Spark 40-Watt Combo Practice Guitar Amplifier Electric Bass and Acoustic Guitar Amp with Spark Mobile App

I really 100% wish this had been available back when I started playing -- it would be a great way for beginners (young or old) to get started playing guitar -- perfect for that! The apps make it easy to choose a custom amp/rig sound, or to search for other players' recommendations on which rigs can help you get certain sounds (i.e. like how to make your rig sound like certain songs from bands like Deftones vs the tones/sounds from various songs by Alice in Chains, or Foo Fighters, etc. ) Here's what I love about it: The amp is also great because of the onboard controls and ability to shape sound -- even if you didn't use the app at all! It has great sound (at 40 watts not LOUD loud but absolutely fine for beginners and/or as a spare practice amp for others (how I plan to use it myself.) It has a switch with 7 different core amp modeling sounds (Acoustic, Bass, Clean, Glassy, Crunch, Hi-Gain, Metal.) This is awesome because you can simply plug in your guitar and start playing with that huge range of tones and sounds -- so you don't need to go buying effects pedals out right out of the gate (TONS of sound shaping options here for the price, and being built right into the amp.) In addition - you also have built in Delay, Reverb and Modulation --- that's three more effects you get to experiment with but not have to buy separate pedals as you get started! They have some cool ideas going with the way it can bring in a 'virtual drummer' or bassist to accompany what you're playing - how cool is that!? (It's not perfect, but what in life is? In this case -- it's all software (in the app) so they can upgrade/enhance it over time -- which is the absolute miracle about living in this age of tech. So like with other gear out there - this product and experience could get better and better, it all depends on how the company supports it over time --- but their website and customer forums/support section seem very solid and active -- my gut says this product will keep getting better...) For me, since I've been playing for years (too many to admit) and have accumulated lots of amps and effects -- I mainly bought this amp for the amp modeling functionality through the app, and to see what the 'virtual drummer' and bassist would be like... if I remember back to my 'beginner' days this amp with the app functionality would have been PERFECT... (and I'm looking forward to seeing how this company supports/enhances the functionality of the app - I've been impressed so far so I'm optimistic!) If all that wasn't enough -- it can also be used as a bluetooth device or powered speaker also! For this price -- it does a whole lot in such a small package -- perfect for beginners, but also useful and well worth the small price for 'veterans' like myself who always have a way to use an extra little practice amp!

I purchased the Positive Grid Spark for my husband, and it has been one of the best gifts I’ve ever given him. The sound quality is incredible, and he loves having access to so many amp tones and effects through the app. The setup was simple, and the app makes it easy to customize sounds and play along with his favorite music. It’s compact enough for home use but powerful enough to fill the room with great sound. He uses it all the time and can’t stop talking about how much he enjoys it. Highly recommended for any guitar player!

Anyone looking for a small AMP with 40 watts of power packed with endless features? This AMP is perfect and excellent. I am just starting my guitar journey and wow i was amazed on the sound quality let alone the feature that packed in the AMP Keep in mind i was using fenders frontman 10 watt and this has gotta be the coolest thing ever, it comes with an app & endless tones and pedals effects and obviously since im a beginners & professional guitarists the app offers real-time learning for songs which was awesome

UPDATE (May 28, 2021): Finally got my Galaxy Tab A7 and had no problem pairing it with the Spark 40 (see photo). The amp itself sounds fine for practice, though it would never be loud enough to gig with (you're probably not considering using it for gigging anyway). The built-in preset models are a lot of fun to play with, and reasonably authentic. Dedicated tweakers will no doubt be able to get even more out of the models by fiddling with the pedal settings. I can't imagine anyone not being able to dial in the sound(s) they want for practicing. I have only played around a little with the backing tracks feature, but in my opinion it justifies the purchase all by itself. Nothing helps make practice less tedious than actually *making music,* and the backing tracks facilitate that nicely. There is still much left to explore, especially the feature where the Spark 40 will provide you the chords for songs you give it to analyze, and its ability to slow songs down to help you master them. I will say that under certain conditions there is an awful hum produced by the Spark 40. I plan to upgrade the power supply, but in the meantime I was able to tame the hum by switching cables (went from a coiled Vox to a regular DiMarzio). I will update this again if the hum problem returns. * * * * * * * * * * I got a pleasant surprise today when my Spark 40 arrived ahead of schedule! Amazon said to expect it on May 20-25, but it's May 19 and the amp is safely here. I will supplement this review after I have had more time to play with the device, but my initial reactions are that it is a handsome and solidly-built product. The ergonomics are excellent, and the knobs turn easily and smoothly. The sounds I've gotten out of it so far are fine for a practice amp, and I look forward to digging deeper into its capabilities. I'm planning on using it in combination with a Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 tablet. The Positive Grid app works on my phone but it isn't a large enough display to be useful to me. The tablet should be here in a day or so, and once I have got things set up properly I will post an updated version of this review.

