UberMetalDood
New member
Well the big box came in today. I ripped open the box and ripped it up on my Strat and Les Paul for a couple of hours. Boy has it been a while since I played one of these. I had an HT100 head for a long time and got used to the sound of that. I guess the question a lot of people have is how does the HT100 compare to the Series One 100.
One sells for $899 and the other sells for $1699, yet they're both made in Korea. It makes you wonder if the Series One is really just a modified HT100 with the same quality components, etc... Well unfortunately I can't answer that. I don't know if the components are any better of if there is anything more special about the build than the HT100. The S1 isn't handwired. What I do know for sure though is that the amps are night and day in some aspects.
Both amp heads are bulky and heavy. It's probably about the same weight as a Marshall 1959 and a little smaller than a Hughes and Kettner Duotone or Triamp head. Features are similar but the HT100 has digital reverb which is pretty good. The S1 has no reverb. Both have 2 channels with 2 modes per channel, etc... features are similar after that.
The headshell construction might be different. I think the HT100 is made of pressed wood or something and the S1 might be birch, but I don't know that for sure. The S1 has a similar tolex which isn't as tough as the tolex on a Hughes and Kettner for example. The HT100 I had was prone to nics and cuts on the tolex and the S1 appears to have the same tolex but better wood. Like I said, I don't know about the wood for sure though.
So aside from all of that, the similarities kind of end there. The S1 has a feature the HT100 doesn't and that's a DPR (dynamic power reduction) control knob. It goes from 100w down to 10w. A lot of amps have some kind of power reduction these days, but does this 100w amp really sound great at 10w? The answer is "hell yeah." I never tried an attenuator that worked this good. It can be quite loud at 10w if you want it to be, but for home recording, it is great.
The clean channel starts off on "bright" clean which is a really nice sounding kind of Fenderish tone. It took me a while to get it dialed to a sound I really like, but there is a pretty good variety of tones you can get with it.
Then there's the "warm" clean and that to me sounds so good that I'll probably never use the bright clean. A lot of people think the HT100 has pretty good cleans, and it does, but it's not a GREAT clean sound like something you would get in Fender and Mesa Boogie amps. The S1 clean, however, really knocks it out of the ball park. You can get a nice gritty blues clean or even light classic rock kind of overdrive, especially if you use the DPR and crank the channel volume and gain.
The EQ is shared, but after playing with it a lot, I really don't think it will ever be an issue because the warm mode provides a stellar clean, and the bright mode delivers a more traditional, Voxy kind of clean. There seems to be no need to tweak it much. Furthermore, the crunch channel of the S1 can be dialed in for a pretty clean sound so you can actually use it as a clean channel and use the super crunch channel for soloing.
The HT100 is real tight, kind of dark in nature, and feels kind of dry. It doesn't give you very much of the elastic feel of tube sag. It's articulate and has a lot of great sounds that are easy to dial in.
I used to have a JCM800 for a long time but finally let it go because all of the magic only comes when it's ear piercingly loud. In comparison to the HT100 and JCM800, the S1 feels VERY familiar and VERY much like a JCM800. Crunch mode reminds me a bit more of a plexi, but the super crunch mode is almost exactly like I remember my JCM800, but with more gain available.
The crunch mode to me kind of sounds like a cross between a Soldano SLO crunch and Plexi crunch. It doesn't have a lot of gain and probably maxes out gain about as much as a cranked plexi or a JCM800 can get. It sounds ridiculously good with my overdrive in front too.
The super crunch mode is so good and makes me not miss my JCM800 at all. If Marshall ever tried to go to court and sue Blackstar for copying their tone, the super crunch channel might be the way to do it. It screams hotrod Marshall all the way. It's a super fantastic sound.
Although super crunch has enough gain for almost anything I would want to play, it doesn't get gobs of distortion like my rectifier will or like an Engl head will. However, it makes up for it with a really great feel. Super crunch makes your solos sound so freaking good and you can dial in some pretty great scooped metal sounds too.
At first, it sounded pretty darned good, but a little thin. Then I realized that it doesn't have a ton of low end, so I raise the resonance and bumped the bass up to about 2:00 and that took care of everything. I've been used to playing my mini rect for a while so I've gotten used to never turning the controls past 12:00, but the S1 controls are pretty user friendly. The EQ is effective, but I wouldn't say that it's as responsive EQ as say a Fender Machete or Genz-Benz El Diablo which can almost totally change character with a little adjustment. I cranked the S1 with a Mesa Boogie 4x12 and the EQ controls were still effective when cranked so that's a good thing.
I used the FX loop for reverb and it sounded fantastic with my M9, so I think the FX loop is really good. I won't be able to tell you that for sure until I have more time using the FX loop.
This is an amazing amp. It sound is natural, lively and really sings. It responds when you play it in a way that makes it seem very lively. It's a classic, more vintage type of voicing. It's not hi-fi like the Fender Machete I had for a while.
While waiting for the S1 to come in, I was shopping around and still thinking that I would return it if I'm not blown away. So far, I'm pretty comfortable having it around. It's very recording friendly so I think it can lay down some very tasty tracks.
