TONE3000 claims its new A2 modeling tech is “virtually indistinguishable” from real gear – and runs on a $3 chipWant to play iconic amps like the Fender Twin Reverb, Marshall JCM800, and Vox AC30, without breaking the bank? TONE3000 has unveiled NAM Architecture 2 (A2), the next generation of its free, open-source modeling technology developed in partnership with Neural Amp Modeler creator Steve Atkinson.
The company describes A2 as the “most accurate and best sounding amp modeling technology in history”, claiming it delivers better sound quality than its predecessor while using significantly less computing power.
Most notably, TONE3000 says the system can reproduce the behaviour of real-world gear to the point where it sounds “virtually indistinguishable from the analogue original” – and reportedly runs on hardware powered by a “$3 chip”.

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“The bloom of a tube amp pushed into breakup, the sag of a fuzz pedal under a heavy chord, the snap of a transient through an analog compressor: A2 captures it all,” says the company.
“The goal was simple. Capture tone so faithfully that you couldn’t tell the difference,” adds TONE3000 co-founder Woodbury Shortridge. “The entire universe of analogue gear is now accessible”
So how does A2 stack up against existing modelling systems?
First, it is fully open source, meaning any hardware or software developer can freely implement the technology in their commercial products. Second, the architecture is supposedly efficient enough to run on everything from DAWs to budget multi-effects units, with sound quality “better” than Quad Cortex at 50% CPU. And third, TONE3000 says A2 outperformed rival modelling platforms from Neural DSP, IK Multimedia and Line 6 in both “quantitative and blind listening tests”.
Credit: TONE3000
For the blind tests, TONE3000 used the MUSHRA methodology, “the audio industry’s gold standard for evaluating perceived sound quality” used by the likes of BBC and EBU. More than 1,000 participants took part, listening to 37 different tones that included guitar amps, bass rigs, pedals and full signal chains.
Each test presented listeners with recordings of real hardware alongside anonymised digital models, which they rated on how closely they matched the original sound. Across the dataset, TONE3000 says A2 consistently scored closest to the reference recordings.
Credit: TONE3000
Alongside this, the company ran quantitative tests across 39 tones, covering everything from clean amp sounds to high-gain setups. These included individual amps, pedal chains, cab simulations and full signal paths – such as a cranked Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier and vintage outboard-style processing. Each model was scored on how closely its output matched the actual gear, with the A2 again reportedly coming out ahead of competing systems.
The new architecture is available in two versions. A2-Full is aimed at studio and professional audio applications, delivering higher accuracy while using 30–40% less CPU than the previous A1 architecture. A2-Lite, meanwhile, is designed for embedded devices like guitar and bass multi-fx pedals, and runs at 50% CPU on an ARM Cortex-M7 chip, the same chip found in many popular modelling pedals.
The release also expands the wider NAM ecosystem. NAM files can already be used across a growing range of compatible software, amplifiers (such as the Blackstar Beam Mini) and pedals, while manufacturers integrating the TONE3000 API gain access to a library of more than 350,000 tone captures.
TONE3000 CEO Stanley Vergilis adds that the goal is broader than modelling alone.
“TONE3000’s mission is to make music creation universally accessible. A2 accelerates that mission by democratising tone,” says Vergilis. “A $5,000 vintage amp that was once locked away in a studio can now be captured, shared, and played by any artist, on any device, anywhere in the world.”

For more information, visit TONE3000.
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