Blackstar ID Core 20 or similar practice amps.

baldy

After refusing to let me keep my Peavey Vypyr 15 in our living room, because it is an ugly largish black box & doesn"t match the decor, Mrs baldy says I can now keep a black box practice amp in the living room as long as it is not to big (no bigger than the Vypyr preferably a little smaller) due to the fact that we bought a new 3 piece suite this week so all the decor is being changed 
The ID Core 20 seems a lot of amp for the extremely cheap price when compared to something like a THR so what"s the opinions on a smallish, cheapish practice amp ?
TBH I have not really been happy with the sound of the Vypyr.

ecc83

I am a teensy bit biased of course but the amps seem to have won quite a few hearts, they seem very reliable and even ICBM (I seem to recall?) is not TOTALLY damming of their sound!

My son has the ID 40 and finds it quite loud enough for jazz in French cafes.

Dave.

baldy

They (ID Core 20) are only £129 new, compared to £240 for a THR10 or £250 for a Vox Adio air, or roughly half the price.
I have seen a demo of the Core 20 & it sounded good with easy to use built in features without having to hook it up to the "t"internet.
I am just after something simple to use with some built in effects (I also have a Zoom G3XN which I assume will play through it fine) can take an aux input to jam along to stuff & will be used with headphones when Mrs baldy is in & without when she is out (shopping for new wallpaper, rugs, curtains etc as it is spring which means the whole house has to be re-decorated again ,apparently 

ICBM

ecc83 said:

I am a teensy bit biased of course but the amps seem to have won quite a few hearts, they seem very reliable and even ICBM (I seem to recall?) is not TOTALLY damming of their sound!

No, sorry! I absolutely hate them . Easily the worst-sounding Blackstar and the worst-sounding 'home' amp I've heard. The basic tone is bad enough, but the awful 'wide stereo' effects are truly in a different league of horror - they sound like you're inside a giant pair of headphones wired out of phase... a really oppressive, muffled tone with a disorientating inside-out spatial effect.

My recommendation would be a Yamaha THR (I'm not a fan of the more distorted sounds though) or a Vox Adio, if you can stand the 'handbag' styling... which may well be an advantage for Mrs baldy . Quite a bit more expensive than the Blackstar unfortunately.

ecc83

C'mon IC ! Not like you to sit on the fence...Spit it out man!

Ah well, Y C P..........

Dave.

Fuengi

I've had an ID Core for a couple of years to do exactly what you want - look half decent, play Bluetooth music and plug the guitar into. 

Music playback as a background filler is acceptable, I wouldn't sit and listen to an album through it. 

Playing guitar through it is pretty horrible. You can get a couple of bearable sounds with a bit of reverb and delay but it isn't great. 

As a comparison I have a Yerasov GTA 15J with some nice pedals and it's on another planet compared to the ID Core. Not even close.

I read a review that said the effects are as good as pedals, that is utter tosh. Unless they were comparing with Behringer pedals that had been stored under water for a year. 

ICBM

ecc83 said:

C'mon IC ! Not like you to sit on the fence...Spit it out man!

Ah well, Y C P.........

To be fair, I was playing a HT-1R yesterday and I quite liked that .

Possibility for Mrs baldy? It's a rather nice-looking little box.

https://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/styles/news_large/s3/imagelibrary/b/blackstar_ht1r_01-URagS0h55_m.zMhZqgzA34y44ECrjK2k.jpg

It's also cheaper than the THR and the Adio, although not the ID Core.

baldy

Bugger it ICBM & Fuengi you have dashed my ideas that I could get an acceptable home practice amp for under £130 
Seriously though thanks for the advice & keep it coming 

ICBM

baldy said:

Bugger it ICBM & Fuengi you have dashed my ideas that I could get an acceptable home practice amp for under £130 
Seriously though thanks for the advice & keep it coming 

You can - just not that one .

There are plenty of other decent small modellers for that kind of money that sound good and look nice.

The Vox Mini 3 is under £100. The Mini 5 is even better, although just over £130 now. So good, I bought one .

ecc83

Baldy, at least go and LISTEN to an ID core!  My lad is a picky sod! Did not like the HT5 nor the HT-1 . He loved the Artisan 30 but dad did not have that sort of dosh even with staff dissy! He 'tolerates' his HT-20 for the cleanish jazz sounds it gives out of a Greenback but does not like the overdrive channel.  He does quite like his ID Core 40 .

The moral is, YOU NEVER KNOW! YOU might like it.

Dave.

DartmoorHedgehog

Just to add some balance, I've got an ID Core 10 and I think it's an excellent practice amp.  The sounds are perfectly good enough (actually the clean sounds are pretty nice IMO, although the heavy sounds are way over the top for me).  The 10 sounds fine at low volume but the small speakers don't like being turned up too much (which doesn't matter to me) - if you need it to be louder then the 20 would be better because of its slightly bigger speakers (5" vs the 10's 3" I think).

And FWIW I actually like the stereo effects (but I only really use reverb and delay)

I've not heard a THR, but they'd have to be fantastic to be worth paying the asking price IMO (although they do look quite cool).

The only bad thing I'd say about the ID Core is that they do have a background hiss that can annoy some people.  Mine's on the floor so it's not so noticeable, but if you have the amp on a table nearer ear level it's quite obvious when you're not playing.  Worth checking first if you're thinking of getting one to make sure you're not one of the people who'll be driven mad by it.

