Blackstar HT 60 stage/soloist

[spikei]

HI, Really close to getting one of these combo's, are they to good to be true? sound like great value for money. would i be better off with a second hand mesa f 50? or maybe a bogner alchemist.
any advice welcome,
want to try something other than marshall.
cheers
spike

 

[lucidspoon]

I have the HT-20, and it's a great amp, especially for the price. It's a great complimentary amp for someone who has a Marshall. You can get vintage-type sounds verging on Marshall to a much more modern sound. They're very high gain amps though. They only clean up on the Overdrive channel if you have the Gain pretty low.

If you like your Marshall, but want something that can do heavier / higher gain sounds, Blackstar is a good option in my opinion. And they're designed by former Marshall engineers, so you know they're good quality.

 

[aussiebluesville]

I have the HT-20, and it's a great amp, especially for the price. It's a great complimentary amp for someone who has a Marshall. You can get vintage-type sounds verging on Marshall to a much more modern sound. They're very high gain amps though. They only clean up on the Overdrive channel if you have the Gain pretty low.

If you like your Marshall, but want something that can do heavier / higher gain sounds, Blackstar is a good option in my opinion. And they're designed by former Marshall engineers, so you know they're good quality.

I have the HT20 studio combo,it has a great sound,lovely clean channel and ch 2 has a real nice gain stage,i couldn't be any happier with this amp

 

[Buggs.Crosby]

spam reported

 

[moodus2006]

Don't know if you pulled the trigger on anything yet but I had a alchemist.. gone now. Owned Fender amps, twin, Super, Hot rod, Blues jr. all great at what they do but the Blackstar Stage 60 is my main gig rig now. Because it is clean and get dirty and do it well!

 

[spikei]

I have pulled the trigger but on a marshall jmd1c, (yet another one).
I am however still going to get a blackstar 60 soloist, they come out in mid Sept, so i will let you know about it.
thanks for the post and really glad you like the stage 60, i am going for the soloist because its a lighter 1 x 12 combo and it has a solo boost. most people i have spoken to love these amps.
any comments on the HT range welcome

 

[ToddOwnz]

+1 on anyone with a Blackstar ht!!! I'm also interested in these amps

 

[moodus2006]

The Ht-60 has me in love with my strat and les paul again! I am ripping tones out of this thing that are so sweet. The range of possible tones is top notch! I am a happy camper!

 

[probes]

Hi chaps, i was thinking a bit ago about the ht100 head, as im considering getting a dsl 50. What are the pros and cons here? The dsl has got what i want, crunch and good gain for rock, is ht up to this?

 

[pacAir]

I regularly gig with an HT-40 Club (purchased cheap with known issues, which I repaired) and love the tone. I use Strats, Les Pauls and "Les Paul" type guitars and the amp works great with all of them.

The ONLY thing I miss is the footswitchable Solo Boost function. I just placed an order for a shipping damaged HT-60 Soloist so as soon as it arrives and I can repair it (the clean channel works but the gain channel has no output) it's goin' out on the first available gig for an in-depth test-drive!

If the HT-60 soloist is just a louder/higher-headroom version of the HT-40 with a few extra knobs and the Solo Boost system, I'll be a very happy camper. I don't really want it to sound different than the HT-40 Club! I really dig that amp for Classic Rock and beyond. It has a very usable clean channel and is very versatile (more so than my Bogner Alchemist, which I still like for some things).

After living with, gigging with and working on the HT-40 Club I can find little to complain about. I think Blackstar has done a great job delivering awesome tone and decent quality construction for the price. The Engineering that went into making these amps what they are is stunning and impressive.

 

[DWK302]

Wierd thread. 4,475 views and 9 responses.

 

[pacAir]

I noticed the views-to-reply ratio as well! That is why I elected to post my take on the subject since it is "down-the road" from all the other posts and is likely to possibly help someone weigh their options.

Since my previous post, I have purchased 2 HT-60 Soloist amps (both damaged in shipping) and repaired them. In stock "repaired" condition they did NOT sound as good as my HT Club 40 and had some additional sonic problems as well.

I applied my "formula" modifications to these amps (as I had done to my HT Club 40) in order to give them a chance (especially since these were damaged in shipment and could still have issues).

Personally, I like a good full-bodied high-headroom clean channel to start with. One of the HT-60 Soloists (Soloist #1) would distort if the Clean channel Volume was turned up past 9 o'clock (when driven with a standard Strat neck pick-up no less)! Soloist #2 had this weird "after-tone" on all the clean notes and had a strange low-end anomaly when trying to push some bass energy out of the speaker.

I replaced all the stock tubes from units in my spares box... a 5750 (US Made Philips NOS, lower gain) was installed for the Clean channel tube and a new Tungsol 12AX7 was installed for the Gain channel tube (this amp design does not share tubes or tube sections, each "channel" has it's own tube). Most of the unwanted distortion and headroom issues in the Clean channels disappeared and the amp started to sound good but still sounded funny in the low end.

On one amp I installed Electro-Harmonix EL34 output tubes, in the other I installed a pair of Svetlana EL34. I checked the bias and set them to an appropriate level (a little "hotter" than factory stock). The sound quality once again improved!

I then completed the transition by replacing the cheaper Celestion stock speaker with a quality Celestion Vintage 30 derivative... The Avatar Hellatone HT60L. This is a 16-ohm version of the Vintage 30 that is optimized for better low-end performance. It is built with a small dustcap, slightly different cone material and has been "exercised" to break the speaker in before use (less stiff, better tone).

Wow! The amps both came alive (just as my Club 40 with the same mods had done a year earlier)... high headroom dynamic Clean channels with marvelous tone (good enough to play Jazz on) and a tight beefy-but-focused Gain Channel that was a joy to play! I had a hard time putting down the guitar! Quite an improvement over the uninspiring "plastic" sounding amps I started with!

Note: The components and board layout of the HT-60 internal circuitry is VERY similar to the HT Club 40 and as expected the HT-60 Soloist appears to be a louder version of the Club 40 with a few extra features (Presence control, configurable Boost circuit and 4-button footswitch primarily).

I believe that these amps occasionally sound this good out of the box but they are not individually "tweeked" because they are inexpensive production consumer products built to a price point. The underlying engineering seems to be very good and only a little TLC is necessary to ensure that you enable the amp to do its best by substituting high-quality parts for the most obvious "money-saver" components.

I wonder how these amps would sound with better magnetics?


Steve