Off Topic NAD: Hughes & Kettner Grandmeister 36 Head

[ghtransam79]

hi there
I have just got my GM36
have you had any problems with yours.
Mine is making a sort of fluttering noise when im not playing.
Been told it could be the valves?
any ideas,
cheers
Graham.

 

[skerwo]

hi there
I have just got my GM36
have you had any problems with yours.
Mine is making a sort of fluttering noise when im not playing.
Been told it could be the valves?
any ideas,
cheers
Graham.

Mine is dead quiet when not playing. It depends of course from the gain level but the built in noise gate works very well.

 

[46&TWO]

Congrats on your GM! I have the Tubemeister 18, which is my favorite amp thus far.

 

[Terrencerocks]

RE:Fizzy sound. When you get the Grandmeister 36 (G36), all of the patches are not set for the guitar you are using.
I took my Les Paul and adjusted the entire tone stack and turned up the two knobs next to the master volume almost all the way up. You have to turn the knobs all the way to the right and then back to adjust them. You have to carefully read how to operate the tone stack and the Effects and how to save them. I first tried it out on a small marshall cab with two GT-75 Celestions and thought the same thing, Oh no its fizzy, but then I plugged it into a 4x12 Marshall with 65 Watt Celestions from England and then dialed in each patch for the guitar and OMG it sounded so much better. I emailed support and they suggested some special EL 84 that starts with a 6. You can change out the tubes, just make sure they are matched pairs.
The tubes that come in it are cheap Chinese tubes, but they sound pretty good. Eventually I will try different tubes. My favorite Pre-amp is NOS Mullards, but they are very expensive. I found a cheap 4x12 Hughes and Kettner cab with RockCrusher celestions, I will try out this weekend. I love the fact this is 15 lbs and will probably use my small Marshall slant front with 2x12's, they are rare and hard to find. I am going to cut a Port in the back panel so it is open back.. I also have a Mesa 50/50 I can run this through into several 4x12 cabs.

 

[Terrencerocks]

I have a H&K TM36 Head and i run it through a 4x12 cab with Celestion V30's. If i crank the gain up on the Lead channel it can turn a little bit fizzy and not sound the best but to be honest i spend the majority of the time on the Lead channel with the Gain turned up to half or just over. Also most of the time its set to 1w or 5w. When things get serious i just bang it up to 18w or 36w and let her scream. I usually run an OD pedal as well to tighten the lows and add some nice crunch to the crunch channel. It is such a versatile head i love it for my uses. The attenuator lets you play with decent tone at low volumes and the Reverb and Effects loop, mixed with 3 channels means you can get all the colours in the rainbow from this Amp! My main guitar i play through this is JP6 PDN (LF/CL). Can't comment on the GM head but the TM36 is fantastic in my opinion!

When you get The Amp out of the box, you have to adjust each patch for each guitar, dial in the tone stack per Guitar type.. I am currently using a 4X12 Marshall with GT-65 Rolas from England and it sounds killer. When I first plugged in without dialing the tone stack for my guitar it sounded fizzy. I am going to experiment with the Tubes as well.

 

[skerwo]

In the power section I use JJ EL 84. They sound pretty good. The way Terrencerocks describes is the best way to match the GM perfect with the used guitar. The EQ section is very useful but you also have to try and use the other possibilities like presence, resonance and also the gain and vol knobs to dial in the best sound. For example I found out it´s better to use more the presence knob than the treble knob to adjust the right amount of highs. This amp is not fizzy!

My actual box is a 1x12 H&K AC112pro, small Thiele, with an Eminence Mod12 speaker. Fits perfect !!

 

[Terrencerocks]

I am really anxious to hear people who are trying new Tubes. I gave away a huge bag of tubes, I wish I had back now.
Time to go shopping. Please Write in if you have started swapping tubes and let us know. I wrote to HK and asked about transformers and parts and they got all its top secret on me. You can buy after market Mercury Magnetic input and output transformers and various things for amps. When they build the proto type, it has better parts, then they experiment with cheap parts and then settle on the cheapest parts that sound good. This is a pretty special cool amp, so I will just start with tubes to be safe. I have used GT-75's, 65's and HK Celestion's called Rock Crushers and there is not much change, I have not tried Vintage 30's, which by the way are 60 Watt speakers, Real Vintage celestions are 25 watt Green backs. Not sure if lower wattage speakers sound better. Hopefully we will get some feed back from our fellow HK Grandmeister owners.

 

[Terrencerocks]

Just return it qUICKLY AND GET A NEW ONE.

 

[beej]

We've got a few first-time posters in this thread ... it's cool to talk amps, but this looks like it's probably a better discussion for a more general forum.