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I’ve been playing a black spirit for a year now and it is absolutely amazing. Its presets are super useful for switching between songs and sections and I absolutely love it!
I have a Duotone head. 100 watt. It’s so amazing and has a lot of options. I never hear much about them which is weird. They are fantastic tube heads and clean, crunch high gain. Full EQ and a solo boost. FX loop level adjustment in the front panel too. It’s fantastic.
Out of all Hughes & Kettner stuff, I would definitely go for the Black Spirit Floorboard version Great tones, great effects, a sh!t tone of power, very reliable, portable a and gig ready The only down side would be the lack of IR loading capability, but you can easily turn of the cab sim of the Red Box and put something like a Mooer Radar in front, which is super affordable and can load any IR you want.
I was running an EVH 5150 III 50w for quite awhile, and then I picked up the floor model of this amp and I can't imagine going back at this point. It's just so versatile and customizable.
I've got the floor version of this amp, because I'll be damned if I'm paying an extra £140 for the footswitch on top of the amp. Absolutely great piece of kit, especially through a matched Hughes & Kettner TM212 cab.
I’ve had my Black Spirit head for 6 months and do not miss my 100 watt tube head. H&K have been making insanely great solid state amps since the 90s. The ability to switch power output is a huge plus
I bought a Line 6 Catalyst to save my tubes. I don’t regret it either. Tube amps are great but there are other quality options. There is other gear that will do the job.
Orange, too! Would love to try a Randall one of these days. Neither of them have the ridiculous featureset of this one, though. The biggest advantage of this is the combination of tone and tech!
Nice to see a modern amp full of features, but I question myself, nowadays a simple HX Stomp + power amp pedal could put this amp in the pocket in terms of sound, price and gig weight isn't it?
The HX Stomp is pretty clunky if you need to switch between more than 3 tones, and it's very unfun to try to change settings without plugging it into a computer. I can't speak to the Black Spirit 200 Head as well as Hunter can, but the Black Spirit 200 Floor offers very intuitive bank switching with banks of 4 presets per bank, and additionally offers a mode which enables 7 presets across 2 banks to be instantly accessible. No matter what year is on the calendar, there's something to be said for in-the-box capabilities and UI design. Also, if you have a couple pedals which you're married to, then the Black Spirit Floor amp is a lifesaver, because it integrates 2 pre-loops into its preset savings. I didn't think I was married to any pedals before I bought the H&K, but that feature offering encouraged me to keep experimenting with pedals and I did eventually find a few which I didn't want to go without. The HX Stomp also has a love-it-or-hate-it interface for configuring tones. I hated it. The Black Spirit, both Head and Floor, work almost exactly like the Grandmeister. If you prefer the workflow of tone shaping via knobs, this has a massive advantage over Helix's compact products. If you are fine with having your tone shaping strictly on a computer interface and load those presets onto your unit between sessions, then that limits the appeal of H&K's main amp lines, yes, and improves the value proposition of a Stomp + a power amp.
@@BelugaTheHutt The HX Stomp plus midi so you can dial in tones however you want and switch presets however you want would seem to address those concerns while potentially being cheaper. The stomp having to be plugged into a PC in order to really be convenient can be frustrating, but it's something that you can, to a degree, break away from with your own custom controls. Other devices with poor user interfaces historically haven't had the option of being plugged into a PC for added convenience. For me, it's a clear case of wanting to shrink things down and expose only what you'd be using frequently, and those needs are going to be different for everyone. Midi is a great solution to those shortcomings.
As a fan of this channel can all my other fans of this channel do me a solid? like and share his videos. I feel like his channel is BEYOND underrated and i always see augs sub count and get confused as how he is not up there with ola, fluff and etc. Lets get my guy more subs!!!! Congrats on the daughter and keep up the good content!!!!!
Amp sounds great but I think tube amps become more noticeable at clean to light crunch sounds or dad blues for example, for this kind of music it’s much harder to tell the difference from a good solid state and a tube amp.. I say this as someone who was strictly tube for a long time but have been really loving amps like the Roland jazz chorus lately
Actually, Hunter my dude, we truly feel your trial. I would have said ordeal, but I felt like the fatigue and all the rest of it worthwhile when I was an honorary grandfather. I'm sure it's that much more so when you're the real deal. Besides, little Frida Sofia 👶 (Sorry if I got the name wrong; correction requested.) deserves to know that she got you so tired you didn't know what YEAR it was that day and you STILL love her! You do, too! Right? Right? ... Hunter? ... Oh, it's cool -- he's just asleep!😆
Honestly, I think when solid state circuitry trying to emulate tubes is done right.. it sounds better than tubes. this has more bite and clarity than most tube amps, and i even liked the Super Crush more than the Rockerverb. Solid State rocks.
Dude all the shots during the demo look so sick!!! It looks like a fucking movie or commercial!! It’s so cool to see how how much better the quality of your videos have gotten over the years.
