New Blackstar 10 boutique style amps

mbe

Just got a flyer from Richtone with a link to their blog. The new amps look great, bet they sound good too.

Expensive, I think they might have cheaped out on the speaker though.

https://blog.richtonemusic.co.uk/posts/new-blackstar-studio-10-amplifiers/?utm_source=Rich+Tone+Music+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e058bad300-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_01_11_03_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_25f9e04097-e058bad300-124457853

ecc83

Yes, expensive and why all £575? That KT88 amp must be costlier to produce. Seems it is being subsidised by the other two?

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

Yes, expensive and why all £575?

You're paying for the added boutique.

Instant interest-killer...

sweepy

Strange pricing policy and £450 by Xmas

Grumpyrocker

Saw these on YT last week and thought they sounded lovely. Nearly fell off my chair when I saw the price. 

Pricing for new Blackstar amps is really taking the piss. They've announced a new HT20 which almost has the functionality of the Bugera copy of the Mk I. But the head is almost £600. Really taking the piss.

sweepy

Maybe they are trying to rebrand themselves ?  good luck with that one

Schnozz

sweepy said:

Maybe they are trying to rebrand themselves ?  good luck with that one

What was wrong with them in the first place? I had a HT5R and I really liked it 

meltedbuzzbox

A blues junior is 515 quid now days and sounds arse awful (my opinion). I think I'd rather pay a bit more for a better sounding amp like the blackstar in this instance.
They do have history of making higher end amps like the artisan

mbe

I still enjoy my Blackstar id Core 10 although it does sound a bit synthetic. It seems to be holding up better than my Fender Mustang Mini. I bought both around the same time, a couple of years ago.

photek

Nowt wrong with Blackstar but I can’t picture the use of a 10w amp. Too loud for home, not loud enough to gig.

Is it for the handful of us who actually have use of a recording studio?

57Deluxe

don't be forgetting the Yerasov GTA15 - a student of mine got one and is beautifully made. 15w EL84 -  £389 inc

http://yerasov.co.uk/products.html#amps

impmann

Grumpyrocker said:

Saw these on YT last week and thought they sounded lovely. Nearly fell off my chair when I saw the price. 

Pricing for new Blackstar amps is really taking the piss. They've announced a new HT20 which almost has the functionality of the Bugera copy of the Mk I. But the head is almost £600. Really taking the piss.

How much is a similar 20w valve head? 

Well, the Marshalls are around £410 but don’t have four footswitchable voices. The Tubemeister is about £380 but is a bit ‘marmite’ in sounds and looks, plus from what I understand doesn’t have an unblemished reliability record. The Bugera was cheap but honestly, it sounded crap and mine went back under warranty when it overheated. Twice.

Frankly, I’ve heard (indeed played through) the new Blackstar 20 - I want one. Genuinely. I’ve not heard a better sounding amp with this spec at this price range.

Use your ears, and not a YouTube video to make your opinions.

Grumpyrocker

impmann said:

Grumpyrocker said:

Saw these on YT last week and thought they sounded lovely. Nearly fell off my chair when I saw the price. 

Pricing for new Blackstar amps is really taking the piss. They've announced a new HT20 which almost has the functionality of the Bugera copy of the Mk I. But the head is almost £600. Really taking the piss.

How much is a similar 20w valve head? 

Well, the Marshalls are around £410 but don’t have four footswitchable voices. The Tubemeister is about £380 but is a bit ‘marmite’ in sounds and looks, plus from what I understand doesn’t have an unblemished reliability record. The Bugera was cheap but honestly, it sounded crap and mine went back under warranty when it overheated. Twice.

Frankly, I’ve heard (indeed played through) the new Blackstar 20 - I want one. Genuinely. I’ve not heard a better sounding amp with this spec at this price range.

Use your ears, and not a YouTube video to make your opinions.

My comments are based on actually owning the previous version of the HT20 head. It cost £200 less than this new version.

I'd already said I owned the amp.

ICBM

photek said:

Nowt wrong with Blackstar but I can’t picture the use of a 10w amp. Too loud for home, not loud enough to gig.

For a lot of players, especially the sort who would use these types of sounds (as opposed to say a Marshall/Rectifier crunch), 10W is probably about right to gig with, especially as single-ended amps tend to sound slightly louder than push-pulls of the same power for some reason I'm not certain of...

