Darkglass B7K Ultra vs Microtubes 200 amp

[Crungy]

In your situation I'd skip the amps if you're mostly using headphones. If you're buying new and can return that's pretty safe, or even buying used you could resell and most likely not lose much.

One thing I'll add: you might want to try an Omicron in addition to whatever you choose. That pedal really shines at lower blend settings because it can be beefy as fuck. I use that quite a bit with a B7K's eq only and kind of prefer it to the B7's drive sound. It's just fuller and more authoritative across the fretboard to my ears.

 

[thrsher]

Do these amps essentially function kind of like a kemper in that you can load up an IR that is saved in a bank and use in the live setting ?

 

[Screamingdaisy]

Any opinion on the digital vs analog? Some people don’t like the digital DG stuff (aka the Infinity) so that would be a vote for the actual head. But I’m not sure if there’s any validity to it.

IMO, it's valid. The simpler the circuit, the more raw / less processed it sounds.

The caveat to that is what does the rest of your signal chain look like? The B3K sounds the rawest, but it has the least processing, which is cool if you're getting your toneshaping elsewhere and you just want to stack a relatively transparent distortion into it, but limited if you want your distortion to have more character. The B7K will let you shape the distortion for more character. The B7K Ultra has more functionality if used as a preamp, but those extra features don't really add to it's ability to function as a distortion pedal.

The Infinity takes the B7K Ultra to the next level, but is basically a distortion modeller, so it reacts differently than a distortion pedal. Whether that matters or not depends on whether you use it as a stand alone pedal (doesn't matter), or if you plan on stacking other distortions into it (might matter to you, might not). That said, you gain compression, the ability to save/recall presets, a few different distortion models, and the X crossover.

If this is for a headphone setup, my choice would be B7K Ultra or Infinity as they're both designed to function as a preamp.

IMO, the only reason to buy the Infinity is for the X crossover or because you want saveable presets. If you just want a single sound (or the ability to switch between clean and dirty) I think the Ultra is a better choice.

I'm staying away from commenting on the heads because I don't use them, but I can give you my 2 cents if you want it anyway.

I would think the quality of the build and support would be good either way.

It is.

 

[Screamingdaisy]

Do these amps essentially function kind of like a kemper in that you can load up an IR that is saved in a bank and use in the live setting ?

The IR in these is a speaker IR to act as a filter on the DI out.