I was not prepared to like this amp as much as I do. Having used it for about a week or so, I am very impressed with the quality and performance. I don't care for the "brick" power supply, but it is not enough of an issue to lose any stars. It also offers some options if the power supply goes out, so pros and cons there. It is loud. Louder than it has a right to be. I cannot believe how much sound it puts out in such a small package, and I have been using amps and speakers for nearly 60 years, including more than 24 years in the professional audiovisual field. I am quite impressed, and I don't say that lightly. I know some people complain about it being "too bass heavy," but I find that kind of a silly complaint. Of course, I don't like bright, twangy, banjo like-guitars sounds (read Fender), so there you go. I prefer a more balanced sound with a good strong low end (most of the time, anyway). Using the various EQs available, I can get more high end than I like, so I am fine with how it sounds. Since it is also usable for bass, you need the lower end. Perhaps a bass cut switch would help here. I would like to see the graphic EQ moved to a different set of effects, maybe have a dedicated set of EQs like they do other effects. I think they have way too many distortion effects, but then I like to hear more actual guitar sounds than a load of grating noise. A lot of over the top metal sounds are just pure noise to me, and I think people sometimes use the noise to cover up poor technique. (I know I have . . . .) If you want grating square wave noisey signals, get a synth. They do it better and in a more musical way. My two cents . . . . The amp has very nice clean sounds, and very usable tube crunch sounds. One can spend a great deal of time just exploring all the sounds available with the various effects, which I intend to do. I was surprised how easy the app was to use. I am not a fan of using apps to control everything, but I can see the advantage in this case. I was not surprised to find out that a lot of the marketed "features" of the amp are actually cloud/network functions you need to be connected to the internet to use. Again, not a bad compromise in this price range, although they should clarify that in their advertising. It does still function quite well as just a hardware amp with knob controls, and is still a bargain just using it that way. As many people suggest, you can use the app to set up the four presets, and just use it that way. I would like to see more presets, maybe six or eight, but even with just two it would still be a great amp. I have not signed into their website, which you have to do to access all the cloud based functions, but will probably do that eventually. They have also come out with an expansion cabinet with 140 watts of power, making it a real gigging amp for a lot of venues. I debated giving the fifth star or not, as I would like to see a real line out (balanced, even) and not just a headphone out, although it can sort of function as a line out. I think not having a dedicated line out whch does not cut the speakers would be far more functional and make this amp more like 6 or 7 stars, especially if they move the EQ in the effect chain. I find it to be a great little amp and I very much recommend giving it serious thought. Paired with an Eart headless guitar, it makes a very compact setup with some serious growth potential (and parents take note, it does have a headphone jack!). It is also great for players with very little space for gear (nomads and such). Well worth a look if you are in the market for an amp.

This amp sounds pretty good, and it's visually beautiful in pearl white, and has a lot of bonuses -- you get an app where you can create a virtual FX chain, you can use it as a Bluetooth speaker (I haven't tried this but it sounds interesting), and it has a volume control for the Aux input. These are unique features! It comes with some cool presets and it's awesome that it lets you record the sound over USB (this was a key factor in my decision to buy it). I use it for playing in my bedroom and recording in Reaper over USB. My only complaint is that the live audio from this device in Reaper comes out a little spotty... Idk why, and I haven't played with settings a ton to see if I can get rid of it, but it doesn't seem to affect the recorded quality. It's just for when you're listening to it through your DAW (that one old version of Reaper at least), it would seem a little low-fi and occasionally stutter. Again, recorded fine without the glitches. I know they released a version 2.0 since I bought this, so this review is a little deprecated.

Spark has made what may be the perfect parctice/bedroom amp. A lot of smaller amps are limited with the tones you can get from them, but then some of the more well appointed amps are larger and much more expensive. This sucker fits right up in a desktop with ease and can go from nice a quiet to surprisingly loud and full bodied just like that. The fit and finish are really nice, the knobs don't feel cheap, and the unit has enough heft to it that it doesn't feel like a cheap piece of junk. The best thing though is that while you can plug right in and play and get lots and lots of good tones, there is a whole world to be discovered when you download the app on your phone or tablet. So many different amp modelers, pedal emulators, and combinations that you could spend hours perfecting your tone. If you want to see what else there is, just access the tone cloud and see what other users have created. A searchable database will help you find almost any sound you could want, and then just save it to your device so it's at your fingertips next time. I also like that you can play music through the amp (and adjust the volume) so that you're able to play along with it right off of Spotify. A pretty great way to learn songs! I havent tried out the feature that lets the amp learn your playing style then make a backimg track for you yet, but based on how well made the rest of the features are I'd guess that it will work well. The value for the money is a big deal here too. The next biggest competitor I heard about while researching this amp before purchase was a Yamaha that is significantly more expensive and I'm pretty sure actually does less. I'm not knocking the Yamaha (or the Katana or little Fender modeling amp) but I don't see how they could have better bang for the buck than this sucker.

