Best-Selling Pedals and Amplifiers 2021: The Year’s Most Successful Guitar Gear
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2021 is as good as over, giving us a great opportunity to look back to see what the year’s most successful products were. We’re lucky to have some insider information from our affiliate partner Thomann that we’d like to share with you. After revealing the Top 20 Guitars 2021, it’s time to show you the Top 10 selling amplifiers and effect pedals. Be prepared for some surprises.
Remember that these sales numbers are based on revenue per product, not the numbers sold. So we’re seeing a weighted picture that represents the value and impact of each product. Now that’s out of the way, let’s check out the most successful guitar gear of the year.
Best-Selling Amplifiers 2021
- Boss Katana 50 MKII
- Boss Katana 100 MKII
- Harley Benton TUBE15 Celestion
- Fender Champion 100
- Marshall DSL40CR
- Roland Cube Street EX
- Fender Blues Junior Lacquered Tweed
- Fender Champion 40
- Harley Benton G212 Vintage Vertical
- Fender Mustang LT25
Boss continues to top these charts with the Katana series, occupying the top two spots! Our guitar contributor Jef regularly praises the Katana amps for the quality of the tones at their price point, mirroring the great customer reviews for both amps. The ongoing success of the series seems well deserved, then. As you’d expect, Fender is all over this list with several of the smaller Champion and Mustang amps represented. The top FRFR amp sold at Thomann last year was the Headrush FRFR-112, which just squeaked into the top 20.
Overall, most of the biggest sellers were smaller, more affordable amps, which you might expect given the pandemic-driven boom in guitar sales we saw in 2020. It seems most of us are playing at home and practising, rather than gigging. The ongoing trend towards smaller amps seems to be continuing. My fave on this list would be the Fender Blues Junior. The all-tube Marshall DSL40CR is a solid choice for rock tones, too.
Best-Selling Effect Pedals 2021
- Neural DSP Quad Cortex
- Line6 Pod GO
- Boss RC-500 Loop Station
- tc electronic Hall of Fame 2
- Line 6 HX Stomp
- Harley Benton DNAfx GiT
- Boss RC-5 Loop Station
- Strymon Iridium Amp & IR Cab
- Digitech Trio+ Band Creator
- Two Notes Torpedo Captor X
A surprise at Number 1: The Quad Cortex! Would you have predicted it at the top spot? I certainly wouldn’t. Although Quad Cortex is widely regarded as one of the best modellers out there, it’s among the priciest – and that seems not to put people off. On the contrary – the revenue of the Quad Cortex was twice as much as the number two product on the list! So respect to Neural DSP for a commercially successful and highly regarded product.
Among the products just outside of the Top 10 were pedals like Proco’s Rat and Strymon’s Big Sky. Line 6 had four products in the Top 20, so they’re still on a roll with modelling gear like Pod GO and HX Stomp. Another eye-opener: both of Boss’s best-selling pedals were loopers. Interesting to see the Captor X in there, too. Consistently highly rated by customers, the Captor X packs in a huge amount of functionality that it’s still a compelling package despite the abundance of cheaper alternatives. This Top 10, I think, shows clearly that people are still willing to pay more for their gear, if there’s added value in terms of sounds and build quality.
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