Hughes and Kettner Triamp Mk 3- anyone tried it? Any good? Any known problems?

Dave_Mc

Hi everyone,

Has anyone tried the Hughes and Kettner Triamp Mk3? Thomann has reduced it to £1500 in their August sale, which is getting down to cheap enough that I'm half considering it- I haven't been paying super-close attention to prices, but I think it was pushing £3000 before Thomann bought H&K, and they reduced it to £1700 I think in another sale a few months back.

Are there any known reliability problems or anything else like that to be aware of? 

I've only tried the previous version- I liked it but wasn't completely blown away, if I remember correctly I thought the high gain channels were a bit disappointing but this was years ago and I may well feel differently now! Also it looks like they've changed quite a bit from the previous version so I'm not sure I'd want to put too much stock in what I thought of the Mk2. From what I remember of the other H&K amps I've tried (again, years ago), I usually liked them but IIRC they usually had a bit of a unique tone.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Dave

StefB

I was looking at them today too, downloaded the manual & brochures etc, which is dangerous. 

I’ve no experience other than a MkII my brother in law used to have, but the price is tempting. Even at that though resale will be tough given current attitudes towards 100-150w heads. 

I’ve been a big H&K fan over the years, Tube 50 was my gateway drug, then Switchblade, Statesman 6L6 combo, BS-200, and both Grandmeister models. 

My biggest reservation about the TriAmp is that I think I’ve fallen out with the H&K ‘sound’ having not been used to it for a few years. I have a Black Spirit and a GM40 at the moment that I’ve been meaning to list for sale for ages for that reason, yet still this Thomann TriAmp deal is drawing me in. 

I currently gig a JVM Satriani - will the H&K do anything that doesn’t already do with aplomb?

Dave_Mc

Thanks very much  @StefB That's very helpful that you've owned several of them and that I wasn't imagining that they (like a lot of brands) have a "sound". That's something I'm a bit scared of too- I've sort of been playing long enough now that if something doesn't sound quite "right" for certain "classic" sounds, I can tell- it can still sound excellent judged on its own merits, but it's a bit off-putting if you can't get it to sound exactly the way you want.

I've downloaded the manuals etc. long ago, lol. 

Yep very good point about the resale- I seem to recall someone on here a few weeks ago saying they had picked up a second-hand Mk2 for £400! I don't normally sell stuff- and if I really hate it I would just return it. I haven't returned anything guitar-related yet because I didn't like it, but with a big purchase like this it's nice to know it's an option when you haven't tried it, just in case. But the resale is definitely worth bearing in mind- sometimes you don't realise till several months (or years!) later that you aren't quite getting on with something...

That's interesting about the JVM JS model- I've only tried the regular one (and again that was years ago). I get the feeling the JVM will do the Marshally stuff better, while the H&K might do the other non-Marshall sounds better, but I could well be wrong about that. 

My reasoning for my own predicament (and I realise this is 90%+ rationalising that I just want the thing!  ) is that while I've got several valve amps, my one "super-amp" that does everything, an Engl Savage SE, has basically been broken (the spring reverb's dead, and it won't switch to the high gain channels) for several years now and I've never got round to doing anything about it. I also strongly suspect it'd need to be revalved, too (I'm getting weird pops and crackles etc. on the channels which still work). Four 6L6es plus six 12AX7s are likely to cost £300, if not more, plus I'd have to pay someone to bias it, and then there'd be the repair cost too (if anyone even knows how to since it's pretty complex and I've never managed to find a schematic- admittedly the Triamp is guilty of complexity and no schematic too!). It could well end up costing more to fix than I could sell it for... plus I've never been 100% sold on its high gain channels either! And on top of that it's a 20 year old amp, so something else could go wrong any time.

Granted I doubt it'd cost £1500 to fix and revalve it, but the H&K is brand new and comes with a 3-year warranty. Plus it's something new and different...

I kind of get the feeling that if I don't go for it I'll regret missing out, but if I do go for it I might well regret it too since there's no guarantee I'll love it either. There's also no guarantee they won't drop the price lower, or there's not a new version just on the horizon once they've got rid of all these ones (which will probably cost a lot more, though)...

fretmeister

I don't think I'd buy a new 100W+ valve amp anymore. They just aren't selling and even the popular ones can be found cheap used.

But saying that, Thomann's return policy is very good so at least you can have a proper try.

StefB

fretmeister said:

I don't think I'd buy a new 100W+ valve amp anymore. They just aren't selling and even the popular ones can be found cheap used.

But saying that, Thomann's return policy is very good so at least you can have a proper try.

There's a b-stock model available at £1,385 too if you've not already spotted it @Dave_Mc, reduces the risk slightly and still enjoys the same warranty and return rights.

Usually just a straightforward return because the amp wasn't to the previous purchaser's taste. 

Dave_Mc

Thanks @fretmeister You're quite right to warn me, it's definitely worth keeping resale in mind- I'm not much of a flipper but you never know what will happen in the future that might twist your arm...

