Blackstar HT-5RH MkII 5W 1x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp Black

In the acoustic realm you'll hear plenty of mentions of a couch guitar. Well this is my couch amp. It has a fairly small footprint and sits in front of the end table, next to the couch where I sit and play a lot. Looks great and lightweight, easy to move around as needed. I've had it for 4 or 5 months now. It has great, sparkly cleans but the low end can be unruly. There is just one "tone" knob that is the eq for the clean channels so not really possible to reduce the low end and maintain the rest of the spectrum. And when you flip to the OD channels, the bass disappears almost completely, even with it dimed. I recently picked up a good distortion pedal (MXR Super Bada$$) which also includes a 3-band eq and it sounds great into the Blackstar clean, and allows me to balance the sound to my liking. The onboard gain I like, it's another tonal flavor. It's not my favorite, I don't find myself thinking Ooh, I want to hear that Blackstar gain, but it's fine. I usually keep it on the .5 watt setting. The 5 watt is quite loud. By comparison I have a Marshall DSL40CR that I always keep on 40w rather than 20w, but it has a master and a number of other controls so a little easier to manage desired volume vs sound quality. ISF: I've had a couple of other Blackstar amps with the ISF feature and I have to say it had a more noticeable affect on those other amps than it does on this one, on which it does very little. I've read a lot of comments about QC issues and faults with these Blackstar amps but I have not experienced any glitches or faults of any kind with mine. It has functioned perfectly. Would I buy it again? For the price, I probably would. It still has the most fendery cleans of any amp or digital rig I have at the moment, and again the relatively compact size for a 12", without dampening the sound in any way, I particularly like.

I wanted and needed it to work. Both both the HT5 & Then HT20. The 20 gave enough headroom but both the 5 & 20 had the same inherent weaknes. The gain stinks! It's dark and muddy at low volumes which is why I bought them. The reduced power made it worse. Pedal or EQ's don't help. The clean on the 20 was ok but nothing more. For the money there are FAR better choices.

Decent little amp. I love the 0.5w switch to drive it a little harder at low volumes. Unfortunately there's a loud popping sound when I footswitch between clean and crunch. The EQ is very nice, and although I'd probably prefer more options, the tone knob on the clean channel is great. The reverb could do with a longer tail. When you dial in more, it just adds more room like reverb to the mix.

I've had the amp for a few months now. It was exactly what I was looking for. This is mostly a bedroom amp for me in my apartment, and at the 0.5W setting this thing has more than enough power. I never even have it turned past half way, and most of the time that's too loud. I've cranked it on the 5W channel a few times and it did not disappoint. The effects loop is a very nice touch, and something that you don't usually find with a tube amp this size. I use the effects loop for a loop pedal so that I can loop a clean tone and then switch to overdrive for lead tones without effecting the clean loop. The included footswitch allows you to switch between the two voices of both clean and overdrive channels. With low gain you can get a nice crunch sound, and of course Blackstar has fantastic high gain tones as well. While I prefer spring reverb, the included reverb actually sounds surprisingly good, and I tend to just keep it on at around 30-40% all the time. I have been using the emulated 4x12 output to do some recording as well and it sounds fantastic. My one complaint is that the USB interface does not seem to give a hot enough signal, but it's not really a problem since it has emulated outputs as well.

Love this little amp. Proaudiostar is selling them for 250 right now. Cant beat that in its price range. Has two channels. The first is ver nice and clean and the second has a wide range of tone. Very impressive for its size. Its a real tube amp so it has great mids and not insane bass.

What a great little amp. 2 channels with 2 voices each. You could easily gig with this amp at smaller gigs if your drummer isn't a beater. Sounds as good as my HT40 MK2 though it looks the boost function (6db volume adder via footswitch) of that amp. Very expressive - I couldn't be happier. This may be the absolute perfect home amp.