Build Quality - Blackstar Artisan

maw4neu

I had a quick look at the wiring on my Artisan 15. Totally awesome . . . Neat and definitely tidy . Cracking amp . . Very impressed .

dindude

Seriously, how are we supposed to bash Blackstar if you start a thread title like that and then go on to unexpectedly sing their praises. Pah.

 I can relate to this, when my Carr was being rehoused, I couldn't stop looking at the innards in wonderment. I have absolutely no idea what any of it does either.

IvisonGuitars

That'll be the Koreans. Recently been touring with 2 Artisan 30's. Blackstar are a superb company to deal with and look after their artists very well. The A30's are very well built and very reliable so far. I'm sure someone will chime in on the contrary in a minute though! :-)

Adamski

I thought the Artisan was the only one that was built in the Far East but then returned to the UK and hand wired? At least that was the marketing spew when it came out!

I had a Series One 45 and that was pretty tidy inside.

citizen68

Had an Artisan 15H & yes it was very neatly wired inside - all construction done in Korea afaik.

jpfamps

I've worked on a few Artisan 15s.

I would concur that they are well built, although they have made a few poor design choices in my opinion.

Running the HT at around 380 VDC is too high in my view for both reliability and tone (Marshall made this mistake on their first version the 18W reissue).

The rectifier is "hot switched" which is a bad idea, you are better off leaving the standby switch permanently on and just using the mains switch.

I've also seen a 100uF filter first filter in the last amp I saw, which is again not good for the rectifier.

Finally the schematic  I've seen has the HT fuse on the HT secondary centre tap, can leave the power transformer vunerable in the event of a rectifier short.

Nevertheless, these justifiably seem to be reliable and well-regarded amps. 

ecc83

"I've also seen a 100uF filter first filter in the last amp I saw, which is again not good for the rectifier."

Should be very few of those still around J, the cap was changed to 47mfd very early on, same for the A30.

Similarly the EL84 cathode resistor should be 120R 10W ( 68R 10W in the A30).

Dave.

Cirrus

How do they sound? I'm assume they're broadly vox based?

daveyh

On the A15, one channel is Vox AC15 and the other is Fender Champ IIRC

Sporky

ecc83 said:

the cap was changed to 47mfd very early on

That must double the size of the amp!

GuitarMonkey

Surely something like 47μF would be more appropriate?

martinw

Actually MFD is an acceptable abbreviation for microfarads.

Sporky

Bit confusing though - I accept I was being dim there, but milliFarad capacitors aren't that unusual, hence uF being the norm.

martinw

Yes, these days, uF is used (assuming you haven't got a mu on your keyboard...I wouldn't know where to look!)

Technically, uF (with mu) is a symbol, whereas MFD is an abbreviation. (insert smug smiley)

martinw

µF

Yay, google is my friend!

Sporky

martinw said:

Technically, uF (with mu) is a symbol, whereas MFD is an abbreviation. (insert smug smiley)

Ah - I missed the D on the end.

I'll shut up now. Sorry all!

jpfamps

martinw said:

µF

Yay, google is my friend!

Excellent I can cut and paste this now!

ecc83

Well, I did type mfd lower case.

I would think millifarad would be mF as mV is for millivolt? 

But then millivolt is a proper word and does not need a capital whereas the spell checker in Chrome tells me that millifarad is not a proper word.....Err?...µF..Ah! See what you mean J, but I am too friggin old and can't be arsed. I shall stay with mfd!

As to the A15/30 design comparables? Don't know but does anything else have an EF86 second stage in one channel?

Dave.

jpfamps

ecc83 said:

Well, I did type mfd lower case.

I would think millifarad would be mF as mV is for millivolt? 

But then millivolt is a proper word and does not need a capital whereas the spell checker in Chrome tells me that millifarad is not a proper word.....Err?...µF..Ah! See what you mean J, but I am too friggin old and can't be arsed. I shall stay with mfd!

As to the A15/30 design comparables? Don't know but does anything else have an EF86 second stage in one channel?

Dave.

By the way it's still "F"!