$159/$139, positivegrid.com
By now you surely understand the sketch when it comes to Positive Grid’s all-conquering Spark ecosystem – the once and future amp and effects plugin maker makes affordable and versatile practice and small gig amps that, regardless of how tiny they are, sound outrageously good in the room.
The whole concept reached what may have been its zenith in terms of being a quiet and functional practice tool when the Spark NEO headphones dropped earlier this year. Cramming the clever ‘smart amp’ tech into a set of cans that came with their own wireless dongle to ensure zero-latency cable-free home playing.
Now however, the brand has launched another set of headphones – these ones coming in at barely half the price of the original NEO, so what gives?
Positive Grid Spark NEO Core – what is it?
It’s hard not to see the NEO Core as, on some level, a reaction to things happening that are far beyond the ken of music technology companies to control. Eight months ago, the Spark NEO cost $199, and at time of writing they now cost a whopping 25% more at $249.
I can’t say this for sure of course, but I’d wager that price hike has less to do with corporate greed than it does to do with this being a uniquely volatile and difficult moment to be a company that relies on importing electronic devices from China into the USA (though it’s worth noting that the UK price of the NEO has had a smaller but still substantial bump since launch).
Anyway, the fact that these now cost $250 is a problem because $250 is a lot to spend on a practice amp AND a lot of money to spend on some headphones. It doesn’t make the NEO any less great, of course, but it muddies the waters of it as an entry-level option.
The NEO Core then fixes this issue by coming in at a reasonable $159, which in these tariff-heavy times feels like an absolute frigging steal. For those 160 wing-wangs, you get something that looks and feels pretty much identical to the originals.
The cans themselves feel reassuringly weighty without being heavy. The faux-tolex rubberised covers and generous padding on the ear caps and headband make them comfortable and premium to slide on, and under the hood you’ll find the same Spark technology (accessible via the companion app) that offers a wealth of amps, effects and practice options.
What you don’t get, however, is the wireless dongle that came with the NEO. Yep, this baby is analogue-only – something that was an option with the original if you forgot to charge the dongle, but is now your only means of getting sound in out of the box.
Mercifully, bluetooth is still on board for audio and app-related things, so you can use it to stream audio into your cans – it’s just the zero-latency wireless instrument connection you’re missing out on here.
Positive Grid Spark NEO Core – usability and sounds
In many ways, the sounds portion of this test is broadly redundant – I did a quick A/B test with the original NEO cans I still have kicking around here and could not tell a single difference between the two.
And that’s a very good thing because like its bigger brother, the NEO Core manages to sound very much like you’re not playing through headphones at all. There’s midrange punch, high-end clarity, thumping bass response and a sense of roominess about the sound that really does feel like you’re playing through an amplifier – it’s not spatial in the way that Boss’s Waza-Air cans are, but it still sounds way better than running your amp through headphones ever has.
Choosing between your three onboard presets is as simple as clicking the button on the side of the headphones, and you can adjust your overall volume here too. In all the sonic ways that probably matter most of all, there are zero compromises here from the originals.
There is one big compromise, however. I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed how unwieldy and uncomfortable it is having a guitar cable hanging down from just below your right ear, but reader, it sucks.
It’s easy to forget that even the most expensive pro audio wired headphones don’t tend to have ¼-inch cables – even ones with ¼-inch jacks at the end! They also don’t tend to use the sort of rugged, heavy and substantial jacks that guitar cables do… because all of these things which might be totally normal when plugged into an amp or a pedalboard become profoundly uncomfortable and annoying when they’re hanging off the side of your head.
I don’t know what the solution is here, really – some sort of male-to-female connector cable that has a more headphone-appropriate cable that you can plug your guitar cable into at a level that’s less intrusive?
On the plus side, if you wanted to get around this, you could plug a wireless unit into the jack. It worked fine with the Spark Link I tried, and the added weight of the receiver was minimal compared to the annoyance of the cable – I would imagine other wireless units with lightweight battery-powered receivers would work here too.
The problem with that of course is that the Spark Link costs $149… which means you’d be better off just buying the original NEO and save yourself a lot of hassle.
Positive Grid Spark NEO Core – should I buy one?
On the surface, the Core offers some of the best practice amp sounds you can get for a killer price – there’s no getting away from that equation if the original NEO is beyond your means. This is still a far better sounding solution than pretty much any other $130 practice amp out there.
There’s also no getting away from the fact that the usability is severely impacted to reach this price point however – you’d have to spend a fair amount of time finding the right kind of lightweight cable to render it less annoying, and ever then you still have to contend with something hanging down broadly in the area where you’re likely to be strumming.
But worse things happen at sea, as the old saying goes. If you’re looking for a great sounding route to silent practice at home, this is the best bang for buck option on the market – just be prepared to go cable shopping sometime soon.
Positive Grid Spark NEO Core – alternatives
Asides from the original NEO ($249) and Boss’s impressive but even more pricey Waza-Air ($389) options, there aren’t many headphone-based practice amps worth thinking about really. What there are a lot of however, are impressive plug-and-play micro-amps that offer the ability to plug in a normal set of cans (with a normal cable) into. Prince of these is probably the Fender Mustang Micro Plus ($134) though the Boss Katana Go ($139) and the Blackstar Beam Solo are also very impressive and affordable.
