I used both, and I think the difference comes down to the MB having "a sound" and the BH, not so much, which can be good or bad from either side, depending on your wants.
You said you like the "GK sound"…I guess what aspect your talking about matters. The MB does a great, fat, scooped sound and can be bright…brittle even, in a way that the BH can't. The BH is very middle-of-the-road, and can be more of a blank canvas. With the BH, you're going to get pretty much the same thing as you get from the rest of the family (BG/BH...BG sound being tied to and very much colored by the cabinet), where I believe the MB200, to some degree, has its own sound, a little bit different from the MB500 and 800 (that's what I took from forum posts comparing the MB heads…never used the 500 or 800 myself).
I liked the sound, size, weight, EQ of MB200 and wanted very much to like it overall, but I moved on. You mention MB problems…I got hissy unit and went through some gyrations dealing with that, got a second unit that was also hissy and gave up. The only conclusion I could come to from my experience was that some have unacceptable hiss and some don't. I also think it's one of those "what has been heard cannot be unheard" things where expectations and other experiences play into it; also whether or not the cab(s) has an HF driver. If I had used it with a tweeterless cabinet and/or hadn't bought it for bedroom practice, I probably never would have noticed or cared. As far as the other issues that have been mentioned, I think they were specific problems of the kind that some number of any amp model can have. With those kind of things, the great likelihood is that you will fall into the happy majority. I don't think anyone is well served by allowing forum reports of problems be the ultimate deciding factor in these situations.
In terms of basic features, the BH has a tuner and mute; both very handy. The MB has neither.
As far as Toneprints go, that's a feature that adds value (or doesn't) depending on the user. In a situation where someone is basically not an fx guy but wants/needs something like a basic chorus, flanger, or an octaver for one or two songs in the playlist, it can be perfect. It doesn't, practically, replace pedals or a mutli-fx pedal. As you suggested, it can also add value for someone who wants to experiment with the different effects in practice and home recording. The other thing that Toneprints can add is that categories of them are utilities for changing the basic character of the amp (i.e., the drive and compression prints). Personally, beyond some experimentation for fun, I never used them, but I didn't find that having them and choosing not to use them somehow detracted from the amp. I can only think that the sniping (with no specific complaints) about them has an uninformed agenda behind it.
There have been remarks about the "power" of the BH. As it does not have TCE's APM in it, and it has acquitted itself with real-world performance and in real-world comparisons, there's no reason to believe that it doesn't actually sit in the group of 250 watt amps. The suggestion that it compares to 100 watt amps is completely baseless, and again points to misunderstanding of facts and an agenda.
Hopefully you can buy from someplace with a good return/exchange policy. If you can, buy one and try it. If it does what you want, keep it. If not, try the other. If one does what you want, but you're still curious, you can still try the other.
You said you like the "GK sound"…I guess what aspect your talking about matters. The MB does a great, fat, scooped sound and can be bright…brittle even, in a way that the BH can't. The BH is very middle-of-the-road, and can be more of a blank canvas. With the BH, you're going to get pretty much the same thing as you get from the rest of the family (BG/BH...BG sound being tied to and very much colored by the cabinet), where I believe the MB200, to some degree, has its own sound, a little bit different from the MB500 and 800 (that's what I took from forum posts comparing the MB heads…never used the 500 or 800 myself).
I liked the sound, size, weight, EQ of MB200 and wanted very much to like it overall, but I moved on. You mention MB problems…I got hissy unit and went through some gyrations dealing with that, got a second unit that was also hissy and gave up. The only conclusion I could come to from my experience was that some have unacceptable hiss and some don't. I also think it's one of those "what has been heard cannot be unheard" things where expectations and other experiences play into it; also whether or not the cab(s) has an HF driver. If I had used it with a tweeterless cabinet and/or hadn't bought it for bedroom practice, I probably never would have noticed or cared. As far as the other issues that have been mentioned, I think they were specific problems of the kind that some number of any amp model can have. With those kind of things, the great likelihood is that you will fall into the happy majority. I don't think anyone is well served by allowing forum reports of problems be the ultimate deciding factor in these situations.
In terms of basic features, the BH has a tuner and mute; both very handy. The MB has neither.
As far as Toneprints go, that's a feature that adds value (or doesn't) depending on the user. In a situation where someone is basically not an fx guy but wants/needs something like a basic chorus, flanger, or an octaver for one or two songs in the playlist, it can be perfect. It doesn't, practically, replace pedals or a mutli-fx pedal. As you suggested, it can also add value for someone who wants to experiment with the different effects in practice and home recording. The other thing that Toneprints can add is that categories of them are utilities for changing the basic character of the amp (i.e., the drive and compression prints). Personally, beyond some experimentation for fun, I never used them, but I didn't find that having them and choosing not to use them somehow detracted from the amp. I can only think that the sniping (with no specific complaints) about them has an uninformed agenda behind it.
There have been remarks about the "power" of the BH. As it does not have TCE's APM in it, and it has acquitted itself with real-world performance and in real-world comparisons, there's no reason to believe that it doesn't actually sit in the group of 250 watt amps. The suggestion that it compares to 100 watt amps is completely baseless, and again points to misunderstanding of facts and an agenda.
Hopefully you can buy from someplace with a good return/exchange policy. If you can, buy one and try it. If it does what you want, keep it. If not, try the other. If one does what you want, but you're still curious, you can still try the other.
would be buying from the USA to use in Australia )
