Harley Benton GPA-100 Reviews

A bit let down

I bought this as a back to my Seymour Duncan powerstage 200. It didn’t last one tour and stopped working…I can’t complain for the price…

Topp poweramp

Fungerer utmerket for å bruke ampsimuleringer i et kabinett. Testet både med HX Stomp, Quad Cortex og mer amp-liknende pedaler (Tech 21 blonde, Joyo American sound og liknende).

Great unit but no where near 100w

Tried through 8ohm 1/12 8ohm 4/12 high-end cabs and just with guitars going into it. Has to be on 10 to be heard clearly with kit and bass. It sounds like a 30w amp volume wise.

Great value for a great power amp

The GPA-100 does one thing and it does it perfectly, it has loads of power to deliver into any cabinet you throw at it, it's compact and fits in a pedalboard!

The three band EQ is ok for some quick sound shaping after your FX chain, pretty useful if you're constantly changing cabinets (e.g. playing in a new venue and you're not bringing your own cab).

The only missing feature is a gain trim control on the input, so if you have low output volume pedals you won't be using the whole power output of the amp; to properly use this, use the highest output volume you can on your last pedal in the chain (or properly gain stage your pedals) so that your signal is hot enough when it arrives to the GPA-100.

Definitely recommended :)

INCREDIBLE value for money!

I have practiced 3 musical instruments for 30 years....owned tons of gear.

PROS:

1. The value is incredible. This is a 190 watts power amp that fits in your hand. This is a similar design to the Seymour Duncan Powerstage, at a fraction of the price! I have other Harley Benton gear, one isolated power supply and one attenuator. All this Harley Benton gear exceeded my expectations, this is THE best lower cost, professional gear you can buy.

2. This is PERFECT for tube preamps or hardware amp sims. As oppose as other designs such as tube power amp, which colours the sound, which now I do NOT like anymore, the GPA is a class D power amp. Basically, this is a HI-FI power amp for your preamps. You do NOT want class A or class AB power amp for your Pod, if you want the power amp to reproduce EXACTLY the tone you hear in your Pod when you use it with headphones.

In the past I swore by tube power amps....now I do not! I STILL use ONLY tube preamps (not Pod or amp sims) but I am definitely a class D power amp convert. I do NOT want the power amp to colour my preamp. This is an old debate with tube amp guitarists. What happens with a tube power amp is that as you increase the volume, the bass and treble will roll off, and the mids will increase. But today I do NOT want this anymore. Today I want BASS, a modern metal tone. I don't want the bass to roll off! I want the power amp to reproduce EXACTLY the same tone, at ANY volume. THIS is what Class D power amps such as the Harley Benton will do. Plus, it is a FAR MORE efficient form of amplification. Almost 200 watts in your hand! With class A or class AB whether tube OR transistor, this would result in much bigger and heavier gear (you need bigger components than class D), etc etc, and this adds to the WEIGHT and the COST. This is why class D power amps cost less. But 75 euros for 190 watts rms? Incredible.

3. The GPA has a powerful ACTIVE eq. So you can add as much bass, mids or treble as you want, AND you can also CUT these frequencies, which you cannot do with PASSIVE tone controls, found on MANY power amps that are a LOT more expensive than the GPA. So basically the GPA is the PERFECT power amp. Some people lamented the fact that the GPA doesn't have resonance control. But ALL power amps have resonance, in the GPA it is just fixed. BUT there's ACTIVE bass control, which is BETTER than resonance control, which is PASSIVE and thus weaker. The bass in the GPA can take your head off, but it doesn't get boomy. Also the treble doesn't get harsh. This works PERFECTLY with my tube preamps.

The GPA will NOT sound inferior to the Seymour Duncan. And it's made solidly, of metal. This is not some cheap Chinese rubbish. The GPA is perfect for pros too....you don't always have to buy famous brands. Frankly you'd have to be dumb to prefer the Seymour Duncan Powerstage to the Harley Benton GPA 100! They both do the same things!

4. the GPA will tell you if the preamp output is too loud and distorting the input of the GPA. It also has a protection circuit in case of impedance mismatches at very high volume. But if you use correct impedances, it will probably last a long time, like any quality gear.

5. With my Blackstar HT Metal tube preamp my setup is pretty much NOISELESS, even with Ultra gain! I usually use noise gates, but I don't need it now. Just incredible! And the tone is amazing!

CONS: Absolutely NONE. A tube power amp does NOT sound better to me, only a tube PREAMP sounds better than non-tube preamps. I have made extensive tests in the past, for example I tested my tube preamp into a tube power amp and a solid state power amp, and the tube power amp did NOT sound better. But both tube power amp and solid state power amps WILL colour the tone and compress it at HIGHER volume. Because they are all class A or AB. But Class D, as used by the GPA , is MUCH more transparent than class A or AB. Like I said, basically a HI-FI power amp for guitarists. In my case, this is EXACTLY what I want. But the other advantages, such as ridiculous price and size and weight, are huge bonuses of course. Class D power amps are the BEST! (If you have a great preamp!).