IMO the 2 greatest amps ever made are.. Diezel Vh4 blueface and H&k Triamp mark1. Organic, super dry yet rich and thick, note clarity, sensitive, piano grind, hifi/3d, right amount of compression. They make you work for it and like to fight back. (Also anything like pittbull ul, Einstein etc are great too.)
I own the Grandmeister Deluxe 40 and after the second time I had to replace a tube, I kinda wish I went for the Black Spirit 200 instead. It really sounds quite similar, or similar enough for me, and you can gig with it just as well as with a tube amp. I haven't had any problem with my Grandmeister for a few years now since the last replacement, but still...
What I can hear from this solid state is pretty much what I heard from other great solid state, but on its own way. There's been Peavey Transtube XXL (last edition was in the late 90's if I'm not mistaken), Roland Jazz Chorus (probably the best ever clean that a solid state technology has ever reached), and few others... the main issue I see with solid state amp is that it can be hard to give life to the playing even harder for solo's, this doesn't have the flaw of vacuum tubes that we love. Otherwise for multi tracks rhythms and solo, these amps can really be surprising.
Tips, if you found the amp to bassy/boomy on the ultra channel or any channel, in the effect loop you should add a BBE sonic maximiser 382i or a 362 , set the lo contour at 4 & the process at 6, and you will be in business. In fact use this on any amps ist miraculus, i've put it on all my amp, engl, krank, laney....
I've always found that turning on the boost and putting an Overdrive in front of the Black Spirit 200 gets you into Peavey XXX and maybe even less mid heavy 6505+ territory.
Thx for this review! The Grandmeister Deluxe 40 is on my wishlist but in today’s market this solid state is interesting. But as a complete allrounder i think i will stick to the GM and hope that tubes will be normal available again.
My girlfriend wants a hughes and ketner just for the looks. Often when hearing comparisons over youtube it seems i could get them closer with an eq in the loop
I once made the mistake of playing a Hughes & Kettering amp. Because now I want one, and I can’t afford one, at least not yet. Although I do like the amps I have now
I have the GrandMeister 40 Deluxe and love it… but just tried just tried ordering new tubes and feel like crying… so hard to get!!! I’ve been using it for 4-5 hours a day in power soak mode and the tubes are just gone. Started sounding fizzy and muddy on the gain channels. I’m definitely ordering the Black Spirit 200 head!!! Perfect solution for the tube shortage. Awesome video and thanks for this Hughes & Kettner video especially comparing the GM40 with the Black Spirit sounds !!! Black Spirit is definitely the best solid state amp out there!!! Tried a Boss Katana head and didn’t like it at all.
Did you end up getting the bs200? I just got the gen 3 katana head and it sounds bad the my Hughes & kettner tm112 cab. I’m am about to give up on digital amps and go tube I’ve been looking at the tubemeister 20 and the grandmeister 40 until I came across the bs 200. I’m just sceptical on buying another solid state.
@@wstn7938 I had a Black Spirit for a bit and then sold it… just wasn’t bonding with it. Just not bonding with anything digital… I have a Marshall JVM205 , EVH Iconic and ENGl Fireball 25 that I enjoy playing everyday 🔥🤘 cheers 🍻
@@romanshredz ok thanks! I’ve been looking at the fireball too and the iron ball se. Do you still have your grandmeister 40? What would you recommend? I’m looking for something I can play at low volumes and all these have the power soak feature.
Honestly, we should just let tube amps go. I know, that's a really "hot take". But remember, tube production is _really_ bad for the environment and solid state has actually caught up to the point that a SS amp is a viable option. The cork sniffers will tell you that tubes are the best. Tell that to Dimebag Darrell.
Dimebag's tone was kinda trash though - at least on the records. As were lots of 90s metal bands (scoop central lol). Also, isn't most mass electronics manufacturing bad for the environment? I'd add that a lot of these smaller/tiny component digital products are very difficult to service so if/when they fail, just end up in a landfill. At least with many tube amps they have potential to be serviced. That being said, I do think digital/solid state products are starting to eat away at the tube amp market and I think eventually tube amps will become hyper expensive studio products while most guitarist will be using plugins, modelers, profilers, solid state, etc.
Also most tubes are manufactured in Russia, right? Won't be seeing much more coming out of there anytime soon. In my opinion modellers are the future. As soon as products like the Kemper, Helix and Axe FX came out tube amps really became obsolete. I sold my EVH 5150 III after I got my Helix and never looked back.
@@Escapism7133 I'm not talking about modeling amps with DSP and miniature computers. I'm talking about _fully analog_ solid state amps. Those are very easy to maintain. The troublesome amps are those that use surface mounted components that require expensive equipment to fix rather than a basic soldering iron and some electronics knowledge. Also, tube production is bad for the environment on a level that dwarfs most analog electronics. Yeah, the smartphones and other cobalt-hungry technology are bad, but transistors, capacitors, and resistors on the human repairable level are not even close to what harm tube production does to the Earth. Besides, you can buy a SS amp, a good one, and it will be with you for life.
