School me on Blackstar amps.

[Rockstar216]

Re: School me on Blackstar amps.

 

[Hairmail]

Re: School me on Blackstar amps.

All Blackstars are made in Asia, Korea if I'm not mistaken. There's a fair bit of marketing going on in the Blackstar camp, like the plastering of thie British flag on everything, when upon closer inspection it says that they are designed in the UK, and giving people the impression that the HT-1 and HT-5 are all tube when they're not. They just have the tubes in the power section while the clipping is solid state. I've only tried the HT-1 I personally thought it sounded pretty good, though IMO it lacked character.

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: School me on Blackstar amps.

But they are all tube they have a tube pre and power amp with a SS rectifier. The HT stands for Hybrid Technology I believe. So yes it's a mix of tube and SS tech but they sound great imo.

 

[Big Flannel]

Re: School me on Blackstar amps.

Nice clip, man. Thank you.

 

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: School me on Blackstar amps.

I have a couple of questions if you'd be so kind to answer them.

I'm looking into picking up a Blackstar HT series amps.

Now the 20watt "studio" and the 40watt "club" are only priced $100 apart from eachother.
Clearly that makes the 40watt a good buy, (plus the 40 has two voicings for the clean/drive channels), but I'm concerned.
See, I've never really used a master volume amp so I'm curious as to whether or not I'll be able to get some good tones out of it at relatively quiet volumes for when I'm playing late at night.

IFAIK, ALL their entry level amps, get some external help from clipping diodes . . . . in other words, it is NOT a 100% ALL-Valve/tube gain signal, like a JCM800, 5150, Deluxe Reverb, 5E3, Tiny Terror, and, and, and.

 

[Mad-Max]

Re: School me on Blackstar amps.

The way I see it, I don't care whether it is a hybrid or not, if it sounds great, then it sounds great. The first Blackstar amp I tried ever was a Blackstar HT-60 combo, and that amp was just amazing tonally for me. If I would've had 600 bucks, I would've picked it up.

I'm thinking about possibly buying a Blackstar amp sometime down the road for other means like when I jam with friends at their houses or to lug around, instead of having to carry my Mark V and Mesa 4x12 everywhere.

 

[Oinkus]

Re: School me on Blackstar amps.

I played either a club 20 or venue 40 not sure which it was , but it was good sounding amp Didn't get much time to fiddle with it either but I got a good clean and dirty rhythm out of it easily. All of their cheaper amps are hybrid I do believe. The H&K Tubemeister 18 sounds better just a bit on the smaller size might not be perfect for you.

 

[Big Flannel]

Re: School me on Blackstar amps.

I played either a club 20 or venue 40 not sure which it was , but it was good sounding amp Didn't get much time to fiddle with it either but I got a good clean and dirty rhythm out of it easily. All of their cheaper amps are hybrid I do believe. The H&K Tubemeister 18 sounds better just a bit on the smaller size might not be perfect for you.

Your tubemeister did sound good. I'm still looking into that.