The Blackheart Handsome Devil

[Rick330man]

Re: The Blackheart Handsome Devil

I own the Little Giant 5 watt head. Like I mentioend above, the lead guitar player in my last band owns the Handsome Devil head. The Handsome Devil became his #1 amp. We did a bunch of tube rolling and found that it responded real well to using a JAN Philips 5751 in V1. NIce cleans, no breakup and a great on board drive when you want it.

As for the Little Giant, it is precisely what Immortal Six described above: "jack of all trades - master of none." I've run all sorts of power tubes in there: Sovtek, JJs, Teslas, GEs, RCAs, Ei...you name it. The Sovteks were the clear worst, though they did not sound bad, They accentuate the midrange. I also notice that the head produces noticeably more treble as you crank it up. All of the EL84s tested produced very usable tone, but there is an art to combining the right EL 84 with the right preamp tube.

As for V1 tubes, GE 5751, Philips 5751, Sylvania 5751, JJ 803S, JJ ECC83, Sovtek 12AX7LPS, GE 12AX7, Phlips 12AX7...you get the picture. The JAN Philips 12AX7 can sound shrill in some amps, but it gives the "Little Giant" an impressive midrange growl. It also took really well to both of the JJs - particularly the 803S, but the Sylvania 5751 was the clear winner.

I like the Handsome Devil and the Little Giant. Both are tremendous values for the $.

 

[Lux84]

Re: The Blackheart Handsome Devil

I already wanted to buy BH5 Little Giant for home practising, but there is only available BH15 Handsome Devil in my country. even when i ask the local stores about BH5 they said that the Blackheart discountinued it, so i have the only option to buy BH15 running it in 7 watt mode, but as i said i wanted it for home practising to put it next to my Blackstar HT-5 Combo amp with external 1x12 cab with Vintage 30 in it. Blackstar HT-5 and Blackheart BH5 are completly different animals, as the HT-5 is more medium to high gain small little amp (lies somewhere in the JCM 900 territory, and Mesa Boogie sounds, but at much lower home usage volumes ) and BH-5 is much more small vintage classic tube low gain amp, with such better cleans than HT-5 so i think it'll be a good think to have it, to do it the things that HT-5 can't do... but as i said i cannot buy becaudse they discontinued it:dot: so there is something i can do to improve the clean channel on HT-5 and give that amp more lower gain vintage sound too. i can buy Boss Equalizer GE7, and i already have Bad Monkey, which i run through clean channel, and i can get more vintage classic blues rock sound at higher volumes. and buy some reverb pedal too.. or, i can go and buy Ibanez TSA 5 watt tube amp, based on Tubescreamer pedal for about the same money as those pedals.... about 200 €, new ! that could be my complete setup for home use, practicing besides some of drive pedals and reverb. so i am really thinking of getting that Ibanez TSA 5 amp.... to complete the home setup. then i could go and buy something like Jet City JCA20 or Blackstar HT-40 Club to start out the band..:scratchch

 

[Lux84]

Re: The Blackheart Handsome Devil

I wonder how the hell do you change tubes in Handsome Devil Combo ? i removed all the screws at backplate, but all i see is electronics board... i can't pull that board away, out of the amp to get to the other side where those tubes actually are :33: annoying :33: i was planning just to replace the preamp tubes with tung soils 12ax7 but the plan start crashes out, beside i can't get into territory of that combo where actually the tubes are... i easily replaced tubes in Blackstar HT-5 combo, but that Handsome Devil is so much more massive and even if i removed back plate i cannot go through that plate that tubes are in, i just saw the electronics board, but that whole board is so attached to wood i couldn't even removed in, and i unscrewed pretty much everything... maybe i should removed the front plate of the amplifier, but i don't want to hurt the amp, cause there are white plastic and no screws to get the front plate out... i am dissapointed cause i thought i could do that thing myself, but now i must take the amp to service man, and wait a week to be the whole thing done... but i easily removed the blackheart logo ( i just unscrew it ) and find one cool sticker and put it on. the thing is, i wanna replace the stock JJ 12ax7 preamp tubes because they make the amp to muddy, i almost have the bass at half and i can get really fuzzy sound with my Les Paul with Custom on the bridge, but it's almost fuzzy, and i want the amp sound a little more bright, so i deicided to put that Tung Soils in.