Black Spirit combo

Just seen that H&K has a new Black Spirit 1x12 combo coming out, for around £1100.

Quite tempted by this, as I feel it would be more practical for my gigging prospects in the near future.

I'm also wondering if the 200w transistor thing would give the amp more clean headroom? I must say that the lack of clean headroom is my only gripe with the GM40. It gets dirty a little sooner than I would like.

Jonny wrote:the lack of clean headroom is my only gripe with the GM40

Strap me Jonny, you must play ferking loud!!!      

Hmm, I don't think so. Last time I tried this and had unwanted grit on my clean sound, I had the master around 11 o'clock. Don't think I've turned the amp up past 12.

I think the Black Spirit is a really interesting project Jonny and I agree with you entirely that it makes transporting our gear a lot less uncomfortable.  That's a factor the young guys out there will maybe not appreciate.  (It's the day after that I always notice this.)  I find no reason to assume it will sound inferior to a valve amp as long as H&K get the voicing choices right in the first place.  (Interesting Perspective on Valve v SS Amps)

It's actually so interesting that it prompted me to go back to designing another SS amp head of my own.  It's not using the technology of the BS, (unfortunate initials those), it's a pretty standard approach as that is all I need but according to what I have known about requirements for a long while.  Firstly, most SS amps die through overheating and that should be calculated in correctly.  Very few designers/manufacturers do that properly.  Witness the number of chip amps (Marshall?) which burn out through insufficient heatsinking or ventilation.  And anyway, if you look at the figures, the power capability claimed for those chips is unsustainable without them overheating no matter how good the other details are.  They can't sustain their output and are a cheap option for guitar work if high levels is your aim.

One big advace nowadays is the insistence on mixed mode feedback which makes the amp output stage respond pretty much like a valve/transformer stage.  Then adding a simple multiple diode soft limiter to make the power amp run out of steam just as valves do and before any chance of the SS circuitry clipping makes them even more so.  That limiter circuit is the equivalent of putting a clipping type pedal immediately before the power amp.  The limiter is designed to work over a much wider voltage range and kick in much much more gradually, I use 6 diodes each coming in softly at different levels and each with a very limited effect to gently drop the gain, and it produces a much more organic type of distortion than a single diode pedal.  It gives a final curve much closer to a valve output stage curve.  The downside is that you are reducing (limiting) the amp's output power to below its theoretical maximum and manufacturers don't like doing that for marketing reasons.  An upside is that the effect becomes scalable and can be used at all volume levels unlike the valve output stage distortion which has to be driven to the max.  For my part, I don't care about lost power as it is fairly cheap and easy to design SS gear to pretty much any power you require.  I just set up a pair of medium sized power amps, (a tad over 40W each), and use only one or both according to the surroundings.  I also have an "active load" design for the gain stages which allows them to overdrive/distort again very like a valve without the stage transistors' characteristics being involved in any way.  Anyhow, as usual I'm rambling...

Don't let anyone tell you that valve amps are louder than SS amps Watt for Watt, they aren't.  A watt is a watt is a watt.  What is different is the valve's ability to run out of steam gracefully and musically (pretty much anyway).  That gives valves the ability to sound as though they are pumping out more power than they are. As I said, there are good techniques which can be designed into SS gear to emulate this.  H&K are a high tech company and take a high tech approach to this.  They haven't released any details about how the BS does this as far as I know, "digitally controlled but strictly analogue working platform" is the most I can get from their info.  Whatever it is it seems to work.  I like the sounds of this amp much more than their other recent offerings.  However the thing is, these sounds have to be achievable by the average guitarist without special conditions or a reliance on specific supporting equipment.  I hope we don't have a situation where we buy on the strength of what we hear online or in the shop then struggle to achieve because of things like speaker limitations.

Anyway, it really does represent an interesting model in the range.  Maybe if one fell into my lap from the sky...

A lot of that was over my head, but thanks for the interesting breakdown!!

It's very quite here !
No new Black Spirit 200 owners ?!

I just released the Mac version of the editor so you can now remote control your Black Spirit 200 head and combo from your PC or Mac : http://ctrlr.org/hughes-kettner-remote/

I also took some time to compare the sound of the BS200 with my Grandmeister and I must say I was pretty impressed for a solid state amp ! It really has some guts !
Don't hesitate to give it a try if you have a chance.

Fredo.

For the record the BS does seem to have a fair bit more clean headroom than the GM40 . I have one and my friend has the other I have had the 36 before but that struggles for clean power. His 40 is better but edges sets in fairly quickly but that’s why people buy them for the gain . The cleans on the BS I think are better heavy gain on both is great but the GM is way better on crunch . This still seems to be the Achilles on analog SS amps