Thanks @StefB ;I'd spotted that one, but I appreciate the heads-up anyway as I could easily have missed it! I'm a bit iffy about B-stock, especially with amps. I know @ICBM ;says he's not happy about amps being shipped around and would prefer to give an amp a once-over even after one courier journey, and a B-stock one could well have had 3 biggish journeys. It's not a massive saving either- it'll probably drop quite a bit more if no-one buys it, but that might not be before the sale ends and as a result it might actually cost more if the price of the non-B-stock one goes up after August 31st.

Anyone actually tried them? I'm guessing not since no-one else has replied. (I'm not complaining, I know I haven't tried it either!) I asked on TGP as well, when I did some digging there a few weeks ago there seemed to be a couple of people who had tried them, but whether they'll see my thread or not...

gearaddict

Did you get this in the end? The Triamp was always my unattainable amp of desire (being a Rush fanboy!) and that is a bit of a bargain at that price, albeit still a chunk of cash. I did buy a Trilogy at one point and it was good...but as much as I want to love H&K gear, I always find I struggle with their 'dirty but clean' kind of sound...even the filthiest setting seems to have a kind of clean quality to it. Which is maybe a good thing but I found that it grated on me after a while. I've tried a few amps (Edition Tube, Trilogy, Statesman, Switchblade, Black Spirit, Tubemeister) and I always found them to have this same character.

Dave_Mc

gearaddict said:

Did you get this in the end? The Triamp was always my unattainable amp of desire (being a Rush fanboy!) and that is a bit of a bargain at that price, albeit still a chunk of cash. I did buy a Trilogy at one point and it was good...but as much as I want to love H&K gear, I always find I struggle with their 'dirty but clean' kind of sound...even the filthiest setting seems to have a kind of clean quality to it. Which is maybe a good thing but I found that it grated on me after a while. I've tried a few amps (Edition Tube, Trilogy, Statesman, Switchblade, Black Spirit, Tubemeister) and I always found them to have this same character.

Yeah I did, although this being me I hmmed and hahhed until (what should have been- it's still the same price, despite the sale supposedly ending at the end of August!  ) the last minute, so it only came on Monday and as a result I'm still only really scratching the surface of what it can do.

As you said, it's a pretty good bargain at the price, though hardly deal of the century and still serious money- it's the kind of deal where you'd kind of need to have been sort of thinking of one already, but just the price was putting you off. I'm a bit the same as you- as I said earlier in the thread, I tried the Mk2 and liked (but didn't absolutely love) it, but when the Mk3 came out I sort of thought "Wow that sounds amazing... on paper at least!" but then I saw the price and pretty much figured I'd never get one. And I sort of consoled myself with thinking that I sort of thought that about the Mk2 as well, before I tried it.

I haven't really noticed what you're saying about the "dirty but clean" thing, but it may well be that it's there and I haven't noticed it, lol. (And you're definitely right to be concerned- once you notice something like that it's hard to ignore it as you rightly said.) FWIW (and take this with a pinch of salt, because I've never owned any other H&Ks, and only tried a few of their models in shops maybe 15-20 years ago) it does remind me of the other H&K amps I've tried*, they do seem to have a bit of a family "sound", and they do seem to have a bit of that German-amp processed/refined type of tone too (that might be a bit what you mean about the "dirty but clean" thing).

Basically it seems to be very good. I'm glad I didn't pay full price, lol, but then I would say that considering I didn't! But I strongly suspect if I tried it at full price I would think- even though it's got some amazing features and a ton of channels- it's great but it's just not worth it. Full price was pushing 3 grand (maybe even £3,500 at one point or am I misremembering?), and at that price you could buy 2-3 top quality (but less versatile) amps and that might well be the more sensible way to go unless you needed it all in the one amp. But at £1500 you'd be looking at more like 2-3 £500-£700 amps and I think you could make an argument for the Triamp in that case- it definitely does feel and sound like an "expensive" amp, rather than a more cost-effective one.

 Most of the channels sound very good- some are better than others but none are bad. I think the best 3 are the Fendery clean channel and the two Marshally ones, but I could change my mind tomorrow, especially when I've tweaked it more! The controls are very powerful and interactive but that's kind of a double-edged sword- there are tons of tones in there but they can be hard to find (and hard to get back to!). Some of the features are really cool, like the switchable tubes etc. and they do actually make a noticeable difference to the tone.

I'm not sure there's any one channel where you'd say, "Wow, that channel is worth the price of admission alone!" but again much like the EQ that's a bit of a double-edged sword- there are quite a few multi-channel amps where one channel is amazing (usually the high-gain one), but most of the other channels seem like afterthoughts and are a bit middling by comparison. On this one all the channels are at least pretty good, and it doesn't feel like all they cared about was the high gain (if anything, and admittedly I need to tweak it more, I'd say the high gain channels are arguably the weakest ones!), which is quite refreshing in a way.

I'm not considering sending it back, anyway, unless something goes wrong with it. if there's anything else you'd like to know, just ask. As I said, I've only had it since the start of the week, I've only got as far as trying it with one speaker cab so far (2x12 Roadkill Stag (oversized) with Tayden Great and High Brit) so I've barely scratched the surface...


* I think I've tried the Triamp Mk2, Duotone, Edition Tube, and I *think* I tried the Puretone, Switchblade and maybe Trilogy, but I'm not so sure on those last 3 (especially Trilogy, I might be getting it mixed up with the Switchblade or vice-versa).