Tell me about your experience with the Hughes and Kettner Triamp, specifically the MkII

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I've listened to some clips, and they sound great from what I can tell, but you don't hear an awful lot about them. What's the build quality like? I understand they were made in Germany, so I imagine they are built fairly well. Any known issues with them? I imagine they are very complicated inside and therefore a nightmare to work on?
 
In North America they are expensive AF. If you need to re tube it's going to hurt.

Everyone I have seen that has one loves it but I have noticed all the usual YouTube folks that get one have 1 single video about how great it is and you never see or hear it again.

oh and if you are in Thomann territory they sell them for super cheap currently after they bought H&K.
 
oh and if you are in Thomann territory they sell them for super cheap currently after they bought H&K.
The Triamp MK 2 is no longer made. Thomann sells MK 3.

I tried the MK2 several years ago but didn't particularly love it. It's a complex amp so it could be just user error, but I found its overdrive channels to have a fuzzy character I did not enjoy.
 
The Triamp MK 2 is no longer made. Thomann sells MK 3.

I tried the MK2 several years ago but didn't particularly love it. It's a complex amp so it could be just user error, but I found its overdrive channels to have a fuzzy character I did not enjoy.
ahh mk2 mk3, I did miss that.
 
It is a good sounding amp once you get the hang of it. Definitely on the darker, warmer side. Build quality is good.

BUT! Their US distributor is not very helpful. If you ever need a repair that requires a proprietary part (which is likely the case with the TriAmp), it will take forever to get the part and it will cost you a lot of money. I learned that the hard way with a Switchblade I used to have.

Have you seen people get stoked they got a great deal on an used BMW, and that lasts up to the first time they have to take it into a shop and they see the repair bill? It's like that.
 
My first real amp was a HK ATS 112 and I used a Triamp MkII in 2005-6. It’s a good amp, great FX Loop too. Heavy.
But its Marshall (Ch2) is a bit compressed and fizzy, its high gain (Ch3) is woofy.
It just isn’t a Fender and a Marshall and a Recto/SLO in a box, which was the plan I guess.
But Thomas Blug always sounded great with it at Musikmesse. Though if I remember right he used the Triamp clean and used a HK Tubeman pedal with it.
 
I recently worked with Hughes & Kettner and made a long video on the Triamp Mark 3.
TLDR: It is a well built, conceptually super sound andincredibly flexbile amp.

The Triamp is being discontinued though. They are currently building the last ones and when those are gone, the Triamp will be out of production.
If I wanted one in the US, I'd probably buy one from Thomann and get a step up transformer instead of getting one from a US retailer tbh.

I had struggled to catch the bug for H&K amps for some reason. I didn't have a specific sound in mind when I though of H&K, unlike when I thought of Marshalls, Boogies, Diezels, etc. So the question for the video was: What is the Hughes & Kettner sound?

The conclusion was that H&K doesn't seem to have a sound as such but that's not a negative thing - quite the opposite. Sometimes these signature sounds can get in your way or be an acquired taste (as it was with Diezels for me). The Triamp is mega flexbile and doesn't force you in any direction. It's like a blank canvas with all the paints and brushes you may need to paint your own picture. It does feel like three different amps in one box and none feel like a compromise. Amp 1 get's you all the different flavours from crystal clean to sligth crunch, amp 2 gets your from Plexi to modded 800 and amp 3 brings the thickness and the heavies. I love using that amp.

As for retubing that someone mentioned earlier: the amp has six power tubes grouped in pairs and you can shut off pairs if you don't use them. you can use 2, 4 or 6 of the power tubes and switch that via MIDI. also, the amp automatically biases and diagnoses each pair of power tubes so you may only have to replace the pair that gives you issues and the amp will tell you. Just pop a matched pair in and you're good to go. It's a brilliantly engineered piece of kit.

On the inside the amp is very well laid out. There is a lot going on but it's not like components are stacked on top of each other like in some Mesas. Everything is accessible and clearly labeled. A qualified tech should not have any big problems working on one.

Not sure about the power tube thing but the other stuff should also apply to the older Mark 2 version of the amp. You just have fewer EQs (3 vs 6) and fewer power tubes.
 
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