Primarily, the iRig HD 2 interface allows you to use mobile amp modeling and effects processing applications to play guitar more freely, with or without a full rig. Moreover, it's just a lot of work to haul my entire swath of guitar gear up into the living room for what amounts to 20 minutes of practice.

In summary, the iRig HD 2 offers a quick and easy way to capture guitar, bass and line signals on the go. As a reaction to the removal of the headphone socket on recent iPhone hardware, a headphone preamp with a mini-jack output has been added to the specification and provides a far neater solution than monitoring output signals through the iOS device’s own headphone socket. Now, this new version adds two analogue outputs: one for headphones, with a level control; the other to connect to an amp or PA with a switchable choice of sending the sound either unprocessed or as processed through the amp sims on your connected device, making it possible to use phone-, tablet- or laptop-based effects in a live situation. You will also find a mic stand adapter with a 5/8" to 3/8" thread adapter for use with a mic stand on stage or in a studio.

When I was testing the iRig HD 2, I was able to pull up AmpliTube on my phone, put on a set of headphones and play through a Mesa Boogie Triple rectifier amp model (more on this later) without bothering anyone. iRig HD 2 fits easily in your pocket and connects directly to your Lightning and USB devices – so no matter which iPad, iPhone, Mac or PC you have, you’re ready to rock at a moment’s notice. Turning the headphone amp down slightly solved the problem, and I didn’t experience the same glitches when using Mac OS desktop applications. There are a lot of times I’ve found myself wanting to play guitar, but can’t because I’m worried about waking the kids up or disturbing my wife while she watches TV. With AmpliTube 5 SE's default amp, I used the clean channel and, at times, a little reverb or chorus layering.

Not only that, but to get you playing immediately IK Multimedia throws in AmpliTube for Mac, PC, and iOS for free. Since I happened to be using a Macbook Pro, I used the USB connector cable, running from the iRig HD 2 enclosure to the Macbook’s USB port.Just for kicks, I went ahead and installed the Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier amp model in AmpliTube 5 SE and used that for most of the testing. The iRig HD 2 was class compliant with the Mac OS, but I still had to make sure it could "talk" with whatever software I was using.