Positive Grid Spark Neo Review: A Must Have For Guitarists With Unexpectedly Good Sound

While it's good fun to jam out on the guitar with a powerful amp, unless you have a soundproof room or live on your own out in the boonies, you might find it hard to practice without annoying neighbors or family members. The Positive Grid Spark Neo offers a potential solution to this conundrum, as not only does it function as Bluetooth headphones, but also as a wireless guitar amp that only you can hear.

The Positive Grid Spark Neo (not to be confused with the DJI Neo drone which I reviewed last year) claims to offer an ultra-low latency connection to your guitar through a wireless dongle you plug into your guitar's output jack, along with the sort of clever software features we've come to expect from Positive Grid products. If all this plus their claims of audio quality for music, podcasts, and other media pans out, then these could be really compelling headphones for both amateur and professional guitarists.

Positive Grid provided the Spark Neo headphones for this review.

First and foremost with any pair of headphones is how they sound, and put simply the Neo dishes out absolutely fantastic audio quality. The first chord I played when I plugged in my Stratocaster was enough to tell me these were something special, and they're equally awesome when it comes to simple audio playback.

When used as an amp, I found it to be as if I was playing in a very quiet room. The soundstage is really good, with loads of texture that if not for the pressure of the ear cushions might trick me into feeling as though I was hearing an amp in the room with me. It delivers beautifully authentic tones, and I didn't feel as though I was compromising by practicing using headphones instead of a traditional amp.

Andy Zahn/SlashGear

The Neo is also so good for just listening to music that I'd be ecstatic about these headphones even if they weren't also an amp. Normally I need to adjust the sound profile of headphones when testing them, but the Spark Neo was perfectly tuned straight out of the box. "Day One" by Charles Bethoud/Zander Zon demonstrated the impressive range and definition the Neo provides, and while listening to "Forest Awakening" by the same artists I swear I could smell the bass guitars (weird as that is to say).

The harsh rock tones of "We're all gonna die" by "Nothing More" were equally well rendered, with a startling degree of separation between vocals, guitars, and drums. It also stood up to the sheer chaos of "Blackhole" by Architects, and the techno/metal of Electric Callboy's "Elevator Operator." As for 2Cellos cover of "Thunderstruck," which I always use to compare the performance of audio playback devices, the Neo truly stood out from the crowd.

With big thick cushions which engulfed my ears and shut out ambient noise, along with a thickly padded headband, the Spark Neo are among the most comfortable wireless headphones I've used. The adjustable fit is solid with metal reinforcement, and once adjusted they don't easily slip out of that sweet spot. Regardless of how long I wore the Neo, I never felt that it was causing me any discomfort, even though my over-sized head needed the head band to be expanded to its maximum extension (I find this necessary with practically all headphones I've ever tested).

Andy Zahn/SlashGear

One gripe I do have with the Spark Neo that holds it back in terms of playback is a lack of on-device playback controls for controlling play/pause/skip when consuming media. Instead, you have several buttons which are used for swapping guitar tone presets and adjusting guitar volume. I wish there was a way to toggle these controls between guitar control and media control. Also, I do wish that Positive Grid included a carrying case with the Spark Neo.

Andy Zahn/SlashGear

In terms of style, the Spark Neo are certainly some of the coolest looking headphones around. The texturing works very well with the sophisticated gold accents, and while it's hard to describe, you can tell just by looking at them that they must be comfortable to wear, an impression the merit of which is easily proved. I much prefer the appearance of the Spark Neo to the slick, almost clinical visual stylings of other headphones. In a very subtle, positive way, the Spark Neo looks like a guitar amplifier. 

As both a guitarist and a video game enthusiast, latency is something which I know and dread. It's a key issue which makes wireless electric guitars so difficult to achieve, and a make-or-break factor for the Spark Neo. Happily, my experience with the headphones revealed no noticeable latency, which was in part what created such an immediately positive impression when I first started testing. To my ear, there is essentially no greater delay than playing with a wired amp. While of course latency is technically greater than through a wired setup, you would need to be extraordinarily sensitive to notice that difference at all.

