Should I pull the trigger?

[jimman]

I have been looking around for a good little practice amp for a while, when yesterday I was looking through a local guitar shop and saw a few Blackheart amps sitting around waiting to be played. They had a Little Giant head with the matching 1x12 cab and a Handsome Devil combo. I played through the Little Giant at lower volumes since thats what I will be playing it at in my apartment and I thought it was ok. I decided to give the Handsome Devil a go and I thought it was a pretty nice amp. The cleans were pretty decent and I could get the amp to stay clean at volumes louder than I will need it at, so I could probably run a good distortion pedal into it if I wanted. The distortion was pretty nice though, its definitely not a metal amp but it has more gain than I was expecting.

I am considering picking up the handsome devil for my apartment playing, but was wondering what others experiences were with the amp, and if anyone knew of anything else that would be better for my use. I was also looking at the Vox AC4 and Vox Lil Night train. I am playing quite a big of classic rock and blues these days but I do love playing punk, and occasionally I will play some metal. I dont think I will be able to find anything that will do everything, but I would prefer a good clean tone so I can at least have good platform for distortion pedals if I need to.

 

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

Blackheart amps are really good for the money IMO. I would buy one if I had spare cash laying around. The AC4 isn't bad but didn't impress me too much either.

Haven't tried the little night train.

 

[jimman]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

Yeah it seems really hard to beat for that price. Honestly the only thing holding me back is I have not tried all the other options yet. At this point its between the Handsome Devil, the Jet City 20w combo, the Special 6 Ultra, or getting something like a POD HD. Too many choices.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

The Hughes and Kettner Tube Meister 18 is one of the best apartment volume tube amps I've ever tried out. My next amp will likely be the 18 or 36.

 

[Stratovarious]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

They seem to not get much love around here, but my Blackstar HT-5 head with the Blackstar 1x12 sounds excellent

 

[everdrone]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

OP, that will be really heavy and loud. not super portable. consider power scaling and a lighter amp...smaller speaker and you can crank the amp more...

 

[jimman]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

The Tubemeister is a really nice amp, but it goes for a little bit more money than I want to spend on an apartment amp right now, if I find a good used deal I might jump on it though.

When I tried the HT-5 it sounded decent but I thought it wasnt anything special. Maybe I just needed to spend more time with it.

Everdrone - I would definitely like something light with power scaling on it. Any certain amp with those features you would recommend?

 

[Rick330man]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

The lead guitarist in my last band picked up a Handsome Devil head. He used a Crate Blue Voodoo 60 for a whle. He also used a Crate V50, a Crate V32 Palomino, a VOX 50 watt Valvetronix, a Fender Super 112, and I forget what else. The Handsome Devil became his #1 amp. We tweaked the tube array. He uses a JAN Philips 5751 for V1. Very nice cleans. The on board drive was very good as well.

IMHO, the 15 watt Blackheart Handsome Devil is a great amp with tone on par with that of competitors costing two and three times as much.

 

[IM4Tone]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

I usually prefer and recommend tube amps, but for apartment playing volumes and a wide range of genres, you should at least investigate a solid state modeling amp such as a Peavey Vypyr. Solid state modeling amps can sound much better than tubes IF you must play at very low volumes and even a 15 watt tube amp is quite loud at its sweet spot. Plus most modeling amps have lots of variety to choose from. Peavey is certainly not the only modeling amp out there. Go to a GC and try a variety.

 

[nedcronin]

Re: Should I pull the trigger?

May I suggest an Orange Tiny Terror? It's a potent little beast but it does sound great at low volume. And it cleans up with the guitar volume knob better than most. Throw some NOS tubes in it and your in the high cotton of small amps.