Review: Hughes and Kettner Tubemeister 18 Head

Rather frustratingly, the Tubemeister 18 was reviewed in Guitarist Magazine months before it was actually available – I’ve been eagerly awaiting UK stock and it looks like I’m not the only one. Thanks to an overexcited purchaser who pre-ordered online and then bought one locally, I got a brand new amp from eBay for £50 less than the street price (let’s not even mention the crazy official price).

First impressions – the amp is tiny but impressively solid and very well designed. It comes with a padded carrying case in the box, and has recessed grab handles at each end. Switching it on, the signature H&K blue glow from the perspex front panel is stunning and compared to the cuboid Orange Tiny Terror, it looks like shrunken pro kit rather than a toy.

The built-in power soak is more than capable of bringing the volume down to usable practice levels, bear in mind that even at 1 watt this is still capable of remarkable volume. There’s also a silent mode for recording using the Red Box (discussed later) where you don’t even need a speaker connected. The sound is different between the 18/5/1 watt positions, partly because the speakers aren’t being driven as hard, but also because the soak slightly changes the character of the tone. It’s barely noticeable on the gain channel, but the clean tone at 18W has more clarity and a harmonic chime that makes notes and chords sing out.

Let’s be clear – in 18W mode, running this tiny head through a 4×12 cab will be more than loud enough for rehearsals and small-to-medium gigs. If you need more grunt, there’s the built-in Red Box DI output that can go straight into the PA. The Red Box tone is never going to be a perfect match for a mic’d cab, but taken on its own merits it’s an excellent option. For recording it greatly simplifies the signal chain, and as the volume level is unchanged by the power soak it’s easy to turn down the speaker output to match playback. Plus you won’t get any crossover from other instrument tracks.

The overall sound is quite well balanced, each channel having independent master and gain controls along with shared EQ gives lots of varieties in tone – but even at extremes it’s hard to get something unuseable. I’d say it’s more Marshall than Fender in feel, but there’s a higher fidelity to the tone, which may not be to everyone’s taste – you certainly won’t get the roar of a cranked Plexi or the extreme gain of a Dual Rectifier, but it will cover a huge range of quality sounds.

The clean channel has good headroom with the gain dialled back, but can also get into crunchy AC/DC or ZZ Top realms when let loose, and there’s a broad ‘sweet spot’ where playing dynamics alter the feel. Moving on to the gain channel, it starts off crunchy at the lower end and moves right through saturated rock tones towards modern-sounding high-gain distortion. The boost channel takes that tone and cranks it up a notch, depending on the gain setting it will either move into an open singing tone, or a compressed high gain tone that’s perfect for heavier bands like Metallica or Megadeth. Scooping out the mids for a classic shred tone works, but the interactivity of the EQ means you have to bump up the high and low end to match. Equally a rich tone with the mid-range boosted benefits from cutting back on the low-end.

The Tubemeister head has a couple of issues that hold it back from perfection – volume matching between channels is hard, when using lower gain settings on the drive channel the boost causes a big level jump. Even running flat-out there is a volume hike, so to get saturated gain and crunch at the same volume an offboard distortion pedal is required.

The other minor niggle is the lack of built-in reverb, which is included on the combo – leading me to think it’s possibly a space issue. Running a reverb pedal through the FX loop isn’t a major hassle, but it’s another thing needed in situations where just taking the head would be perfect. As trade-offs go, the combo loses the glowing front panel, which is certainly what I’d think of as a core Hughes and Kettner feature.

The bottom line is that I love this amp for its character and wide range of sounds. It certainly has room for improvement, but I get the feeling that H&K are committed to exploring the mini-amp form factor and pushing the limits, so get in at the start and let’s see what’s next for the Tubemeister series.