my Fender Mustang LT25 Review!

Before we even start, I want to say that this Fender-amp is a real swiss-army-knife of amps, plus you won’t need to do a month’s worth of extra work-hours to get one!

photo reveals owner of guitaristnextdoor.com

Author: Teemu Suomala

I first grabbed the guitar in 2009. I started this website in January 2020 because I couldn’t do window installation anymore due to my health problems. I love guitars and have played dozens and dozens of different guitars through different amps and pedals over the years, and also, building a website interested me, so I decided to just go for it! I got lucky and managed to get awesome people to help me with my website.

I also got lucky because I have you visiting my website right now. Thank you. I do all this for you guys. If you have any recommendations, tips, or feedback, just leave a comment, I would love to chat with you. I have also been fortunate to produce content for several large guitar websites, such as SongsterrMusicnotesGuitarGuitar, and Ultimate Guitar.

I spend my spare time exercising and hanging out with my wife and crazy dog (I guess that went the right way…).


The Review

Summary(If you are in a hurry)

graphic reveals pros and cons of Fender Mustang LT25

Fender Mustang LT 25 is a great practice/beginner guitar amp if you are on a budget.

It’s versatile, easy to use, and sounds good. You have a lot of tone options with the amp itself, plus if you use the Fender Tone app these tone options grow exponentially(connect via USB).

Personally, I think that this Mustang is the best under $200 amp for most players.

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You can watch my full in-depth video review of Fender Mustang LT25 too:

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Fender Mustang LT25 Specs and Dimensions

Power:25 Watts
Amplifier-type:Digital/Modeling
Speaker:8″ Fender Special Design
Channels:1
Tone-Presets:30 out of the box, 20 easily downloadable
Controls:Gain, Overdrive Select Switch, Volume, Treble, Bass
Effects:25 effects (reverb, delay, chorus etc.)
Inputs:1/4 Instrument Cable, 1/8 AUX-Cable, Micro USB
Outputs:1/8 Headphone-output
Weight (I measured this):8.59lbs (3.9kg)

Overall Look, Feel, ad Quality

Watch the unboxing of this amp:

I didn’t wait for ultra nice quality from this guitar amp…

And I didn’t get that.

Honestly, the feel, quality, and looks of this amplifier are really basic. Plastic knobs and plastic handle(that is not very handy).

I mean, you can move it around the home from this handle, but really carrying this amp(around the town or city etc.) is not very comfortable.

Not for me with my small hands, and if you have larger hands, I would imagine the handle to be even less handy for you.

But this is far from being a deal-breaker.

Hardware:

  • The Cabinet enclosure itself is wooden with a black finish
  • and the amplifier is covered with a black vinyl texture

Personally, I think that these features/materials look solid. But just the overall combo of some good aspects plus then plastic/cheap-looking knobs, don’t really make this amp shine in this category.

But this is just my opinion, and these things are far from the most important features of an amplifier.

Still, the Fender Mustang LT25 gives us OK looks in my opinion.

Features

I was a little whiny in the looks department…

But when talking about the features…

JUST AMAZING!

I’m going to share this ”Features”- section into 2 categories:

  1. Out of the box-features
  2. Features-with Fender Tone-app

Let’s start with the:

Out of the box-features

When you first look at this, all looks pretty basic…

  • Gain
  • Volume
  • 2-band EQ (Treble, Bass)
  • Master

All that you really need in order to play the guitar for sure, but still pretty basic.

But of course this is not all, I wouldn’t have said ”JUST AMAZING!” otherwise…

Look at the right side of the control panel, we have:

4 Buttons:

  • Back (go back duh :D)
  • Save (save your own presets and modifications you have done to presets)
  • Menu (in ” Menu” you can access almost all the out-of-the-box features of this amp, effects, pedals, EQ, Volume, Gain etc.)
  • Tap (set the delay timing to your liking, plus by holding this ”Tuner” will activate(btw. tuner is one of the best I have ever seen on an amp))

1 Knob (button in the middle)

With this you can dial in 30 done-for-you presets.

What do these do for you?

Let’s look at the 3 situations where I have been:

  1. If you want really bright Fender-type cleans, you just need to turn the amp on and there is 01-preset: ”Fender Clean”.
  2. If you want to play punk, something like older stuff from Green Day…turn the knob and find the preset 07: ”Skate Punk”.
  3. Looking for something heavier? Well, just find either ”Metal Lead” or ”Trash Overkill”-presets and start shredding.

And finding these presets is not hard. It’s super simple. Just turn the knob.

And if some of these presets just quite ain’t what you need. You can modify it.

  • Add gain or distortion
  • Add effects/pedals
  • Adjust different frequencies

So, you can see why I’m excited about this amp.