The one thing I noticed has to do with the ISF control on the Series One. I think the ISF works better on the HT100 than the Series One. On the S1, the ISF strongly favors the right side whereas the HT100 seems to have great sounds either way. I need more time to tweak and experiment but this is something that I noticed.
One sells for $899 and the other sells for $1699, yet they're both made in Korea. It makes you wonder if the Series One is really just a modified HT100 with the same quality components, etc... Well unfortunately I can't answer that. I don't know if the components are any better of if there is anything more special about the build than the HT100. The S1 isn't handwired. What I do know for sure though is that the amps are night and day in some aspects.
Both amp heads are bulky and heavy. It's probably about the same weight as a Marshall 1959 and a little smaller than a Hughes and Kettner Duotone or Triamp head. Features are similar but the HT100 has digital reverb which is pretty good. The S1 has no reverb. Both have 2 channels with 2 modes per channel, etc... features are similar after that.
The headshell construction might be different. I think the HT100 is made of pressed wood or something and the S1 might be birch, but I don't know that for sure. The S1 has a similar tolex which isn't as tough as the tolex on a Hughes and Kettner for example. The HT100 I had was prone to nics and cuts on the tolex and the S1 appears to have the same tolex but better wood. Like I said, I don't know about the wood for sure though.
So aside from all of that, the similarities kind of end there. The S1 has a feature the HT100 doesn't and that's a DPR (dynamic power reduction) control knob. It goes from 100w down to 10w. A lot of amps have some kind of power reduction these days, but does this 100w amp really sound great at 10w? The answer is "hell yeah." I never tried an attenuator that worked this good. It can be quite loud at 10w if you want it to be, but for home recording, it is great.
The clean channel starts off on "bright" clean which is a really nice sounding kind of Fenderish tone. It took me a while to get it dialed to a sound I really like, but there is a pretty good variety of tones you can get with it.
Then there's the "warm" clean and that to me sounds so good that I'll probably never use the bright clean. A lot of people think the HT100 has pretty good cleans, and it does, but it's not a GREAT clean sound like something you would get in Fender and Mesa Boogie amps. The S1 clean, however, really knocks it out of the ball park. You can get a nice gritty blues clean or even light classic rock kind of overdrive, especially if you use the DPR and crank the channel volume and gain.
The EQ is shared, but after playing with it a lot, I really don't think it will ever be an issue because the warm mode provides a stellar clean, and the bright mode delivers a more traditional, Voxy kind of clean. There seems to be no need to tweak it much. Furthermore, the crunch channel of the S1 can be dialed in for a pretty clean sound so you can actually use it as a clean channel and use the super crunch channel for soloing.
The HT100 is real tight, kind of dark in nature, and feels kind of dry. It doesn't give you very much of the elastic feel of tube sag. It's articulate and has a lot of great sounds that are easy to dial in.
I used to have a JCM800 for a long time but finally let it go because all of the magic only comes when it's ear piercingly loud. In comparison to the HT100 and JCM800, the S1 feels VERY familiar and VERY much like a JCM800. Crunch mode reminds me a bit more of a plexi, but the super crunch mode is almost exactly like I remember my JCM800, but with more gain available.
The crunch mode to me kind of sounds like a cross between a Soldano SLO crunch and Plexi crunch. It doesn't have a lot of gain and probably maxes out gain about as much as a cranked plexi or a JCM800 can get. It sounds ridiculously good with my overdrive in front too.
The super crunch mode is so good and makes me not miss my JCM800 at all. If Marshall ever tried to go to court and sue Blackstar for copying their tone, the super crunch channel might be the way to do it. It screams hotrod Marshall all the way. It's a super fantastic sound.
Although super crunch has enough gain for almost anything I would want to play, it doesn't get gobs of distortion like my rectifier will or like an Engl head will. However, it makes up for it with a really great feel. Super crunch makes your solos sound so freaking good and you can dial in some pretty great scooped metal sounds too.
At first, it sounded pretty darned good, but a little thin. Then I realized that it doesn't have a ton of low end, so I raise the resonance and bumped the bass up to about 2:00 and that took care of everything. I've been used to playing my mini rect for a while so I've gotten used to never turning the controls past 12:00, but the S1 controls are pretty user friendly. The EQ is effective, but I wouldn't say that it's as responsive EQ as say a Fender Machete or Genz-Benz El Diablo which can almost totally change character with a little adjustment. I cranked the S1 with a Mesa Boogie 4x12 and the EQ controls were still effective when cranked so that's a good thing.
I used the FX loop for reverb and it sounded fantastic with my M9, so I think the FX loop is really good. I won't be able to tell you that for sure until I have more time using the FX loop.
This is an amazing amp. It sound is natural, lively and really sings. It responds when you play it in a way that makes it seem very lively. It's a classic, more vintage type of voicing. It's not hi-fi like the Fender Machete I had for a while.
While waiting for the S1 to come in, I was shopping around and still thinking that I would return it if I'm not blown away. So far, I'm pretty comfortable having it around. It's very recording friendly so I think it can lay down some very tasty tracks.
The one thing I noticed has to do with the ISF control on the Series One. I think the ISF works better on the HT100 than the Series One. On the S1, the ISF strongly favors the right side whereas the HT100 seems to have great sounds either way. I need more time to tweak and experiment but this is something that I noticed.
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