Grandmesiter vs Switchblade?

Hi Folks!

First time poster here, but been an H&K user for a LONG time. :-) Had a quick question for anyone who wants to chime in and help a fellow H&K Head out. :-p

I've been using the Switchblade for years now. (1/2 stack at festivals and large venues, 50 watt combo at casinos and smaller venues) I love the tone, but like the idea of a smaller unit, especially with the Red Box. I had a Tube Meister and it didn't work for me...I really preferred the 4 channel layout that I was used to with the Switchblade, and the Grandmeister series seems to have the same layout as the Switchblade series. (4 channels, built-in effects, programmable etc)

My question is, I'm hearing that the new Deluxe 40 has the preamp based on the Triamp. Is the Grandmeister 36 preamp based on the Switchblade preamp? If so, I'm on it! Just wanted to ask before whipping out the ol' plastic. :-)

Thanks in advance!
Tony

Well, the total internet silence here had me go right to the source, so I contacted H&K who replied that the preamp in the Deluxe 40 is based on the newest version of the Triamp MKII, but they said that I could get much closer to my tried and true Switchblade tones with the Deluxe 40 than I would with the Grandmeister 36, with just some moderate tweaking.

So there ya go. Hope that info helps someone else who may have the same question. :-)

Thanks for the heads up Swabbie. You're right, it may well help someone else. That is the way to use your membership to a forum properly in my estimation. I would have answered, (every post deserves at least a response), but I have no working experience of the GM40 so could not speak first hand about its tonal capabilities.

I did know there was a family tree to the preamp circuitry but don't know the older H&K models either. I'm not surprised to hear that the GM40 is closer to the older models than the GM36. H&K got a lot of criticism for the way they had voiced the GM36, a lot of it revolving around the fact that it did clean sounds brilliantly and Metal/Death/Thrash really well but couldn't give a good account of itself with more classic rock tones. There were a few voices who said it did have the sound for 70s/80s music of course, but they were few and far between. Personally, that is the issue which has stopped me using my GM36 as my working amp of choice.

After a lot of serious analysis of the GM36 circuitry to the point of modelling it in Spice I came to the conclusion that it is out on its own. It does that couple of things really well and others not too well, (as I said, my opinion only but based on a lot of playing of that older original rock through the amps of the time and good ones since), and it was really not feasible to start modding it in any engineering fashion as its voicing is such a complicated plate of spaghetti. (Swapping out a couple of caps for random guessed values or putting in ridiculous "exotic" valve choices in the hope of changing things would never work in the GM36. Besides, it is not a sound engineering approach! )

If it is true that the GM40 is a very different sounding beast I would love to see the GM40 schematics now to see where they have really made changes. That isn't going to happen though, H&K are very tight lipped about their circuitry. All of the online reviews simply sound to me in the same mould as the GM36 and the people who claim it is so great still seem to be the high gain players. I don't hear or see anyone playing Free/Bad Company/Allman Brothers type tracks showing it in a good light on YouTube say. But, there will be others whose ideas differ of course. I still want to hear that real classic rock first hand played well on a GM40 with a band to be convinced.