Black Spirit 200 - 200-watt Floorboard Amplifier Review

The Future is Now

Even if you don't use it on the floor, this is a nice desktop or atop a cab unit with many useful features at the price point. Such as the latest RedBox DI, effects looping, presets and the ability to save, sagging control to mimic tube overdrive, monitor input, MIDI implementation, noise gate, decent on-board effects, and robust all-metal construction weighing in at just under… read more 9 pounds. I am a tube guy (H&K, Vox, Fender), and this unit amazes me with its realistic sound. I am using it in my studio both as a practice amp and tied into into my iMac using Logic Pro X via RedBoX DI and a MOTU audio interface. A couple nitpicks though: H&K amps are famous for their blue LED faceplate illumination, but why is the lettering under each knob and button NOT illuminated? Very hard to read, near impossible if this is on the floor, and it will not fit atop a H&K TM112 cab (too shallow to clear the handle); have to turn the cab on its side where it just barely fits. But one big positive: a very well-written paper manual. And another shout-out to SW and my sales advisor Paul Rowan for a job well done.

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It's Got It All!

I purchased the Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 Floorboard Amp from Sweetwater about 30 days ago. First off, I want to say this is a great sounding amp! The 4 channels, clean, crunch, lead and ultra, plus the built in effects are every thing I need all combined in a single unit. To be honest, I really didn't love competing products where you bank up/bank down to 100s of presets… read more (although you can certainly do that with this unit). More than once, I've been on the wrong bank when starting a song live and then your hosed. What I love about this amp is the 7 footswitch pre-set mode. I set up 2 clean channels, one pretty dry, another one with effects and just a hint of gain. Then, 3 more channels for varying levels of gain to match just about any type of rock / metal sound I need. The last 2 are set on the ultra channel which is just a massive shred/metal sound. I use this setup for just about every song and it does not disappoint. If I need more, I can plug in effects either pre-gain or post-gain as needed depending on where the effect sits best. If all that wasn't enough, I don't even use a Cab! I know that sounds crazy to guitar purists but I just use the Red Box DI out to send straight into any capable receiving device like a PA/mixing board, speaker monitors, etc. It's got 8 different cab types to select for the output which significantly changes the sound. I've found the one I like but with all those cab simulator options, there will be one that fits your needs. It's cool that you can plug in any external device like your laptop headphone output into the aux in of the H&K amp and basically jam along with You Tube or whatever music site fits your fancy. It's a great way to practice! It comes with a good manual; I don't use half the features available, pretty much just what I previously mentioned. This amp will allow you to play anywhere/anytime and keep the same sound regardless of where your playing. We all know how frustrating it can be when you can't find the right sound live that you dialed it in at home. With it's small footprint and no Cab required, you can pack it up and take it anywhere and be ready to jam without futzing with controls, mics, etc to get the right sound. They've pretty much thought of everything in this floor unit, I highly recommend it! BTW, I've seen reviews in other places where the guitarist didn't like the sound. Let me just say, you dial in the sound based on the guitar you use; if you have single coil pickups, you typically would not use the same settings on the amp as say humbuckers. The Cab emulation gives you a plethora of different sounds; you just need to experiment and find the perfect fit for your gear and you will find it! The Sweetwater staff, as always, is exceptional. Thanks JeffJ for hooking me up.

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The best amp purchase I’ve ever made.

This amp works great with my 4x12 for band practice, and DI for recording. Just buy one. You won't regret it!

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Just buy this already.

WARNING: This amp will make tube snobs rethink their elitest philosophies while their faces and ear holes melt into oblivion in the wake of its raw power and features. Nice package: Ultra light, sturdy. Does an awesome job. Gets pretty dang heavy and loud!!!! No need for a fuzz or distortion pedal if thats the sound your going for. (It truly is built into this thing already.)… read more If you do a lot of pedal shuffling mid song, do not DI out, there is a slight volume drop when switching settings. But works amazingly through a cab. LIKE BEYOND AMAZING. And really that's how it should be anyways. This has to be the happiest purchase I've ever had with an amp. Its awesome to just hit a button, have all your settings switch (including the gate), and sound the same at any volume you set this thing at. This is a step in the future.

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As convenient as it gets

A very versatile and convenient piece of gear. The tones in each of the four channels are very solid. The cleans are nice and chimey, crunch does a good lower gain gritty sound ,the lead channel is silky smooth and the ultra delivers a tight modern metal sound. The on-board effects are more than enough for my purposes. I really like the addition of the two pre loops for adding different… read more boost pedals to the front of the amp. The ability to program these loops and all the amps effects and eq settings into each patch eliminates all the pedal dancing I had to do before to get the sounds I needed. The 200 solid state watts are more than enough to keep up with my very aggressive drummer. I have yet to have the master volume above half. The included noise gate isn't the tightest but serves it's purpose well enough. The black spirit 200 floor is a very well thought out piece of gear and works great as a full featured grab and go gig/practice rig.

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