Tag: electric guitars

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The Positive Grid Spark is a versatile smart amp perfect for guitarists stuck at home

Powered amps for electric guitars have gotten some neat tricks powered by modern mobile tech over the years, but the new Positive Grid Spark ($299) might be the one that packs the most intelligence and versatility into a single package. From a companion app, to voice commands, to tunable modelling and home recording – on top of doubling as a standalone Bluetooth speaker – the Spark offers features for beginners and pros alike.

The basics

The Positive Grid Spark looks physically like your average, portable practice amp. It’s just over a foot long and about half-a-foot wide and tall, and it weighs just under 12 lbs. There’s a removable leather carrying strap attached for moving it around, and it includes a 1/4″ guitar input, a 1/8″ auxiliary input, and a 1/8″ headphone jack for connecting your audio gear, as well as a USB port for recording and acting as a USB audio interface for connecting to your computer.

The Spark has a host of integrated controls, including a dial for choosing from a number of preset amp types, as well as individual dials for adjusting gain, bass, mid, treble, master, mod, delay and reverb on the fly. There’s a physical control for output volume, and for music volume, as well as four user-programmable buttons for calling up represents, and a tap/tuner button for accessing the onboard tuner and other features.

Image Credits: Positive Grid

Built-in to the amp are 30 different potential amp models, as well as 40 effects to allow you to customize sound, including a noise gate, a compressor, distortion, modulation, delay and reverb. The Spark also features Bluetooth connectivity for streaming audio. Inside, there are two 4-inch speakers for true stereo sound, and it’s rated at 40 watts.

Features and design

The Spark’s design on the outside isn’t very far off from most standard practice amps out there – but it feels high quality, and the grill is done in a nice, retro finish that looks really good even when it’s not in use and just sitting on a side table. The leather is synthetic, making it more durable and more ethical, and the knobs have excellent Color-matched brass-tone detailing that completes the look. The metal flip switch for power on and red LED leave no confusion as to whether you’re ready to jam, and the touch buttons have similar bright backlighting.

Spark’s integrated handle, which you can remove when you’re not using, is comfortable and does its job well. The amp also features rubber feet to keep it elevated off surfaces and provide stability while it’s in operation.

In terms of basic performance and features, the Spark is already an excellent amp. Even if you never download the Positive Grid app (which you should) and instead just plug in your guitar, bass, ukulele or electric-acoustic, you can use the physical control to set up a sound you like and go to town. But when you download the app, you get a whole bunch more functionality that really extends the value of the Spark to elevate it above just about every other amp in its price range (and beyond).

Image Credits: Positive Grid

The app has a number of features, including Positive Grid’s ‘Smart Jam,’ which effectively learns your style as you play and can then create autogenerated bass and drum tracks to accompany you. It’s a very cool feature that takes all the work out of trying to find generic backing or accompanying tracks for when you’re just looking to jam and come up with some interesting compositions.

There’s also an auto chords feature for when you’re not looking to come up with your own stuff, but are rather looking to master your favorite existing song. This integrates with Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube, meaning you should be covered no matter what music service you subscribe to, and will automatically display the guitar chords for a song on your device as you play along. You can even slow down the track, or loop specific sections, if you’re stuck on one bit or just starting out.

The Spark app also provides access to over 10,000 guitar and bass amp presets, extending the versatility of the amp hardware. Plus, it’s voice controlled, so you can just ask it to provide you with a virtual band, for instance, and it’ll do that on demand.

Bottom line

The Positive Grid Spark is a unique offering in the field of amps, offering a lot of extensible smarts via the companion app – or a great, highly-customizable but more barebones experience if you’d rather leave your phone out of it and just get to playing. At $299, it’s hard to argue with it as a top pick, given how much more you get for your money once you factor in the advanced software features, and its versatility as a pretty great Bluetooth speaker, too.

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Review: The $299 Echo Link Amp adds Alexa to any speaker

The Echo Link Amp is designed to give Echo owners options. Instead of settling for the sound from a couple of Echo speakers, this amp lets owners use a set of nice bookshelf speakers. Best yet, this replaces a large receiver generally needed to power speakers.

At $299 the Echo Link Amp lives in a curious spot. It’s less expensive and smaller than a traditional home audio system. Yet it’s more expensive than smaller desktop amps with a similar power rating.

Like it’s little brother the $199 Echo Link, the $299 Echo Link amp requires another Echo device. The Link and the Link Amp lack a microphone, which is needed to talk to the system. These two products are, if you will, the missing link between Alexa and better sound.

There are less expensive ways to replicate a lot of the Echo Link Amp’s feature set. There are a handful of small and powerful amps available for around $50 that can take audio from an Echo Dot and power a set of speakers. I use a $30 Lepai amp to power a set of Yamaha outdoor speakers on my deck. I used this system to test the Echo Link Amp.

Review

It’s finally nice outside here in Michigan. The sun is out and the leaves are budding. I’m writing this from my deck where I have two Yamaha speakers connected to a small amp and an Echo Dot, which are mounted the floorboards. It’s the best. I can yell requests to the Dot from my fire pit. The Dot and $30 amp have survived two Michigan winters, too.

This is the perfect use case for the Echo Link Amp though I’m sure Amazon will disapprove of the placement outside. That’s okay.

Like when I tested the Echo Link, I enlisted the help of another Echo product to make switching between the audio sources a bit easier. Using an AV switcher I was able to connect everything simultaneously and press a button to switch between the sources. I cued up some summer BBQ music and stepped back remote in hand.

There wasn’t a difference.

The $30 amp had the same bass response, vocal reproduction and soundstage as the $300 Echo Link Amp. On paper the Echo Link Amp has more power but in practice that power did not result in a difference with these outdoor speakers. I disconnected everything and this time plugged the speakers directly into the amps. Nothing changed. Hank Jr. sounded the same. For better or worse, of course.

I tried the system on a set of old Infinity speakers and had the same results. The sound had the same fidelity. On both systems the highs were just as high and the lows were just as low. The quality had the same, admittedly, lack of punch but sounded good enough to blast Kenny Chesney throughout my yard.

The $299 Echo Link Amp shares a lot with the $199 Echo Link. The main difference, as the name suggests, is the amp. The Link Amp has the ability to drive a set of speakers where the Link needs to be connected to an amplifier. I found the Echo Link to be a fantastic addition to a home audio setup. The $199 device provides a digital connection lacking on other Echo devices and I found it to improve the audio quality of streaming services.

The Echo Link Amp, however, is a touch disappointing but at the same time very proficient at its job. Buyers are paying for the ease of use more than the quality of the amplifier. It’s clever too. If the connected Echo Dot is asked a question, it responds with the answer. This lets the owner to turn off the amplifier and still retain access to Alexa. Only when the owner asks the Echo to play audio does it offload the task to the powered speakers.

With a series of inputs, the Echo Link Amp can easily serve several roles including as a 2.1 channel home theater receiver.

The Echo Link Amp is a lovely device even though I find the audio quality lacking when compared to less expensive amps. It’s clever and I’m surprised Amazon is selling the device. While the rest of the Echo product line is a mass market play, the Echo Link and Echo Link Amp are designed for a smaller market. The Echo Link Amp features a set of functions unavailable on any other Echo device and the easiest way to add Alexa to a set of speakers.