To me the G-Dec is ideal as a practice amp. There are plenty of detractors out there who complain about the different effects not being very good, or the backing tracks. But I have yet to see anything else as versatile for a practice amp. We're not talking about gigging with the thing. Could it sound better? Sure. Is it good enough for practice? Absolutely. Throw in the tuner, effects, backing tracks, phrase sampler and inputs for CD and to me it's a no brainer.