There preset for almost any situation ready for you. And selecting the right preset is easy.

This is why I said that the features of this amp are JUST AMAZING!

Plus, there are 20 presets more easily accessible for downloading.

Only 1 feature is really missing...

Looper.

It would be cool to be able to record 30-60 seconds of your playing with the amp only and then jam with that. But I understand that for this price, you can’t get everything.

But what about…

Features-with Fender Tone-app

Note: This LT25 doesn’t work with the phone version of the Fender Tone app. You need a computer to access Fender Tone app with LT25.

I’m not going to go through every feature of the LT25 with the Fender Tone-app, because this article would be so long that this page would take more than 10seconds to load.

Instead I showcase a couple of my favorite features.

Design Your Own Signal-Chain

I had a blast when designing my own signal chain and tones with the LT25 and Fender Tone-app.

It looks something like this:

So you can select different:

  1. Before-amp pedals and effects
  2. Different amps
  3. After-amp pedals and effects

And there are A LOT of different pedals and amps to choose from. Here’s an example of what kind of stompbox pedals there is to choose from:

And you can literally turn the knobs of each amp and pedal with your mouse.

Here’s an example of what you can press and turn on a Fuzz Pedal:

  1. Turn the pedal on
  2. Turn the knobs to set the tone you want

So there are REALLY almost endless possibilities available with this electric guitar amplifier. That’s the truth.

You can also record with this guitar amp quite easily, that’s a nice plus.

Check how Fender Tone App works:

And here you can check how all 100 presets of the Fender Tone App sound:

Usability

This is another category where Fender Mustang LT25 shines.

When you compare how many features you get with this amp and the usability of this amp. It’s amazing. There is no single moment that I was confused with this amp.

This amp is harder to use than simple solid-states, but this doesn’t mean that using the Fender Mustang LT25 is hard in any way.

Learn about guitar amplifier types here.

I went through the features of this amp already, and on the ”Features”-section you get a good idea about the features of this amp, and you can estimate how hard the usability looks.

For me, the usability has been simple & easy.

I also recommend that you watch the full in-dept review video of this amp where you can see this amp used.

Sound

I’m not even going to try to explain every tone this amp has to you. Just watch this:

But I can give you some of my thoughts after playing this amp for hours and hours.

First.

You can play almost anything with this amp. Maybe some really edgy stuff, like some super-specific metal tones can be hard to achieve, but other than that, this can handle everything.

From acoustic sim to heavy thrash metal tones. From Fender cleans to punk tones full of attitude.

So versatility is definitely not the problem with this amp.

Here’s a little graph that reveals some good genres and songs to play with this amp:

So you got some kind of idea about what this amp can do tone-wise. But what about this:

Can Fender Mustang LT25 Handle Distortion/Metal?

It can.

It’s not a metal machine like some more expensive BOSS Katana-amps for example, but This small Mustang LT can do metal.

For example, ready presets like ”Metal Lead” or ”Trash Overkill” are really nice for metalheads.

And this amp can chug in my opinion.

This amp is not only super versatile, but it’s one of the best amps for metal under $200 in my opinion.

Value for Money

So let’s recap…

You get:

  • 30 out of the box tone-presets, plus 20 easily accessible (you can customize these presets too)
  • 20 amp types
  • 25 effects/pedals
  • Simple usability
  • Almost endless possibilities with Fender Tone-app
  • This amp actually sounds good

Keep these and the price of this little amp in my mind, I just can’t say anything else than: This amp gives amazing value for money!

Verdict

Pros

  • Super-versatile
  • Still simple to use
  • Great price:value ratio
  • Sounds great
  • Almost endless tone possibilities with Fender Tone-app
  • Especially clean and rock tones are great
  • Offers enough loudness for sure

Cons

  • No “middle” knob on the control panel
  • Accessing “reverb” and “delay” would be easier with control-knobs
  • Some folks don’t like modeling amps
  • The handle is more or less useless

Basically, there is NO WAY, that I could say that this amp is not good.

It has qualities like:

  • Endless tone possibilities
  • Great and versatile tones
  • Easy to use
  • Looks are not the best

Usually, when the looks are the worst thing about the amp, it’s otherwise pretty great. And this Fender is no exception.

If:

  • the digital amp is not a problem for you
  • if you are looking for an amp under $200
  • if you are looking for a versatile amp
  • if you are looking for a practice or beginner amp

This is a great option for you!

Check latest prices on:


FAQ

Are Fender Mustang amps any good?

Due to my experience, Fender mustang amps offer A LOT of different tone options(versatile), are easy to use, and actually sound good too!

If these qualities sound good to you, Fender Mustang amps might be a great option for you.

Does the Fender Mustang LT25 Have Bluetooth?

No.

You can’t use the mobile version of the Fender Tone app with Fender Mustang LT25.

