I have been playing for 46 years now which means that classic 100 W tube amplifiers and a couple of 4 x 12" cabs are history for me now. Så... I have been through Line 6 pods, Line 6 Helix floorboard, Hotone Ampero, H&K Tubemeister 40, H&K Black Spirit 200 and a lot in between.
Even the expensive Helix Floorboard always seemed to be "Close but no cigar" and after giving it a lot of attention I mastered every little detail of what it could offer - and it was a lot in terms of functionality. But even though I was pretty good at programminig it I never had this big smile from sound playing live.
So I decided to try the Valeton even though I knew that it is made by Hotone - AND the Hotone Ampero was a complete disaster for me.
To be very short: The GP-200 does not have all the fancy connections as the Helix BUT it has exactly what I need for studio and live use. Nothing less and noting more. And the sound is absolutely hitting me right where it feels the best. Still I had to use some of the Ownhammer IR's that I tried to use in the Helix - it made the sound a little different - not much better than the factory cabs. And again the factory cabs can be picked automaticly when you choose an amp and generally everything sound VERY VERY good. The built in patches are really well made but of cause Valeton had to make some weird spacial / alien sounds as well.
The programming is not the most intuitive and the manual sucks but hey... it is not an Apollo 2421 spaceship so just play with it and you will master it quickly -the computer software however is helpfull to a certain degree but th UI is definately not up to US or EU standards but clearly chinese. But it gets the job done when you figure out what strange brain programmed the software :o)
Overall it has everything you need to go an any gig you can imagine. 2 sets of stereo outputs gives you a balanced signal to FOH and a stereo signal to your personal, active monitors. The output signal is not the most powerful and in some occations I need more output signal from the balanced out to the FOH. The Ampero had the same but the output on my unit was so low that it made the unit unusable....
So - if you are looking for a small, cheap board the can faithfully reproduce som of the classic amps AND their personal characteristics - this is the one to try. I have had all the classic tubeamps and this gets SO close that I sometimes forget that I am not playing on my JVM410, Mesa Boogie, ENGL or any of the others that made me happy when I was strong enough to carry them.
Just remember that your guitar and playing style will change the sound. Fortunately there are plenty of patches to fill so you can just have a bank or two for every guitar you bring to the gig !!!
