Okay, now that I've played it for about a month and a half I think I can give at least a somewhat informed opinion on the Spark. Let me say in advance that I only play by myself, mostly classic rock, 80's hair metal, thrash, punk, hard rock, well most things rock and metal basically. So it's mostly high gain tones for me, some crunchy ones, with a good amount of reverb, delay, and not many other effects.
I've been playing for the past 10 years on and off and I've never taken myself that seriously to invest thousands in equipment, right. But at some point you just have to, you find something's missing in your playing and you stop playing altogether because of that missing piece.
It's what happened to me - non-stop problems with VSTs, noise, lackluster tones, too much setup: it all just felt tedious and almost like a chore, so I pretty much gave it up. And then I discovered the Spark.
Man, let me tell you: this thing is a dream come true. It sounds absolutely incredible, and when I say incredible I mean it: at times I have to stop playing to be sure that this divinely amazing tone from the summit of Mount Olympus is coming from my guitar and not the backing track or song I'm playing over. A month and a half later I still turn it on and hit a chord and I'm completely blown away by it and drowned in a wave of sound, and I think that is testament enough to the amp's main goal: to make you play and make you enjoy playing again, to make you yearn to play so that you hear that goodness coming from your fingers.
On that note, this thing is LOUD. High-gain tones shake windows and "move air" even at 6 o'clock and I've never gone past because I enjoy having functioning ear drums. VERY loud, seriously. And the sound, I don't know how they do it, but it really is "room-filling" as is written on the box. You hear it all around you, coming in waves.
So anyways, before getting the Spark for me "playing guitar" was just endless tinkering with VSTs, and I MEAN ENDLESS only to try and get a tone that didn't want me to jam a pencil in my ear, but to no effect. If I'd spend that time actually playing music I'd probably be playing the Four Seasons backwards. With the Spark, you sit down, flick the switch, press a button to get your saved preset, and simply play. What else is there to say?
All of this is without even resorting to the app. Yes, the app gives you extended flexibility in terms of tones (and the Tone Cloud is really, really useful, you can get any tone with a click), but Positive Grid also implemented scumbag corpo add-on models there of course, so for example they removed the Wah pedal altogether due to it "overloading CPU" (what? xD) and now you have to buy it as some "signature" Jimi Hendrix DLC.
Positive Grid, kindly f**k off with that gaming industry bullshit.
Anyway, the amp is quite fantastic even on its own and without using the app at all although I do use it, it has many additional benefits like a tuner, backing tracks, smart chords and whatnot, you can read the brochure. But the add-on model needs to die a quick death everywhere.
In terms of build quality: it feels like a well-built little tank of an amp, quite sturdy and heavy. The plastic knobs are high-quality (at least I think so) and the whole unit just feels reliable and made to last, hopefully.
As for cons:
- I see people mentioning disconnects from the app. For me that's never happened, ever. I do have problems connecting the first time sometimes where it says that it doesn't find the amp, but with one or two retries it works fine.
- And I literally cannot think of anything else? Weird.
All in all, I am in love with the Spark. It has made playing an absolute joy. I've learned tens of new songs since I got it, I'm faster and more precise, and I have renewed motivation to play, if only just to listen to that amazing tone. And, so far, it has achieved nearly flawlessly every single tone I wanted out of it. I'm blown away by the flexibility and the quality of the tones and sounds coming through.
I cannot recommend it enough, it's a 10/10 for me.
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