Opinions on H&K Tubemeister 18/36

bazzabalboa

Good morning fellas,

Im just wondering if any of you guys have owned/spent time with the Hughes & Kettner Tubemeister series?

I have just sold my Blackstar HT5RS mini-stack, and am really interested in the Tubemeister series. I will be buying the Tubemeister 112 cab (which is loaded with a V30). The most of the time I play clean, then probably about 25% of the time I play metal (think iron maiden/black label society/megadeth.... nothing too br00tal).

Is there much difference between the 18watt head and the 36watt head in terms of tone?

What are your thoughts and opinions on these amps? Any help would be highly apprieciated  

John_A

I had a Grandmeister which I assume sounds very similar but with all the added gubbins, IMO it sounded awful, very sterile and not at all what I was expecting.

markv

I have a TubeMeister 18 combo (with the 10" speaker) and I like it very much - very versatile, and a good sound. I have only used it at home, where the ability to take it down to 5W or 1W is very useful, plus I use the integrated RedBox out when recording.

I don't have a wide frame of reference to other amps but before I bought it, I compared it with similar Blackstar HT amps and I thought the H&K was way, way better. The cleans can be very clean (some people say very "hi-fi"), which is a matter of taste, but it goes to mildly crunchy nicely, and very very saturated on the lead channel if you want that.

StageStruck

The other guitarist in my band plays a TM36 plus matching 1x12 cab. It's a pretty versatile bit of kit and plenty loud when in a band situation. I'm not sure how it performs without, but the dedicated footswitch adds an extra level of control over the amp particularly if you use many different tones/effects. It definitely performs well in a blues rock/heavy rock band.

longjaw

Had a TM 18W head - it was okay. Not a big fan of the overdrive tho.
I originally bought it to replace my Hayden 30W Mofo head but it couldn't quite cut the mustard for me so I moved it on.

bignorm

I have a H&K Grandemeister 36 and absolutely love it.
I found that I needed to tweak it quite a bit to get it to where I'm happy with it though, as it was a bit tizzy at low volume and there's a horrible mid range honk when matched with Celestion V30 speakers that seem to be fitted to every cab on the market
When I first got it, I liked the sounds but it was just missing something and for want of a better word "a bit polite".
Changing the valves definitely helped, but the big epiphany moment was finally getting rid of the Celestion V30's in my cabs for some Reaper black back G12h clones.
The chain of small tweaks and changes has given me a small guitar rig that absolute roars without being monstrously loud.
There's still a threshold that above everything comes alive but it's much lower than it used to be and I find that I can get lots of lovely inbetween tones by backing of the guitar vol pot.

thomasross20

I'm looking at the Tubemeister 18 head - small, light, cheap, multiple channels - what's not good about this? 

As @ICBM knows, I was considering getting a Blackstar ID60 head as backup and for home use... but now I'm also looking into whether a Mesa head or something like the H&K TB18 would do me... 

axisus

I have a grandmeister 36, love it! Great for low volume playing at home.

thomasross20

I like how it looks ...

MartinBlythe

I had the Tubemeister 18 head a while back before I got my Two Rock. I thought for the money it was a great little head. Good cleans and as you mention it's very light and small. I found the Drive channel was awful and the EQ knobs were very limited (didn't make much difference) - no reverb either. If I was buying something small/light again there are better alternatives out there but if you just looking for a straight up clean amp + pedals then it's worth a shot. 

thomasross20

Hmm, no reverb = no sale. I've got this thing where I have to have reverb on the amp itself!

RMJ

I had the 18 head. Just sounded a bit meh....

timmysoft

I had the 18w 30th anniversary edition, sounded great. Lovely voicing to all of the channels and very well balanced. 

Jetfire

I've got the Grandmiester and found it was abit meh until I started using an external boost on it. For me, I like the boost on my all of my drive channels at all times bar the clean channel but it's a cracking amp. I did think about shifting it on until I tried a m5 through it just to give it a go and it made a huge difference. The on board effects are fine for what I do so unless youve got a delay you particular love then you can put that in the fx loop. 

I get the sterile comments on it but if you're using the on board boost, I'd say that was potentially the problem. 

normula1

I always struggled with the high end on the GM36. Now granted I like a warmer tone, but I found the mid control was voiced way too far into the treble spectrum and therefore didn't add what I would consider to be middle and that the bass control did't do an awful lot. The power amp tone controls seemed way more effective.

EdB999

thomasross20 said:

Hmm, no reverb = no sale. I've got this thing where I have to have reverb on the amp itself!

The heads don't have reverb, but the combos do.

I have a 18c with the 10'' speaker, good discounts last year as they discontinued the 10'' in favour of the 12''.

Good for home use with the built in power soak going down to 1w