But having said that, the Vox Minis are interesting...

fandango

baldy said:

After refusing to let me keep my Peavey Vypyr 15 in our living room, because it is an ugly largish black box & doesn"t match the decor, Mrs baldy says I can now keep a black box practice amp in the living room as long as it is not to big (no bigger than the Vypyr preferably a little smaller) due to the fact that we bought a new 3 piece suite this week so all the decor is being changed 
The ID Core 20 seems a lot of amp for the extremely cheap price when compared to something like a THR so what"s the opinions on a smallish, cheapish practice amp ?
TBH I have not really been happy with the sound of the Vypyr.

As indicated Vox, Blackstar, Yamaha and Boss all do various small practice amp things. As does Marshall, Roland, Orange, Line 6 and Fender.

I keep replying to these suggestions of "what practice amp?" that the answer is a THR-10C. It's great for the bedroom/living room, as long as you aren't expecting to gig with it. That said I have used the THR-10C on several home-based occasions where I am playing alongside another who's playing through a valve amp with the volume turned down. The THR-10C holds it's own at those low volumes very very well. It does get a bit wayward with distortion as you start to crank up the settings, but avoid that and there's much to like. Even pedals don't phase it. Especially delay. It loves those.

baldy

Agreed I need to listen to an ID Core, & a few others in person.
I know that the THR gets rave reviews but it is a lot dearer than most of its competition.
Also when I listen to an online demo where the amp is mic"d up I wonder if what I am hearing is not what the amp actually sounds like on it"s own.
I suppose I will have to brave the soul destroying experience of a visit to the nearest PMT, as the local independent only stocks the Vox mini 5 in the way of practice amps so nothing there to compare it to.

grungebob

My two penneth for all it’s worth is get a Katana instead. I bought both and tried them side by side for a week and try as I might I couldn’t get a usable sound out of the blackstar. I wanted to love it as it had the looper (idcore 100) but it went back to the shop. 

baldy

Unfortunately i think the Katana 50 is physically a little to big for my living room & I don"t fancy the Katana mini.

darthed1981

FWIW @Baldy I would never claim even a fraction of @ICBM s knowledge but my opinion was somewhat different.

I bought a Core Stereo 10 after randomly playing one in PMT Northampton while trying a guitar and liking it so much I sought it out.

I guess the overall sound is not in any way a match for something like my Katana 50, but they sound reasonable through headphones and have so many options for £129 (I got a 10 for £79 back in the day if I recall, then later a 20 for £89) that they were good for allowing me to find sounds I like.  The 10 in particular is also weeny.

This is pretty personal, I've got 12 (soon to be -2 +1 probably) guitars of varying types and I just like to have a different sound depending on each guitar.  Home base for me is a sort of indie crunch, which the default patches for the middle two voices do OK, but I've also found "Clean Bright" with a couple of FX is good for a stratty-clean noodle, and the heavy settings are fun with active pickups.

The down sides would include the hiss you always get, which is just odd really.  I'd also say that the things are very clearly designed around their  "wide stereo" effects, and sound a bit lousy with all the FX turned off, you at least need a bit of reverb and usually some chorus or delay to get a decent sound.

They really are nothing on the Katana 50 as well, it is fair to say.

I'm just a home noodler, and have been to a couple of Fretboard jams.  I suspect the ID core 40 would work well at a small jam, the 20 would be just about OK with lowish volumes.  By comparison at the TFB jam in Northampton where we kept volumes to a civilised level, the Katana 50 was too quiet on its 0.5w setting, but much too loud on its 50w setting.

mbe

C'mon it's about the look, and the Yamaha looks like a 90s toaster. I recommend the  ID:Core 10 Stereo for a more suitable fit in a living room, with it's svelte finished cabinet, boutique quality grill cloth and high gloss corner protectors.
Love
Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen

ICBM

darthed1981 said:

By comparison at the TFB jam in Northampton where we kept volumes to a civilised level, the Katana 50 was too quiet on its 0.5w setting, but much too loud on its 50w setting.

Why not use the the 50W setting (or the 25W) and turn the volume down?

I've never understood this 'too loud' thing. The number of amps I've ever played which are genuinely too loud, as in have no usable setting between silent and the lowest volume they will produce, I can probably count on the fingers of one hand... and it doesn't include the 100W amps I've used at home or the 200W Marshall Major.

Legionreturns

Is the katana mini pretty enough? 


Doubles as an mp3 player

darthed1981

ICBM said:

darthed1981 said:

By comparison at the TFB jam in Northampton where we kept volumes to a civilised level, the Katana 50 was too quiet on its 0.5w setting, but much too loud on its 50w setting.

Why not use the the 50W setting (or the 25W) and turn the volume down?

I've never understood this 'too loud' thing. The number of amps I've ever played which are genuinely too loud, as in have no usable setting between silent and the lowest volume they will produce, I can probably count on the fingers of one hand... and it doesn't include the 100W amps I've used at home or the 200W Marshall Major.

To be honest there wasnt really enough time to tweak it too much.  The master was on about three and switching it to 25w got a pretty good volume for the room.

I was basically pointing out that the ID core 20 could probably manage a small practise or jam volume wise.

jonnyburgo

I must be lucky, i have a Jet City combo in our living room, i dont thinknit would fit with any decor. To the OP, go second hand and pick up a HT-1 combo or for about 50 quid more the THR., less if you go for the 5 watter.