Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 40 Deluxe Head Black

Comments about Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 40 Deluxe Head:

I loved this amp except for the hum. Have two heads: EVH, Hughes 20w and wanted a midi controlled head with three good channels (EVH50 only has two volume/gain controls so 1 and 2 are really like one. Have a power conditioner and there was the 60hz hum. Even after unplugging everything cept the speaker, it was still there. Other two amps quiet as mice. I have a noise gate in the effects loop for EVH and even that didn't seem to help on this Hughes. I returned the head (sigh) maybe a bad apple, I was so hopeful.

Comments about Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 40 Deluxe Head:

I started off like many of the people who are curious of this amp, I currently use an EVH 5150III 50w head, now this amp was great but as most of you are probably aware of the volume drop between the clean and crunch channel due to them sharing the same EQ/volume is hard to combat. So I was looking for an amp that ideally had a separate channel for clean, after a while of researching and saving I came across the Hughes and kettner tubemeister 40 deluxe, it intrigued me. I continued to spend a long time looking into it and listening to recordings and watching videos and it seemed to good to be true. Fast forward I ordered myself one, it arrived and the thing looked beautiful and was such a good size especially for portability. I plugged in and gave the crunch channel a whirl. Now I play in a rock cover band so you can imagine I need an ACdc like crunch tone. Unfortunately this amp does not possess that, was very disappointed to find out that the crunch AND lead channel had this god awful fizz to them, I messed about with the controls for a bit but could not get rid of the fizz, sounded like a cheap Marshall sort of fizz ( which I HATE) tried the power soak and it still was too fizzy when even the slightest amount of gain was applied. Tried the clean channel too which sounded very thin an poor. And to top it all off the crunch and lead channels were both too noisy to gig with, a hiss that couldn't be tamed even by a noise suppressor in the FX loop. Very very disappointed to the point where I returned it in less than a day

Comments about Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 40 Deluxe Head:

A lot of comments take into account the experience the person had at their respective GC but I'm trying to keep it on the product itself. I was about to get a 15W EVH 5150 head because I was on this lunchbox craze but then I saw the 18W Tubemeister. I eventually built up to getting the 40W TM. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hear it since there was no place that had one available so this was a bit of gamble. It turned out to be the smallest gamble of my life. This thing blew every article of clothing straight off of me. There was a fantastic clarity to the cleans. It was perfect. I went ahead and got the FS-2 as well. The crunch and lead channel were phenomenal. I wouldn't say an OD pedal would be necessary for the pre-path to tighten it up for your djenty prog stuff because this thing is a monster. Not to say that's all it can do. There's a nice twang to it if you let it breathe a bit so you can go from country, to jazz, to metal, to whatever else you could think of. At first I was worried about the lack of onboard reverb but I immediately went out and got a Strymon blueSky (something I was putting off for a while) and I have no regretted a single second.

Came with a neat bag so that's a bonus. Tiny amp, enormous sound. Powersoak option is amazingly useful. 1W, 5W, 20W, and 40W options.

Comments about Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 40 Deluxe Head:

Sound is great. Can always find the tone I want with ease. Well built and beautiful. I play a mix of styles, mostly rooted in classic rock, and my Tubemeister 40 is a great fit. The flexibility of tones and power is a high point. Can pull good sound out of cheaper cabs/speakers but really sings through quality stuff (2x12 with Vintage 30's is my fave with this amp). Tone-wise, can't really tell much difference in the Tube 40 and other quality amps in this price range.

As some others have said elsewhere, the amp is great but could use built-in reverb. Not really an issue since this amp plays well with external effects. I use 4 cable method and love it, but a grab and go for fun usually has me wanting to bring more than just the amp and a 1x12. If I'm bringing reverb, might as well bring some other stuff too :) If doing some recording, no need to bring a DI box, the built-in Red Box does the trick nicely.