So be smart and BUY the GPA!

This is the best power amp for the money

Run with helix and tone x and performs perfectly

I wasn't convinced at first, but it's PHENOMENAL

At first I wasn't convinced to the idea. Just wanted to test and see what the hype is all about.

My concern was about bass+mid+treble EQ - instead of traditional depth/resonance + presence that power amp suppose to have

So treble is acting 100% like the presence in my Randall RM100, it works in frequencies of presence, not treble.

Bass isn't a traditional depth/resonance or it's waay more sensitive. You can completely shake your cab or remove the low-end. It's super cool.

Mid can almost turn your G12T75 speakers into V30's or you can scoop your amp to that early Scott Burns death metal sound.

Turn up mids in preamp and cut them in GPA-100 or vice versa, cut in preamp and crank up in GPA-100. It's another cool feature and extra tonal possibility.

I'm going to buy second GPA-100 to make dual amp rig!

I have no idea if it's loud or not - tested it only in bedroom volumes, read other opinions.

Affordable power amp for hobbyist

I had this connected to my Blackstar HT5r head via balanced xlr output + di box. It’s an affordable solution to get 100w on those very rare moments that I need something louder than a 5w tube amp.

Sounds excellent!

Bang for the buck!

Built like a tank.

I purchased this some time ago and it's been given some serious workouts between myself and one of the guitarists in my band.

It's built like a tank and seems to be standing up the beatings it is receiving.

Also, it's loud. Really loud and will happily drive a 412 and keep on giving without breaking a sweat. Money well spent.

Little monster

Best Bang for Your Buck

Purchased for my unpowered Kemper Head to run the KPA monitor output to regular cabinet

So far so good

tried with few different cabs at home and rehearsal

The onboard EQ bonus.

Sounds good on low and high volumes.

No much to say, do the job and its affordable

No much to say, do the job and its affordable

Excellent!!!

Combined with a Mesa Boogie Studio Preamp,nothing more to say...

Compact power amplifier with a punch

A great substitute to Seymour Duncan Power stage. It has massive sound that cut thru the band. I use this with my Headrush MX5.

Small and handy.

Good for loud guitar line out, from my favourite guitar amp. Really fattens up the guitar sound. I got a few m/s delay from an electronics engineer, this also in line kicks out some power into 4 ohms (2 speakers). So small and powerful, always in my gig bag.

Loud as #@&%!

The GPA-100 does exactly what it's inteded to do. It's a power amp, ideal for those that seek to scale down their rig, replacing large amp heads with preamp pedals or guitar processors. I have tried it with both - a series of Mooer micro preamp pedals, as well as a few guitar processors, from budget to mid-range.

The GPA-100 amped them up superbly and powered a Marshall 4x12 like a champion.

The three EQ knobs are sturdy and responsive and offer a nice touch for a quick fix when you've set up your rig in advance, but need a little adjustment - extra handy when playing on a house/borrowed cab, for instance.

Amazing Piece of Kit

The is an amazingly good value piece of kit.

My rig is a Marshall JMP-1, Marshall EL84 20/20 power amp, Zilla 2x12 cab.

For my band practices the stereo power amp and cab are really heavy so I use an Orange 1x12 cab but the power amp has to run in stereo. Enter the GPA-100. It's not much bigger than a large pedal and weighs surprisingly little, importantly it allows me to run in mono.

Obviously it doesn't sound like a valve power amp but it still sounds very good nevertheless, certainly good enough for practice. It will also serve as an excellent backup jut incase the valve power amp fails.

Great Value Power Amp

Wonderful for powering a Multi FX unit or other pre-amp. Solidly made, with wide reaching tone controls for any fine tweaking on stage. Some question the 100w power rating but I found that the input is expecting a fairly high signal level. Hit the input with a healthy signal and you'll achieve the 100w output!

Portable power solution

What's not to like - low price, ultra portable, quiet in operation and easy to use!

Before ordering though, do be aware that this needs some kind of preamp to work effectively, as you will probably be aware.

I'm not getting a particularly high volume out of this, but there are a number of factors that may be affecting this, such as the preamp used and the speaker it is connected to.

Overall, a great budget, portable amp!

Just great!

Using this to power a Harley Benton G212 Vintage and it works really well with no issues at all. The EQ knobs are a really neat feature which a lot of the time helps to get the guitar tone to resonate with the cab well.

Pros: Everything + built-in EQ

Cons: Nothing