The Spark Neo requires several different connections for full functionality between the Neo, guitar, and your phone or tablet. Press and hold both the button on the left hand side of the headphones and the button on the amp transmitter dongle to pair the Neo to your guitar. Next you need to pair the Neo's control and audio Bluetooth channels to your smartphone or tablet. I found these connections to be easy to set up and to be reliable, though if you exit the app you will need to reestablish the control Bluetooth connection to the Neo. If you want to connect the headphones via a cable, a ¼-inch guitar input is available.

The Positive Grid products I've tested out over the past year have impressed me in many ways, but what makes them really special are the many features accessible through the Spark app on IOS and Android. For onboard effects you have 4 customizable presets, with 33 different models of amps to choose from through the app, and 43 different effects. If you don't feel like messing around with the simulated effects and amps yourself, you can always ask the Spark AI to do it for you to match a general vibe you're going for, or emulate the sound of a particular artist.

Additionally, you have tools such as a tuner and metronome, in combination with practice aids such as Auto Chords which displays the chords you need to play in real time with the music. I really enjoyed jamming out to songs such as Bayside's "Go To Hell" using Auto Chords, and while the feature is a little basic compared to the Ultimate Guitar tabs app I usually use, it's free and you don't need a subscription to use it without ads.

Unfortunately, Smart Jam and Video Recording aren't available in the Spark Neo for technical reasons, but other than that you're getting the full suite of Positive Grid's impressive software. Just as with their speaker-amp combos, this makes the Spark Neo all the more compelling as a practice tool.

I found the Spark Neo to have ample battery life for a full day's worth of listening, and it absolutely lives up to its 8 hour rating for playback time. When using it with the wireless transmitter plugged into your guitar plus Bluetooth, that number is reduced to 6 hours, while the wireless transmitter itself has 13 hours of battery life. For most people, that should be more than enough for a long practice session and a fair bit of passive listening. The headphones charge in about 3 and a half hours, while the transmitter takes about 2 hours to charge.

The only complaint some might have in terms of the performance of the Spark Neo is that it doesn't include active noise cancellation (ANC). However, the passive noise cancelling is so good I didn't miss this feature at all. In fact, really good passive noise cancelling is to be preferred to active noise cancelling, as ANC can cause comfort issues for some people.

With an MSRP of $199, the Spark Neo costs about as much as other Bluetooth headphones which lack its functionality as a guitar amplifier. Considering their high build quality, comfort, and sound quality, the Spark Neo is not a bad buy even if you never use it for anything other than listening to music. Just about its only direct competition in terms of headphones with guitar amps is the Boss Waza-Air which is $320 on B&H. Those have a few features such as a gyro sensor for a 3D sound effect, but of course the Positive Grid Spark Neo also has its own impressive bag of tricks.

Compared to Positive grid's more traditional amplifiers, the Spark 2 and Spark Mini Vai are both slightly more expensive than the Spark Neo. This is notable considering how many of Positive Grid's smart software features the Neo shares with those speaker-amp combos given its lower price point.

The Positive Grid Spark Neo is nothing short of brilliant, and are perhaps the easiest $200 headphones to recommend to just about anyone. While guitarists of all experience levels are certainly the core demographic the Neo is targeted at, there are many aspects of these headphones which will appeal to any audience, even if they never connect it to a guitar. The lack of active noise cancelling and on-headphone media playback controls are the only downsides that really matter, and given the excellent passive noise cancelling, the first of those two complaints is something of a non-issue.

Positive Grid has managed to make a wireless headphone-amplifier combo that not only undercuts the competition on price, but doesn't compromise on features or quality. They really do sound great, and between the near-zero latency transmission and expansive app-based features, the Spark Neo is practically a must-have practice tool. Practically any musician, and anyone living with or near a musician, will be aware of the disturbance that practicing an instrument may cause. The Neo eliminates that barrier to practice, and to anyone considering buying their teenager an electric guitar, it would be wise to make the Neo their first amplifier.

The Positive Grid Spark Neo available from Positive Grid's online store for $199.