Can you use pedals with Fender Mustang LT25?

I have not tested this, but I think that there is nothing stopping you(do all kinds of testing at your own risk). It should work.

At least I have used my BOSS ME-25 pedalboard with my Line6 Amplifi(digital modeling-amp). But I have sold that pedal already, so I can’t test it with this Mustang.

But Fender Mustang LT25 has so many pedal options build in or in Fender Tone app, that I see almost no reason to use pedals with this amp.

I would want to use only 2 kinds of pedals with this Mustang

  • Loop pedal to jam with my own riffs
  • Footswitch(technically not a pedal even) to make effects more easily accessible

But for me, this Fender has all that I need already.

Fender Mustang LT25 vs Boss Katana 50

I have played both.

What I would do: if I have a budget for Boss Katana 50, I would go with that. It’s easily better with metal tones, and sounds better overall.

Fender Mustang LT25 has that Fender Tone app and Fender cleans are better, plus it’s cheaper. But other than that BOSS Katana 50 is better in my opinion.

Fender Mustang LT25 vs Champion 20

Fender Champion 20 gives you easier usability and it looks more like a vintage guitar amp(if you like that kind of looks).

And if you hate digital amps and want a more traditional solid-state then Champion 20 is a better pick.

Otherwise, Fender Mustang LT25 takes the edge on every other category for me. It sounds equally good but is a lot more versatile.

Plus access to the Fender Tone app is great to have.

Alternatives

Great Modeled Tube Tones – Vox Valvetroix VT20X

VOX VT20X gives you:

  • Great modeled tube tones(Fender Mustang LT25 doesn’t give you these)
  • Looks like a more expensive amp
  • Sounds great
  • Versatility
  • Great selection of good sounding amp models

It doesn’t give

  • Really easy usability
  • Fender Cleans
  • Can’t record with this through USB(even tho this has USB port for the VOX Toneroom app)

It’s a great digital amp, if you are interested in tube amp-tones, and want a lot of versatility. Especially for beginners, Fender Mustang LT25 is a better option because of its easier usability.

But I still own this amp and it’s a great one. Really good value for the price and I can get to know those amazing modeled tube tones.

Check the full review: VOX Valvetronix VT20X Review

Check the latest prices on:


Best Portable Under $200 – Roland Micro Cube GX

Roland Micro Cube offers amazing versatility with 7-different amp types and great tones. It’s durable and protable. Plus, it’s loud enough for small performances and busking in calm/quiet places.

Fender Mustang LT25 and VOX VT20X offer more versatility and better clean & crunch tones, but with distortion, Micro Cube GX can compete with these bigger amps in my opinion.

I currently own this amp too. It’s really easy to use and gives me everything I need when I practice.

This amp has only 1 con…

Micro cube only has 1 tone knob, this limits your tone shaping, but it’s no deal-breaker for me.

Check the full review: Roland Micro Cube GX Review

Check the latest prices on:


Great Solid-State Rock Amp – Orange Crush 20RT

This Orange shines with rock tones. It gives basic cleans and solid distorted tones.

So this is not as versatile as the other amps featured in this article, but this Orange is easier to use and has Orange-tones, which any of these other amps doesn’t have.

If you:

  • love rock,
  • are interested in Orange-amps,
  • want easy usability,
  • and prefer solid states

this Orange Crush 20RT is a good option for you!

Check the full review: Orange Crush 20RT Review

Check the latest prices on:


Conclusion

I had a blast when testing this Fender Mustang LT25!

I wish that I had an amp like this when I started guitar playing(although my Ibanez Toneblaster X didn’t suck at all). Fender Mustang LT25 is really versatile, easy to use, and sounds good. One of the best guitar amps for beginners.

I hope that this post helped you to decide if the Fender Mustang LT25 is the right guitar amplifier for you. If you have any questions, go to my Youtube-channel, and leave a comment! Feel free to share this post too.

I wish you all the best and keep rocking!

Teemu Suomala

I first grabbed the guitar in 2009. I started this website in January 2020 because I couldn’t do window installation anymore due to my health problems. I also noticed that most guitar websites don’t do a really good job, so I decided to just go for it! I got lucky and managed to get awesome people to help me with my website. I also got lucky because I have you visiting my website right now. Thank you. I do all this for you guys. If you have any recommendations, tips, or feedback, just leave a comment, I would love to chat with you. I have been fortunate to produce content for several large guitar websites, such as Songsterr, Musicnotes, GuitarGuitar, and Ultimate Guitar. I spend my spare time exercising and hanging out with my wife and crazy dog(I guess that went the right way…). Expertise: guitar learning techniques, electric guitars, and guitar amplifiers. You can connect with me on LinkedIn or just email me.
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