Some competition for the Boss Waza-Air-B...Positive Grid Spark NEO Wireless Guitar Headphone Amp

[jd56hawk]

The price is right, not sure about how good it sounds with a bass.

Hard time finding a bass video.

[songofthewind]

Colour me interested

[tauzero]

Couldn't find any reviews of it on bass on Youtube but did watch a comparison video, this versus the Boss. Boss wins out slightly on sound quality and VR gimmick, Spark NEO on comfort, the app, and the fact it uses USB-C not Micro-USB to charge. I would also point out that as the Boss has a TRS dongle (I assume that's for charging), that probably means that certain active basses will have issues with it - the ones that don't follow the convention of battery negative to ring, ground to sleeve.

[fretmeister]

I have the Boss ones and they are ace. Not had a problem with my active basses - they are all EMG so I suppose other types might.

The charging on the dongle is via Micro USB as well.

 

I got the guitar ones rather than bass just because I play both instruments and the guitar version can do a good enough bass sound with a clean amp, compressor and some EQ.

 

It does annoy me though that Boss decided to do different versions when the only difference is the firmware. Now that there is some competition I hope they change that. The Boss bass version has a drum machine which would be nice to have. Amazing that Boss decided that guitarists don't want to play with a drummer... eijits.

 

I use them a lot though, I practice far more now that I have them. My apprehension at spending that much on a practice tool went in about 5 mins.

 

 

[tauzero]

A bit more on the Positive Grid one, seeing as I've just got one.

 

So far (and this could be user error), it's completely and utterly useless. When I got it, I downloaded the Spark app onto my Android phone (Google Pixel 8 Pro) and initially paired the Neo. The Spark app recommended a firmware update, which I did via Windows (note: you can only do firmware upgrades with Windows or Mac) which was successful. I then tried to pair the Neo with a second Android device, a Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+, which was unsuccessful. I tried with another Android device, a Nokia T20, again unsuccessfully. I tried these pairings both with the Bluetooth on the phone turned on and turned off, which made no difference. Following Positive Grid's suggestion on their website, I went into settings on the phone and forgot the Neo Audio from the paired devices. I tried again on each of the tablets, also unsuccessfully, and was also unable to re-pair from the phone as it gives an error "incorrect PIN or passkey". I've tried doing the pairing both from within the Spark app and from the Android Bluetooth settings. So now, with no ability to connect via Bluetooth, it is completely useless to me.

 

I've put in a support request to Positive Grid. 

[tauzero]

Further news: it's now working and paired to both my phone and tablet. Positive Grid responded to me with some suggestions, the last of which was a factory reset. Did a factory reset and was able to pair with the phone. Then had another go at pairing with one tablet, making sure that the phone bluetooth was off, and it succeeded. I'm not going to try pairing with the second tablet, I've had enough stress already.

 

The Spark app is a lot more sophisticated in appearance than the Boss Waza Air one (I've not had a Waza Air but did load the app to have a look at it). Not unlike the HX Edit program or Tonelib's Zoom editor, with pretty pictures of the components of the signal chain. I'll do more of a delve into it in the next few days. There's also an AI preset generator.

 

Headphones are comfortable to wear, with the cups going fully over my ears. They're a bit heavier than the Boss ones (from reading the specs) but not enormously heavy. Sound quality is fine.

[tauzero]

A bit more on the app and the Spark NEO device.

 

When you switch on the Spark NEO, it goes looking for the last Bluetooth device it connected to, and then other paired devices if it doesn't find it. This is regardless of whether the Spark app is running on the device. So if you want to change the device you want to run the app on, or which you want to play music on, you have to mess around with the Bluetooth settings connecting to the headphones. This is unlike the Boss Katana:GO which will happily play audio from any device that it is paired with. The main purpose for me is to play music on a device and play along to it, so this is, while not actually a deal killer, a significant inconvenience.