Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister Deluxe 40

El sonido del cabezal es una auténtica pasada. Todo suena muy limpio, con mucho cuerpo y nitidez. Si adquieres éste cabezal, has de tener en cuenta su potencia, ya que en ensayos con un grupo pueda quedarse corto o lo tendrás que poner a toda potencia para conseguir mayor sonido, pero no merece la pena por lo que pierdes.

En general, es un producto de una calidad exquisita, pero que bajo mi opinión, está orientado a estudios o casa.

I recently invested in home studio equipment and repeatedly sought after good guitar recording solution. Although amp sims are very good nowadays, the sound you get from real valve amp is different and is more straightforward to get. But you can't play 100 W at your living room without being insulted by your neighbours. So the Power Soak technology looks like blessing for this purpose. I hesitated between Engl and HK, then between HK 20 or HK 40, and the number of valves (3x pre-amp, 4x power) was the decisive factor. Using HK Tubemeister Deluxe 40 as valve pre-amp for recording and then processing the sound in amp/cabinet simulators in DAW is a good method to get advantages of both worlds, I think.
Although I've bought HK DL 40 for silent recording, I've better bought Tubemeister 110 Box as well. I feel more secure when the amp's connected to appropriate box, not to damage anything by accidental switching other output buttons. With box connected it is perfect duo, you can practice at very low sound level with feel of full power at the same time (and without ears crushed by earphones). Moreover it takes almost no place - box+amp altogether measure 55x45x25 cm.
One thing though. I had no time to test it thoroughly in 30 days period after buy, so when I found out later, that something is not right, it was too late to easy exchange. Amp repeatedly after 7-8 minutes from cold start stopped responding to any button and switched itself to 40 W Clean. With help from Thomann staff it was collected, repaired (backboard replaced) and back at my place in 2 weeks (and I'm not living in Germany). Very good organisation indeed!

It's a one-of-a-kind amp, if you consider all the features: I mean, all-tube power scalable or even completely silent recording or gigging solution with an analog DI out that really works and sounds good – where did you last see something like that?

Pros: It's powerful and loud enough for any style, it takes pedals well. Stacking drives into this thing is a bliss;
- Sounds nice;
- FX Loop;
- I think it's a more hands-on experience than the higher tier GrandMeister. Less fiddly and you can do without that spaceship foot controller or an app just fine. No real presets for you though (but you can change PowerSoak settings to get cranked master with sagging on a certain channel with a push of a button with a controller on a TubeMeister);
- Looks cool.

The amp takes the signal to DI after power amp section, which is good for me, and it also takes all the 'what about that sweet saturation' worries away. There are always some tubes along the way=) You can overdrive the master when needed, and it will be heard through DI. One thing I'm not sure about though. Manual claims it always takes full power to DI before PowerSoak. Problem is, when power scaled or silent, it switches to just 2 power amp tubes instead of 4, so I suspect you're not getting the full headroom anyway. So if you want superloud cleans or modern metal you might need to run it at full blast (40W), and you only can do it when connected to a cab. That said, I did get some seriously chunky metal tones out of it on a number of occasions while being fully silent. Also, PowerSoak does convert power into heat, so it will get hot, but not uncomfortably so. Just don't cover it with anything.