Positive GridSpark 2 50W Smart Guitar Practice Amp & Bluetooth Speaker with Built-in Looper, AI Features & Smart App for Electric, Acoustic, & Bass Guitar

First off, I do not review many products. They have to be either bad, or really, really good. This one falls into the latter bucket.I've been playing the guitar now for about 25 years, off and on, but not seriously until recently. I picked up a bunch of gear earlier this year, and had a list of pedals and other stuff I was planning to work through, but lucked across the Spark series. I'd planned to get the Go, which technically does what I needed it to do right now, but decided to spring for the Spark 2 so I don't have to go get another one in a few months. Boy am I glad I did! Wow. I have only spent a couple days with the amp so far, but already I've thrown away my old list. I simply don't need any of it. The amp models and pedal options check off literally everything. I would highly recommend this for anyone at any level. If you're not looking to spend as much, the smaller models do all the same stuff. Get your foot in the door, ASAP!After a couple days, I was sick of staring at my phone for hours (the app keeps the screen on, at least on Android) and reconnecting the app every so often (I suppose if the app doesn't use the connection, the phone closes it to save power), so off to Google I went. Turns out there's an app (PC/Mac/Linux) that someone created (no affiliated with Positive Grid at all, from what I can tell) and web browser based option out there, which I found much easier to use. There are also pages with mappings from the names of the amp models and pedals in the app, so don't be afraid to dig around.All around, exactly what I wanted, before I even knew I wanted it. Also, everything I needed, with zero hassle. Plug it in, turn it on and jam. It takes a little time to get used to the app, but it's not exactly simple; finding a starting point is impossible to screw up though and you can go from there. Professional sound in a portable package that requires little to no experience to start using.EDIT: The SoundShed app technically supports the Spark 40 and Mini, but I have used it with the Spark 2 and it works to control the details of existing presets, change the amp/pedal models and switch to other amp-stored presets, but you can't switch to something that's not already saved and can't use the ToneCloud setups. This is not a dealbreaker for me, since the phone app works well for that, and with the Windows Phone Link you can see it on a PC. I just wanted to clarify since I started poking around and noticed. The SoundShed desktop app doesn't work well with the 2, but the web version does.

I don't have all that much experience with amps, but this sounded a lot better than I was expecting. Years ago practice amps sometimes had very muddy, unclear overdrive sounds. This has none of that. Perhaps that's because it has 50W of power. Or maybe it's because I play at lower volumes. I play for fun, not performances. I can't say how this would stand up against a live drummer, but I imagine it would do fine unless the drummer was playing at full volume. In that case you're going to need something punchier. My Yamaha Revstar standard loves this little amp. I have to turn the volume between 1 and 3 out of 10 to keep things reasonable. Otherwise it's quite audible all throughout the house.I have not had any speaker issues, buzzing, or popping as reported by some users. I play Youtube videos and songs through Bluetooth to this unit while playing alongside. It's a lot of fun. As to the tones, they are really good. I doubt you'll ever be able to get the perfection you're striving for on any practice or modeling amp. But you can definitely get very close, at least in my estimation. Some of the tones come very, very close to tube amp sounds. I don't know how Positive Grid is doing this, but I'm very impressed.Love this amp.

I had like a 12 pedals and a Fender Hotrod amp, sold all those and bought this one.It's fantastic, easy to play, easy to get the best tones through the AI option, easy to make loops, other songs, in brief, exactly as all YouTube reviews says.My two regrets:1. If you use the two 1/4th outputs, the speakers mute and I wanted to used it to connect it into my audio interface but the internal USB interface is good enough to record into a DAW like Ableton. SOLVED!! In the last App version, there is a possibility to mute or un mute the speakers when the two 1/4 outputs are in use. Fantastic.2. I spent some time making a nice loop BUT there is no an option to save the loops in a library to use them later...I also bought this wireless guitar audio system, very good price and works perfect. Highly recommended.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXBYM5SD?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

PositivesThis amp sounds great and what you get for the price is outstanding. I own a couple of Neural DSP plugins and while not many amp emulators can come close to neural DSP quality this amp does have some tones that sound almost just as good. This amp however is not meant to record or perform with. Its a practice amp and using the app unlocks a-lot of fun and being able to quickly start jamming with backing tracks and the AI tone generator is so much more seem-less than opening a DAW and creating a drum loop. The build quality is also another high point. I was actually amazed by the knobs and overall construction of the amp which feels premium.NegativesI bought the amp through Amazon but at the same time through their own website they had a promotion (which I didn't know about till the amp arrived). I emailed asking if since I bought the amp during the promotion window if I could get access to the promotional gift card to which they declined. I would have used to promotion to buy more positive grid products. I completely understand their reasoning for denying the promotion request, it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth that they wouldn't treat customers across different buying platforms with the same promotions. I understand if Amazon was the one giving the promotion why they wouldn't be able to honor it through their website. But it seems very easy to give the promotion that is through their own website to their own Amazon listing. So if you plan on buying their products I suggest checking across the web to see if there are any promotions first.