final verdict
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so... after waiting 7 months for my power supporters spark, downunder, it arrived.
Played around for a week.
the amp really is as good as all the youtubers rave about.
my power supply worked great, not a peep of noise, in high gain settings, thanks to Australian electrical grounding standards, and good quality guitars.
The bass is pretty high, but I found keeping my dial below 1/4 worked best.
Plenty volume,for the guitar section, and I was never able to crank it to Max, due to metro living standards here.
The aux input and Bluetooth, I did crank right up to 100%, there's no way you're going to turn the guitar volume up past 1/2 way, when using aux or Bluetooth.
The sounds are acceptable, a wide variety of amps and modulation, no one should complain, unless you're an audiophile sound engineer, but then you'll still have something to say about a Kemper as well anyways.
As a practice amp? depending how one interprets one, to me it's useless.
Practice, to me, means, learning, slowing down, A/B looping, transposing keys etc etc.
All missing on the amp/hardware .
And not quite up to my standards on the app, either, not working correctly, or not implemented at all.
So... I decided to sell my spark, at a 150% profit, and wait till PG or an opposition company, comes out with a truly portable practice/Bluetooth/battery/wireless amp.
I've no doubt, after seeing this, someone is going to get it right within a year or 2.
My only regret?
Not ordering 4 of them and flogging them at 150% profit to impatient musos.
So.. be patient, it will eventually arrive, whether it meets your expectations? That is the question.
Any specific questions anyone wants answered before I go , let me know, I'll gladly give my opinion.
Cheers -
@crystalpit It was nice of you to post a review, I enjoyed reading it. I’m a little confused by your comments that the Spark is as good as all the YouTubers report but you found it less than satisfactory and sold it. The spark is very inexpensive, and less than the cost of many pedals.I’m guessing you spent about $200 usd or less. What have all the reviewers gotten wrong and what will you use as a better option, especially in the the same low price range ? I ordered one in February after deciding that if it’s a decent Bluetooth speaker, that feature alone makes it worth the $224 I spent.
Positive Grid is presenting a master class in poor customer service and public relations, but after seeing many reviews and considering the surprisingly low price it seems like a great value if it’s ever delivered.
I’m really curious to see when the Spark ll will be announced, and what the competition will roll out with the same price point to compete with the current model. I also find it kind of entertaining to marvel at how badly Positive Grid is handling public relations. They are smart at many things but clueless at customer relations.
Thanks again for posting a review.
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That's true, for slowing down, A/B looping, transposing it's better to play your backing tracks with the anytune app you have to buy for some additional bucks.
But the sounds coming out off the spark are great. But you have to invest some time in them. Nearly all standard presets that came with the app i deleted in the meanwhile. I changed them against the Sounds that i need for practicing my favorite songs. And here the soundcloud gives you more than 10000 possibilities but for me the most is real crap. I really wonder what some people publish that they think would be good. Do they have no ears?!?.
So i made all my presets by myself. This needs time!So i had to spend some money for the buy of anytune and a lot of time in creating the sounds i need before i could use spark really for practicing.
No i'm loving it!
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I meant the sound output and quality of effects... and ease of use is excellent.
As just a wired Bluetooth speaker?
U can't go wrong really...
but you can probably get something bit cheaper just for that function and even a more portable, battery operated one.
What I wanted was an all in one practice amp and Bluetooth speaker,
I knew it wasn't battery operated and always wanted to try a Marshall Stanmore type thing.
If the app had a universal key transpose and a user friendly universal A/B point looper, then I would've kept it,
even better if it was on board the amp itself.
As it stood, I would've seen myself still using my old phrase trainer,and other toys, etc... so what's the point.
I've got a few amplifiers already and I A/B'd my digitech gnx4 with mfx supermodels directly through the spark, and to my ears, I prefered my gnx4, but I'm biased, as it has my sound in it that my ears recognise and appreciate more .
I guess what I really want is a wireless and battery operated (katana air) practice amp, with all the old phrase trainer features that have been tried and tested for decades, all built in it or the app.
I'm not really sure why some manufacturer needs to ommitt some features when all it takes is simple coding of an app by a professional they already employ or subcontract.
Oh, by the way, I have a digitech trio+ as well, way more advanced and superior sounding than what the spark app is trying to emulate,
It would really be great to combine everything I have and use regularly into a single unit, ie:reduce my chain of equipment.
And as I said earlier... someone will come out with one sooner or later.
In hindsight... the app came out after I ordered my spark, if the app came out earlier, I would've seen its limitations, and probably pondered a whole lot longer before ordering one, if at all. -
@de_cunny said in final verdict:
And here the soundcloud gives you more than 10000 possibilities but for me the most is real crap. I really wonder what some people publish that they think would be good. Do they have no ears?!?.
Exactly... good point I forgot to mention lol ... another reason for me to ditch it.
Who has the time nowdays, to go through 10 000 presets and try and find a tone... c'mon... most of us have already been down that road in the mid 00s, one would've thought in 2020 these things would be been instant -
@de_cunny I agree with the Anytune app idea. My set up is iPad running Anytune Pro + feeding songs thru bluetooth to the Spark, and naturally the Spark App for guitar tones. Use the Anytune App for pitch shift, slowing down and for looping as needed while learning songs. Anytune is great with the pitch thing so I can play A440 standard tunes as well as 1/2 step down tunes (i.e. Van Halen/Guns ‘n Roses) all with the same A440 tuned guitar, just by doing the pitch thing on Anytune). Since I mainly use the Spark at my girlfriend’s house where I am on weekends, I use only with headphones for silent practice (and I prefer the sound of the Spark thru headphones vs. it’s speakers). The tonecloud consists of tons of tones set up using Bias Amp, and they don’t translate well to the Spark, so that’s why many sound like crap thru the Spark. You have to check a lot of them but you’ll eventually find very good sounding tones on Tonecloud. I play in a cover band and have found (or created) good tones to practice with for our 45 songs (SRV/Foo Fighters/Green Day/Kenny Wayne Shepard/Cheap Trick/Aerosmith/Velvet Revolver/Joe Bonamassa/Grand Funk Railroad/Blackfoot/Collective Soul/Incubus to give sone examples of the diverse bands). I made a reference chart as to the tones per song and use the App to select them from where I saved to my downloads.
I have the Katana Air, the Hotone Ampero, the Yamaha THR10II, the Headrush gigboard, (all used via headphones and the iPad thru their Aux In), and I prefer the Spark over all (and this is after I spent $ buying Choptones presets for the Ampero and Gigboard). The Ampero and Gigboard have footswitches which is nice (and I used a bluetooth pedalboard with the Yamaha), so that is the thing I miss with the Spark (hoping they someday make it so the Positive Grid Bluetooth BT-4 pedal will work with the Spark). But I only have a few songs that need channel switching and I’ve saved those presets to the 4 buttons on the Spark, so I just reach up quickly to change tones with my finger.
So with my intended use, the Spark fits my needs well.
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You speak from my mouth...
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@crystalpit said in final verdict:
Who has the time nowdays, to go through 10 000 presets and try and find a tone... c'mon...
You obviously don't own a Kemper then. ; )
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@michael-howell said in final verdict:
@crystalpit said in final verdict:
Who has the time nowdays, to go through 10 000 presets and try and find a tone... c'mon...
You obviously don't own a Kemper then. ; )
nah mate.. but... If I'd bought 4 sparks and resold at 150% like I did mine ... definitely 😂
