Guitar Gear Forum

I took a friend's son to practice today (he's learning to play) and he asked me if I could play a few songs with his new amp head so he could hear it in a loud band environment. So I said yeah without even knowing what the amp was, imagining it would be a Marshall MG or something similar.
Well it wasn't, it was a BlackStar HT5 head. So not exactly the most exciting news I've had today.

I was worried it wasn't going to bee loud enough but it was fine. I used the drive channel with the master volume all the way up and the gain turned down and I had no issues with the volume. Anyway, surprisingly enough, the amp sounded pretty good too, very Marshall like with these settings. I ended up playing the whole first half of practice with it and actually really enjoyed it.

Definitely a good option for a cheap grab and go amp. It seems like BlackStar upped their game, these new amps sound way better than the original ones I'd played in the past.

GuitarBilly wrote:I took a friend's son to practice today (he's learning to play) and he asked me if I could play a few songs with his new amp head so he could hear it in a loud band environment. So I said yeah without even knowing what the amp was, imagining it would be a Marshall MG or something similar.
Well it wasn't, it was a BlackStar HT5 head. So not exactly the most exciting news I've had today.

I was worried it wasn't going to bee loud enough but it was fine. I used the drive channel with the master volume all the way up and the gain turned down and I had no issues with the volume. Anyway, surprisingly enough, the amp sounded pretty good too, very Marshall like with these settings. I ended up playing the whole first half of practice with it and actually really enjoyed it.

Definitely a good option for a cheap grab and go amp. It seems like BlackStar upped their game, these new amps sound way better than the original ones I'd played in the past.

That's a great review. I think your friend Mr. Fricker raved about that amp not to long ago.

Yeah Fricker is still an idiot though

i have my marshall class 5 head, it sounds like a proper marshall but its NMV and the sweet spot is too loud for home practice but im not sure enough for a band? most drummers ive played with are hard hitting neanderthals with no dynamics so its tough to tell

Yeah in a metal band with a heavy drummer 5w won't cut it. I actually don't like anything under 100w in that scenario, although some 50w amps can do it. But 5w for a metal band, no way..

I had an HT5 for a while when they first came out; I thought it was pretty awesome tbh as long as you didn't attempt any clean tones

Recorded some decent sounding clips with it

Of all the amps that Blackstar made i actually liked the regular 5 watt head the most

I played some of the others (combos and head) and they just seemed dull and a little lifeless with no real character to them? For whatever reason thought i did think the 5 watt head sounded better than all of them, not sure why lol

Yeah I was impressed with it.
It seems the 20w is cool too. Jared James Nichols is getting some really great tones out of his signature model, which looks like a slightly tweaked HT20. I may pick one of these up eventually as a low power option to my bigger rigs.

I've got the Hiwatt Hi-5 5w amp, I usually run it as the wet side of my wet dry rig at the house with my tweed Vibrolux. I've run it at a few practices, but the lack of clean headroom makes it a no-go for me. Perfect for the bedroom tho. Does it sound like a DR-103? I don't think so, but its still a sweet tone!

that's super cool-- little amps can be super fun in exactly that condition--- no preamp gain and the master up. it ain't super flexible, but blowing up the backside sure is fun. doing that with a 20 watter is REALLY fun with a drummer... but it sure makes you rely on your volume knob... i used to LOVE to blow up my ghia into a 412.. just sounded like a globby molten mass of harmonics wasn't much room for a loud clean sound.. but man what a dirt tone- it did clean up if you backed off though!