Blackstar HT Venue Series Club 40 MkII 40W 1x12 Combo Black

Hey Guitar Center... Per your own words - "Boutique-Level Tone, clean channel with unmatched purity and flexibility and an overdrive channel with richer, more complex saturation. offers everything from warm, mid-focused crunch to tight, high-gain leads, Infinite Shape Feature Provides Massive Tonal Variety, seemingly endless range of tones. The ISF control shifts the EQ curve of the amp's Bass, Middle and Treble controls, aggressive American voice with tight lows and mids, British with an open, airy quality,"classic crunch" and "super saturated lead", Packed With Player-Friendly Features, Beyond its exceptional tone, digital reverb offers more depth and detail than previous Venue versions. perfect for small gigs, practice and recording, A Portable and Powerful Tube Amp for All Players..." Hey Guitar Center! I have a tower in Paris I'll sell you!

This amplifier is sloppy and cheap. The overdrive gain control on the overdrive channel produces scratchy noises when operated and goes from zero distortion to massive distortion instantly when turning the gain knob from "0" to just one millimeter rotation. There is no way to moderate the level of distortion. Blackstar would have been more honest to simply install a gain on and off switch. That is all the overdrive gain control knob does. You either have zero gain or massive gain. The power tube bias / balance adjustment controls are hidden. You have to send the amp to Blackstar or a "Blackstar certified" tech just to install new tubes. Tubes must be biased to function optimally and last. But do not trust Blackstar to adjust the gain properly or install matched tubes as required universally with all tube amplifiers. The bias was not adjusted properly when I bought the amplifier new. Either the power tubes Blackstar installed were not matched or they were not biased properly at the factory. This is at least one condition that contributed to premature frying of tubes. I contacted a former employee of Blackstar who sent me instructions on how to adjust the bias / balance for the power tubes myself. The bias / adjusting pots produce scratchy noises when adjusting them because they are low quality pots like the low quality overdrive gain control knob. The overdrive channel amplifies the 60 cycle power buzz from any buildings electrical 110VAC power supply circuit so loud it interferes with the music you play. The only way to avoid that problem is simply never play the overdrive channel. This problem also occurs on the clean channel if you turn up the the volume any louder than what is approproiate in your bedroom or very small venues. Blackstars instruction manuel is very lacking. It does not include the facts that you should warm the amp up for 15 to 20 minuets before playing and that the "standby" position of the "standby" switch should never be used to silence the amp for rmore than a few minuets. Blackstar, for some reason, does not want you to know how to properly operate a tube amp or they are too cheap to provide a comprehensive owers manual. While warming up in "standby" mode, 2 to 3 minuets after turning the power on, a scratchy loud pop noise comes from the speaker with no controls being operated or the guitar being plugged in. It occurs with nothing being touched. This occurs randomly. The "voice" control buttons operate like toggels between "voice" and no "voice". Sometimes the amp retains the "voice" setting last used, sometimes it does not. This occurs randomly. Blackstar built this amlifier with the least expensive Celestion speaker avalibale for its size. This fact alone proves Blackstar designed this amplifier with one thing in mind... maximum profit using the lowest quality products an labor to undercut the average market price while appealing to the widest range of musicians possible. This is the lowest priced amp in its class and size and is a waste of money for any musician.

I've had this amp for 4 years now. I love the sound of it on all channels. It's very versatile. But I'm about to replace pre-amp tubes for the third time in 4 years. I was playing on Sundays at church, but for the last year, the amp has been in my house, and I'm not playing nearly enough for it to go through tubes like this. I reached out to Blackstar, and they were no help, and wanted me to take it into Korg in the USA for service. I doubt I'm doing that, so I guess I'm buying preamp tubes annually now.

I have two amps at home: a Mesa Mark V 35 combo, and the Blackstar HT 40 MKii. I gig every weekend. I play mostly rock-to-metal. From a playing-live standpoint, Blackstar did ALMOST EVERYTHING right: Pros: - Single Master volume for both channels. - FX Loop can be +4db or -10db - this is VERY useful for any troublemaker pedal such as the famous Carbon Copy, which I use in the loop. - Foot controller can switch from crunch to lead in a click on channel 2 and to clean to channel 1 seamlessly. - It has an unnecessary, but totally cool, amount of gain. I run it at 12 o'clock to play heavy riffs and kick the channel with a TS9 for leads live, none recording. Not needed. - The lead voice is amazing; the OD voice is phenomenal for rhythm or soft rock with a boost on top. - Cleans are cleans. Good articulation, nothing crazy though, I can't speak it a lot because I mostly live on lead/crunch land. - The DI out (XLR) is fuller than the Mesa's - less crunchy, but true to the character of the amp. - I have the 5 buttons foot controller, very nice, but not a must have. I do not use the boost, but a mini spark. Reverb it works. Not as good as a real tank (like the Mesa) but it works. - The 4-watt mode is a MUST if you play at home. Cons: - The Seventy80 (stock Celestion) is a bad choice. I swapped it for a Celestion V30 and the amp literally came to life. Crunchier, present, clear. - The foot-controller exclusive boost is unproportionate, almost unusable. We could use a knob or trim pot to change it. - No presence control. ISF kinds of works like that, I run it at 12 o'clock, and I love the tone I get, very balanced. - Cut cost on useless USB recording and add it to better speaker, boost knob or presence. - The cable of the stupid 2 button foot controller, which is 100% enough for any use, can't be de-attached.

Plenty of power to do gigs including pushing a 2x12 or 4x12 external cab. Cleans are sweet and gain is mean. The video I posted is playing through the BlackStar with a little delay and then I kicked on the wah.

Mostly being used in my home studio with my American Strat and an ESP LTD EC1000 with EMG pickups that rock ! Talk about a punchy chord sound, exactly what I wanted :) Shades of Richie Faulkner ! I have only turned the Master Volume up to 3 as not to disturb my neighbors who are retired.