The guitarist in my band had a Victoria 5112 a while ago - that's only 5W - and it was loud enough to work well along with a quite loud drummer and my 500W bass amp. The only problem with it was that the volume did drop off a little too much when he rolled back to a semi-clean sound, but double the power may well have fixed that.

Admittedly it also had a 100dB speaker and the one in these Blackstars is only 98dB, but it's not a great speaker anyway and something like a V30 or an Alnico Blue (depending on your tone preference) would be noticeably louder, near enough like doubling the power of the amp.

Handsome_Chris

@impmann , will Drew be demoing them at The Guitar Show?

ecc83

ICBM said:

photek said:

Nowt wrong with Blackstar but I can’t picture the use of a 10w amp. Too loud for home, not loud enough to gig.

For a lot of players, especially the sort who would use these types of sounds (as opposed to say a Marshall/Rectifier crunch), 10W is probably about right to gig with, especially as single-ended amps tend to sound slightly louder than push-pulls of the same power for some reason I'm not certain of...

The guitarist in my band had a Victoria 5112 a while ago - that's only 5W - and it was loud enough to work well along with a quite loud drummer and my 500W bass amp. The only problem with it was that the volume did drop off a little too much when he rolled back to a semi-clean sound, but double the power may well have fixed that.

Admittedly it also had a 100dB speaker and the one in these Blackstars is only 98dB, but it's not a great speaker anyway and something like a V30 or an Alnico Blue (depending on your tone preference) would be noticeably louder, near enough like doubling the power of the amp.

Single ended amps produce a hell of a lot of distortion! The Mully spec for an EL34 is 11W for 10% thd and that is not considering that the Blackstar OP traff will be a long way from hi fi (would be the size of big spud and cost £100) . Distortion makes things seem louder. Why you can go deaf on pure tones.

Cost? All amp components workd wide are traded in $US and the pound has had a pasting against that. Still a lot for a ten watt amp though.

Dave.

ecc83

Yur, mssrs Sowter want £230 for an EL34 se OP transformer. Ok, Sowter are top price and we are looking at the "more ££ than sense" audiophool market but good SE traffs are never going to be cheap.

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

Single ended amps produce a hell of a lot of distortion!

Sorry, I wasn't clear - what I meant was that an *overdriven* single-ended amp seems louder than an overdriven push-pull of the same power. I actually wonder if it's because most are biased too hot, so they reach forward clipping before cut-off and hence the current draw actually *falls* the harder they're pushed into distortion (at least until both ends are fully clipped). This should mean that slightly more voltage is available... the opposite of the sag when a push-pull Class AB is driven into clipping - but I haven't ever actually measured it.

ecc83

ICBM said:

ecc83 said:

Single ended amps produce a hell of a lot of distortion!

Sorry, I wasn't clear - what I meant was that an *overdriven* single-ended amp seems louder than an overdriven push-pull of the same power. I actually wonder if it's because most are biased too hot, so they reach forward clipping before cut-off and hence the current draw actually *falls* the harder they're pushed into distortion (at least until both ends are fully clipped). This should mean that slightly more voltage is available... the opposite of the sag when a push-pull Class AB is driven into clipping - but I haven't ever actually measured it.

I think we are sort of talking about sort of the same thing IC! SE amps produce a lot of even harmonics as well as odd. Push pull cancels even harmonics (too a degree. Guitar amps are rarely that well balanced, nor do they need to be) .

I have only done a very brief test on an HT-100 head and that reached over 120W for 10% THD so even hammer and chisel guitar amps are pretty linear when they are push pull! AP test rig BTW. I miss it!

Dave.

jpfamps

ICBM said:

ecc83 said:

Single ended amps produce a hell of a lot of distortion!

Sorry, I wasn't clear - what I meant was that an *overdriven* single-ended amp seems louder than an overdriven push-pull of the same power. I actually wonder if it's because most are biased too hot, so they reach forward clipping before cut-off and hence the current draw actually *falls* the harder they're pushed into distortion (at least until both ends are fully clipped). This should mean that slightly more voltage is available... the opposite of the sag when a push-pull Class AB is driven into clipping - but I haven't ever actually measured it.

Indeed. Many SE amps eg later Champs can actually be driven into class C loading!

This effect however is opposed by screen grid current which rises rapidly at the onset of clipping; this effect will be less in beam tetrode loaded amps than pentode loaded amps.

Dominic

Yes but Blackstar = poor sound