@@greevar That last bit is absolutely not true. This is anecdotal but I've had 2 solid state amps die on me within the last 10 to 15 years and my buddy has also had one die on him none of which were worth fixing. Meanwhile that same buddy of mine has had one tube amp his entire career and it survived a flood. The issue there could be that there are very few "high end"/ well made solid state amps. I'm not saying tubes aren't bad for the environment but what I was getting at was the scale at which tubes are manufactured is tiny compared to most other mass electronics manufacturing. I mean ffs there are literally a handful of factories that even make tubes in the world lol. There's clearly not a huge demand for them outside of niche medical/military tech and a fraction of the audio consumer/prosumer market (guitar and studio gear).
@@Escapism7133 The last bit is not true? A properly built analog SS amp can last a lifetime because the components are widely available and repairable with widely available tools. That's why it will last a lifetime, not that it's indestructible. Secondly, the processes involved in making tubes is highly toxic in _addition_ to the environmental impacts of electronics. However, an amp that only needs a new transistor, capacitor, or resistor every decade or so is going to have a very small effect to pollution compared to replacing thousands to millions of tubes each year.
I really like transistor amps and play one myself in my Band, but these things disqualify the head for me: Operation, price, settings, sound. The price was also a main exclusion criterion for me with the head, as well as with the combo. Question, for what reason should I now "update" my equipment to the Black Spirit 200??? Also, I set up my AMP and pedals on the board for my sound. You don't change it anyway, except from clean to gain..... Or does someone play with different sounds at a gig? By sounds I mean metal, blues etc. I guess not, right? So what should you do with an AMP that has countless sounds that you never need? Then also the nonsense with the APP. I don't want to lug around an Ipad etc. to adjust the amp and/or call up sounds. Otherwise you (I) have set the sounds for the corresponding songs on the pedals on the board or on the amp. The Black Spirit is definitely not bad for trying out or as an introduction to the world of sound and effects, but it's simply too expensive a toy just for that, it's much cheaper with a multi-effects pedal. My opinion after testing the Black Spirit 200: An unnecessary amp at an overpriced price.
Nice track. Glad to hear you haven't lost your edge. Maybe playing Sesame st tunes or something😆 Just playing. I've got 5 myself... kids that is. Cherish this time...they grow up fast
I've been playing for over 35 years and have tried some pretty decent sounding SS amps. But I have never found a SS amp that felt like a tube amp. That is the difference. There is no way to make a SS amp feel like a tube amp. Anyone with just a basic knowledge of the circuit differences knows this. There is a reason that tube amps still set the standard.
I have now had 2 black spirit 200s fail me. I am done with them. I tried to like them, they sound really good but they just do not last. My first NEW spirit 200 failed in 9 months of owning. Sweetwater sent me a new one and it failed 2 years later. $1k to play low volumn in my room for less than 3 years leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The issue is both amps fail to power on.
That’s a tough one. The super crush is an incredible solid state. It sounds awesome in a mix from cleans to 7 string drop A silliness. It’ll do it all. Takes pedals very well too! The h and k is probably just as good and has some extra features and an ascetic that can’t be beat. It’s a toss up
I have a love/hate relationship with mine. Owned one for about 2 years with the first one I bought completely stopped working within 9 months of every now and then bedroom play. The new one is still going but it's buggy. One day it chugs nicely, the next it's a buzzy mess. I've been playing for about 24 years so my playing is not typically qwerky. This thing is constantly changing tone on me along with the volume knob breaking up really bad when you turn it. In my opinion and experience, it's been a so so amp at best. Like I said, one day I fire it up and it chugs hard. Next day its a can of bees. What gives? Oh, and I hate that you have to hold that stupid button for several seconds just to power on and off. Just use a damn toggle for Christ sakes.
I was looking for a new amp...tried it at my local music store....it wouldnt work right out of the box....dont waste your time get a fender or a marshal and thank me later.
Sounds great! My dad got the floor version of this and it sounds awesome! Threw together a custom board for him incorporating that + some Boss pedals 👌👌 Btw, how are the new studio monitors? The demo mix for the Black Spirit sounds great, it´s a definitive improvement over the old mixes (from your old monitors i guess?)
@@agufish it’s incredible. I use it live and to record in my band. It feels like a tube amp because it is a tube amp. Have a look into it. Would love to see a demo. Also his amp X is being announced at namm show
I don't think i'd ever put 1 grand into a solid state amp period. I don't care how good it is... I'd rather buy a Helix Stomp / Stomp XL. Supply chain bullshit causing everything to go up in price is ridiculous.
Question: am I the only one who doesn't like the fake red glowing bar? You've got this cool blue highlighting and then an ugly red bar blindingly reminding us that it isn't a tube amp.
