A More Successful NAD

Grumpyrocker

After last week's disappointment of the faulty DSL20 - and to be honest disappointment with how it sounded anyway, this morning has seen a much more successful New Amp Day. 

This has just arrived:



Yes it's a Blackstar, the new version of the HT-5. Surprised I went for this given the mocking I've done of Blackstar in the past. But this is a really great amp.

Just spent 30 minutes doing my usual crap pentatonic noodling and the amp is wonderful. Beautiful clean sounds, especially Voice 1. And the gain channel sounds really good - Voice 2 is very much the brittle modern Marshall sound but unlike the DSL20 doesn't sound like fizzy shite.

Reverb is lovely too.

There's still lots of stuff I haven't checked out yet - such as the effects loop. But my initial impressions are very positive. Absolutely lovely sounding. Nice and quiet too.

ecc83

"Nice and quiet too."  I am glad they haven't 'kd that up! The HT-5  probably has the best signal to noise ratio, especially for hum, of any guitar amp on the planet, valve, transistor or hybrid.

Once the OP stage balance was set, I regularly got a residual of -80dBV across 8 Ohms and even with a lot of gain the amp was very quiet.

I always thought they should make a rack mount version for studios? Easy charge 'em a bag o sand a pop!  

Yes! I know I'm biased (boom! boom!) but meters don't lie.

Dave.

Grumpyrocker

Just tried the FX loop, all good.

I had the original HT-5 stack back in the day. And the main reason I got rid was a volume mismatch between channels when using the effects loop - glad this isn't a problem with the new ones.

ecc83

Grumpyrocker said:

Just tried the FX loop, all good.

I had the original HT-5 stack back in the day. And the main reason I got rid was a volume mismatch between channels when using the effects loop - glad this isn't a problem with the new ones.

Yes, that was a design cockup! There was a quite complex mod for it but there cannot be many of those chassis out there now.

Dave.

Grumpyrocker

I'm not a great fan of playing guitar through headphones. About the only device I've found with a good headphone sound is the Zoom G3 with it's AIR effects block, which gives the kind of space that makes the sound seem more natural. Never heard a good headphone out from an actual amp.

But dammit, the new HT5 has changes that - it sounds fabulous through headphones - or at least does through my AKG 712 Pro. Cleverly Blackstar has the headphone out putting the reverb out in stereo and this makes all the difference I think to an enjoyable headphone experience. It sounds lovely. Didn't buy the amp for silent late night noodling - but it turns out to be great at it.