Correct. Ideally practice clean, distortion free.
From your description I'm surmising you have a VOX amPlug (or clone thereof ) headphone amp. Current series are VOX amPlug 2. And they come in different 'flavours'.
Cut and paste from VOX's site.
AC30: Provides the AC30 top boost sound.[br]Classic Rock: Delivers the classic crunch of a UK-made 100W amp.[br]Metal: Gives you the extreme high-gain sound of a US-made amp.[br]Bass: Designed specifically for low frequencies, offering a wide-range response.[br]Clean: The ideal choice for fat, boutique inspired clean sounds.[br]Blues: The authentic, crunchy blues tone of a cranked tweed amp.[br]Lead: Searing, high gain lead tone that’s perfect for solos.
[br]Which one have you got?
[br]If not the Clean, [u]to get its output as clean as possible[/u], roll its volume to max & its gain to min position (fully off) and plug in. Put on & plug in your headsets, select the bridge pickup, and with your guitar's volume and tone pots rolled full on, start increasing the gain on your amPlug until you can hear your guitar. Keep increasing gain in minute increments until you achieve the desired volume. At that point that will be min gain (distortion) achievable. i.e. As clean as possible on that model amPlug.
I have a NUX amPlug clone which is they label Classic British. VOX's Classic Rock above is probably its closest comparitive. Loads of distortion. I thought I'd use it a lot when I bought it. I don't, and not because of its tone. Frankly current tech mini amps like Blackstar's Fly 3 render them redundant for all but the most restrictive/lazy portability scenario. If I'm using headphones when practicing -rarely, I much prefer porting the guitar through the Fly 3 input. It's so small and portable its fine to take with me [u]anywhere[/u] I would take a guitar for use with headphones, or speaker.
[br]Save up and get yourself a Fly 3 and an instrument (TS) lead. It'll do all you expect and more. I picked my second one up from Amazon US just before Christmas for under USD$60 as memory serves. They run fine on Alkaline or NiMh batteries. Brilliant cleans on its clean channel with gain, volume and ISF adjust plus a toggleable second high gain 'channel'. Also has a delay with user adjustable level and time. Features TS (guitar) input, an MP3/line-in input for backing tracks or playing music from your phone and a line out/headphone for connecting headphones, PC, whatever.
