racerevlon
Active member
Interesting Pauly--I've only had one problem EVER with a H&K amp, and that was a broken neon in a TriAmp MK II--called H&K support & next day TWO brand new neons + power supplies showed up on my door. 15 minutes later I was back at full glowing glory. (Can't beat the Red Box on-board the TriAmp, either).
Hughes & Kettner amps are extremely sensitive both to input and the speakers you're running through. I remember my first Switchblade--I ran it through Vintage 30's and was, well, let's say "underwhelmed." Switch to G12T-75's and spend a little time tweaking the EQ (having the experience with the TriAmp MK II & Trilogy that H&K amps respond most extremely to treble input) and BOOM--totally different and AWESOME amp. I sold that head because I was just amassing a stable of too many heads, then immediately regretted it, so replaced it with a 100C. I don't know that I'll ever be without a Switchblade in some form factor ever again--just sounds too good and versatile (IF you spend the time dialing it in). If you're expecting 10-second magic, sorry. But, a recent RT member scored a nice (not harshed) Switchblade head for $450 US. Can't beat that for all-tube and on-board FX. Damn... you could spend that on a Vypyr.
Also foolishly sold a Trilogy due to Tumeni amps and had seller's remorse, so now I have another Trilogy, which replaced my JVM410H for EVERY tone that I needed.
I recently played a little back-yard pick-up gig with my Switchblade 100C and everyone kept asking "Where's your rack? -- Where's all that sound coming from?" and I just pointed to the 100C and the MIDI pedal and said "That's it!" -- everything in one box, fully MIDI-programmed, and loud as hell, and understand the other guitar player was using a Mesa Mark IIC++ and a Marshall 1960BV, and I was all over his tone. I just think people are lazy and don't want to work to dial in "their" tone. They want "canned Modded Marshall" tone or "canned Recto" tone. There are amps for those as well. But there's a reason Lifeson, McAlpine, Holdsworth, Thayer, Johnstone, Rand, Michael Wilton, Tommy Skeoch, and let us not forget Mr. Fastfinger himself all use H&K.
Everyone should know the seven wisdoms of the tone:
http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com/wisdoms.php5
Hughes & Kettner amps are extremely sensitive both to input and the speakers you're running through. I remember my first Switchblade--I ran it through Vintage 30's and was, well, let's say "underwhelmed." Switch to G12T-75's and spend a little time tweaking the EQ (having the experience with the TriAmp MK II & Trilogy that H&K amps respond most extremely to treble input) and BOOM--totally different and AWESOME amp. I sold that head because I was just amassing a stable of too many heads, then immediately regretted it, so replaced it with a 100C. I don't know that I'll ever be without a Switchblade in some form factor ever again--just sounds too good and versatile (IF you spend the time dialing it in). If you're expecting 10-second magic, sorry. But, a recent RT member scored a nice (not harshed) Switchblade head for $450 US. Can't beat that for all-tube and on-board FX. Damn... you could spend that on a Vypyr.
Also foolishly sold a Trilogy due to Tumeni amps and had seller's remorse, so now I have another Trilogy, which replaced my JVM410H for EVERY tone that I needed.
I recently played a little back-yard pick-up gig with my Switchblade 100C and everyone kept asking "Where's your rack? -- Where's all that sound coming from?" and I just pointed to the 100C and the MIDI pedal and said "That's it!" -- everything in one box, fully MIDI-programmed, and loud as hell, and understand the other guitar player was using a Mesa Mark IIC++ and a Marshall 1960BV, and I was all over his tone. I just think people are lazy and don't want to work to dial in "their" tone. They want "canned Modded Marshall" tone or "canned Recto" tone. There are amps for those as well. But there's a reason Lifeson, McAlpine, Holdsworth, Thayer, Johnstone, Rand, Michael Wilton, Tommy Skeoch, and let us not forget Mr. Fastfinger himself all use H&K.
Everyone should know the seven wisdoms of the tone:
http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com/wisdoms.php5