Definitely recommend for people that don't want to spend thousands of dollars on guitar pedals. You literally have all you need to create hundreds if not thousands of tones. You can even use tones from legends like Jimi Hendrix and Van Halen! The amp also sounds amazing and is plenty loud. I can't even turn it up too much in my home without all the neighbors hearing me and I live in a big house! The amp comes with recording software as well so you can record your own music. And it connects to your pc/mac. The only things I'd change are the tiny volume nob and switches. The amp nobs are fine, but there is a tiny nob for volume of music you might play through the amp to jam along with or when using it as a Bluetooth speaker. The app is also giltchy at times when using the YouTube feature. If you have your tone selected and then change some things, such as you turn off the wah pedal, and go to the YouTube section of the app, the tone will revert to the saved setting. Meaning if you saved the tone with wah on, it will turn back on as soon as the music starts playing. You will have to go back to the tone and turn it off again. YouTube through the app will also stop playing randomly sometimes leaving you jamming with no background music. This mostly occurs when you leave the YouTube tab to modify or pick a different tone. You'll have to go back and hit play again to resume. This doesn't happen all the time but its frequent enough that it needs fixed. The smart jam in the app is better than it was thanks to updates, but still not great. If you want to spend time customizing the chords, it would be OK, but that defeats the purpose of smart jam. Overall this amp is great though. Its just the app that needs tweaks. I hook this amp up to my larger bass amp to play even louder (like for events) and I have everything at my finger tips instead of my feet... but there is a pedal you can get for this amp if you really want it.

Premier point (puisque je sais qu'il pose souvent souci): ampli reçu en 4 jours entre la commande et la réception. Je n'en revenais pas après avoir lu que certains l'attendent toujours après 6 mois de commande auprès de Positive Grid. Donc, coup de bol ou pas, un gros plus avec la commande Amazon. Deuxième point: fourni avec un câble avec prise à la terre, donc aucun problème de buzz signalé de nombreuses fois par les premiers acquéreurs. En ce qui concerne la bête, elle est fantastique si on n'en attend pas ce qu'elle n'est pas. C'est un petit ampli d'étude pour la maison, hyper pratique pour bosser au casque ou à faible volume (même s'il est capable de bien cracher quand on lui demande), ce n'est en aucun cas un ampli utilisable pour une répète avec un batteur et encore moins un concert. (à part peut être si vous faites un set solo dans un petit bar?) Bref, c'est certainement pas lui qui va me faire lâcher mon vieux combo JCM800 pour les concerts. Les modélisations d'amplis ou d'effets sont très satisfaisantes, le son très correct pour l'utilisation (peut être un poil de basse en trop parfois, même avec le potard au mini...) et la possibilité de jammer à volonté sur des backing tracks ou ses morceaux préférés est tout simplement fantastique. C'est la raison principale de mon achat et le fait qu'il ait remplacé le Vox AD60 dont je me servais jusque là à la maison. L'appli est très simple d'utilisation et n'a jamais planté jusque là. L'essentiel pour moi tiens en un seul point: je joue beaucoup plus souvent depuis que je l'ai et cela me semble beaucoup plus constructif (moins de noodling). Et tout ce qui nous fait jouer plus souvent et mieux est bon, non? Un dernier point qui peut avoir son intérêt pour certains: il fait aussi enceinte connectée, ça va bien être pratique l'été pour passer la zique dehors! Tout ça pour 250€... Qu'est-ce que vous attendez? Edit: au vu des commentaires de mes petits camarades, je serais curieux de savoir combien de possesseurs de JCM800 se sont jetés sur le Spark pour ne pas avoir à réveiller le monstre?... ;-)

Best guitar related purchase I have made in a long time. It sounds amazing, has a lot of options and can be used to record guitar on your PC. Can be used as Bluetooth speaker, it takes real guitar pedals well.

Simple , fun and good size. very easy to use and with the app it has a lot to offering. For beginner to learn or for more advance it's a perfect tool/amp. Suitable for home or small beginner band and party/small gigs. you can do so much with it and really recommend.

The Spark arrived on time ,well packaged (Minimal Plastic) Although I haven't had time to upload the app for more functionality , their are plenty of good sounds right out of the box. Shimmering clean tones to various dirty sounds depending on use of gain. All in All tremendous value for money and looks great in any setting

Ottimo prodotto, soddisfa a pieno le aspettative. Portatile e leggero, potente, ottimo design e fattura. Suono c'è veramente l'imbarazzo della scelta si possono perdere ore a modificare / scaricare suoni. Una miriade di funzionalità! In un unico prodotto si ha tutto il desiderato per fare pratica e divertirsi suonando. Come potenza direi che si possa anche usare per piccoli concerti al chiuso o in sala prove se non si usano volumi estremi. E quasi un peccato doverlo spegnerlo :-) L'unica "mancanza" se così si può dire è una batteria per diventare davvero portatile. Ho trovato dei video in cui utenti aggiungono un power bank da 19V attaccato con calamite nel retro dell'ampli, soluzione da esplorare. Super contento dell'acquisto.