Hughes & Kettner Switchblade Head

This amp will literally make any guitar sound you want. with the four preamp channels (clean, crunch, lead, and ultra), it will go from fender clean, to plexi crunch to jcm800 lead, to mesa heavy. I play everything from matchbox 20 to metallica and more, and this amp covers them all with no problem. the amp is completely midi controlled. the midi presets not only store the channel, but also the control settings bass, mid, etc. the built in effects eliminated my need for my chorus and flanger pedals, and also include tremolo, delay and reverb. the amp comes with a midi footcontroller, which also has a tap tempo button for the delay. it has an effects loop, but I may never use it. it has all the effects I need built in.

I play mostly metal, but with many other styles mixed in, and I can get a great mellow clean blues tone with any of my guitars, even the ones designed specifically for metal. the crunch channel will do the AC/DC tone with no trouble at all. the lead channel has a bit more midrange and cuts through really well in a live/rehearsal situation. the ultra channel will give you all the metal you can handle, and still give you all the clarity you need.

I have had this amp for about a week, so I can't say anything to its reliability, but I have friends who own other H&K products, and they have always been good for them.

I have not yet had a need to contact customer support.

overall, I'd say this is probably the last amp I'll ever buy. if it were lost or stolen, I would probably buy another. I really love the versatile tones, but I wish it had a built-in tuner, noise gate, and midi-conrolled wah. that would make it a complete, all-in-one package for me. I used to own a peavey triple-xxx, but traded it in when I heard this amp. it was a great amp, but the switchblade is that much better.

Loaded to the gills with HK attitude. Read the factory specs if you want all the details. In a nutshell, all tube amp with built in effects, programmable with gain stages! WOWSA. Finally someone came out with this versus the Line 6 synthetic sounding cyber junk.

From clean to brutal, it's Hughes all the way baby. Not for the faint of heart. If you have the rock and roll soul of late 80's shredders, this bad boy is right up your alley. If Satriani, Vai, and others of the like didn't have endorsement deals, they would be playing this amp. So freaking versatile and creamy smooth, baby made a boom-boom in my pants first time I heard it.

Too new, can't really say. Those krauts know how to build gear though. German engineering is in the house! :)

Never dealt with them on any level, so no opinion.

It's the bomb. Pardon my 90's era french, but it is. Buy it, and start shredding like you stole it. If you don't, you'll keep playing your fake tube simulation b.s. crap while all your friends think your cool but you can't fool yourself. Well, maybe you can if you bought into the whole modeling hype thing. I didn't and Hughes has rewarded me for my patience with a real tube amp and programmability convenience. Way to go Hughes! You rock!

This Head is a brand new one build in 2006.
The concept of this amp is really amazing.
It's a four channel 100W tube head fully MIDI controlable with an effect section. You can store 128 patches.
Hughes and Kettner sythesized tube technology with analog and digital technology. The amp comes with two 12AX7 in the preamp stage and four EL34 on the poweramp
The channels are: clean - crunch - lead - ultra
Additionally there is a switchable effects loop available that can be set either parallel or seriell. Really great.
Based on these features it is clear that the amp is very versatile from a nice (nearly Fender) clean to modern metal is everything available.
Based on this configuration there are two features I really miss:
- a tuner out
- a noise suppressor
The head comes with a MIDI footcontroller. Perfect.

I'm using the head with a standard Strat loaded with a Kinman AVN Blues set and a PRS CE24 with stock pickups (HFS, Vintage Bass)

Clean: The clean channel is sounding for me like Fender but a bit warmer with a lot of dynamic. I use the head with a 4x12" H&K Cab loaded with Celestion Vintage 30.
It is easy to get some SRV sounds with this channel. With boost on you can already get some slight crunch

Crunch: The crunch channel is wide spread. It starts at a Malcom Young like Clean and goes to old school Hard Rock and Heavy Metal sounds. Also this channel reacts very dynamic and with a good response to the guitar volume

Lead: My preferred one! Here we have a lot of gain available and it is more compressed than the crunch channel.
For me it sounds a bit like a hot rodded Marshall but different than a 5150 or a Soldano. There is more "dirt" inside I'd say.
I use this channel for riffs as well as for solos just different settings on the EQ and the gain.

Ultra. This is the "evil" channel. This channel has more low mids and a more copact sound so these goes clearly to the NuMetal Heads. It works well with dropped tunings but you have to be careful with the gain. It tends to get muddy.
I like it but we're playing with two guitars in our Band and with this channel the diferenciation is not anymore given. I skipped this for now. Maybe with a bit tweaking I can reach some good results.

Now I have to add the effect section I guess.
We have: a reverb
a delay
modulation (chorus, flanger, tremolo)
The effects are nice, not outstanding, but for a live situation absolutely usefull and easy to handle. The best is the delay it sounds very musical.
You can add any effect setting to a patch and store it like on a modelling amp - this is great.

There is a saying in Germany: where is a lot of light there you will have shadows too.

The sounds are outstanding and they are very versatile for this price but the Lead and the Ultra channel are noisy and this already at moderate gain settings. I think this has to be mentioned

have it since 3 weeks, no idea but it looks robust.

pretty good, my first question was answered in 24h. For the second I'm waiting 4 days now, but OK maybe the guy is in vacation.

Sice my old 5150 became unreliable I was searching for a new amp and I tried a lot. Engl, Diezel, Bogner, Marshall, Mesa, Framus.....
I made my decision based on price functionality and sound. When money wouldn't be a point the Diezel Herbert is my favourite amp. So if this amp were stolen or lost probably I would save some money to buy the Herbert.
I'm playing for more than 25 years now and I owned a lot of gear meanwhile.
As I already mentioned above the concept of this amp is outstanding but there is still room for improvement in noise and some details as a tuner out and maybe an indication for the effects (if they are on or off).
If you're looking for a versatile tube amp with MIDI functionality and onboard effects for a reasonable price - this one could be the right one for you