Guitar Gear Forum

I don't know much about this company except for that people either love them or hate them. I'm looking to possibly go back to a tube amp set up for gigging, but my back is so messed up these days. The days of half stacks are way over.

When I gig, I currently use a Line 6 HX into a FRFR or I go to the front of house direct. I dig the tone a lot. At home, I have an original Marshall JCM2000 DSL 50 going through an Avatar 212. I use the Line 6 HX via 4CM and I love the tone. It's the tone I've been searching for my whole life. It's perfect.

BUT, there's no way my back could make it through lifting up something that heavy. Additionally, I have arthritis in my arms and lifting anything more than 25 or so lbs for a period of time tightens up my arm ligaments making it impossible for me to even make a first, let alone play a show. So you can see why I currently have a simple setup. My FRFR speaker is about 20 or so lbs.

I recently discovered the Blackstar St James and the demos I hear sound pretty good. But i'm not finding a lot of users in the real world. Does anyone have any experience with them? Specifically the EL34 112 combo.

I also just saw the Amped Up 2. That seems like another awesome product(but no tubes).

I don't have any local dealers that carry these so i can't really try them before I buy.

Thoughts?

I haven't seen any in the wild either.... on paper it seems pretty impressive.... the idea of getting a 50 watt tube head that weighs less than 20lbs is great.... the demos sound pretty good too... my fear is the blackstar reliability TBH

I haven't played one but given your health issues I'd continue to gig with the HX or some other DI solution.

If you buy the BlackStar head, you still need a cab. That's not light. The combo version is 38lbs. Which is not bad for a combo, but still way over the 25lbs you can comfortably carry.

Just go DI. Your health is more important.

Consider an analog DI solution like the SansAmp, DSM Simplifier or Radial JDX Direct Drive with a few good pedals if you want to get away from digital. Or a pedalboard amp with a good DI (I think the Amped does that, the Bluguitar is good too).

But IMHO if you're going to carry an amp, might as well carry what you really want. It's never light no matter how you do it. Lightweight is DI.

I am not the biggest Blackstar fan, but i have heard these amps are improved from older blackstar amps, they have a bit more character to them

The clips have been decent but i yet to play one - The Jared James little combo i tried recently at Guitar center was pretty good tonally speaking, it was actually better than i thought it would be lol. Its more of a blues/rock amp but it wasnt that bad for a smaller combo

I've been mildly circling around these. The 112 is 28lbs and that is pretty attractive. The Blackstar name and price point enough to keep me away unless I came across an open box deal for significantly less. I wish the el34 was in the 6l6 finish.

JiveTurkey wrote:I've been mildly circling around these. The 112 is 28lbs and that is pretty attractive. The Blackstar name and price point enough to keep me away unless I came across an open box deal for significantly less. I wish the el34 was in the 6l6 finish.

Where did you see it's 28lbs?? Everywhere I looked said 38lbs...

***1776*** wrote:I am not the biggest Blackstar fan, but i have heard these amps are improved from older blackstar amps, they have a bit more character to them

The clips have been decent but i yet to play one - The Jared James little combo i tried recently at Guitar center was pretty good tonally speaking, it was actually better than i thought it would be lol. Its more of a blues/rock amp but it wasnt that bad for a smaller combo

I think their current tube amps sound good. Major improvement from where they started at. I'm not sure about reliability though.

GuitarBilly wrote:

JiveTurkey wrote:I've been mildly circling around these. The 112 is 28lbs and that is pretty attractive. The Blackstar name and price point enough to keep me away unless I came across an open box deal for significantly less. I wish the el34 was in the 6l6 finish.

Where did you see it's 28lbs?? Everywhere I looked said 38lbs...

Maybe you're seeing 212 combo specs? Sweetwater actually says 24 which is even better
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... -6l6-tubes

Friend of mine just got the 6l6 head version a month or 2 ago. Heard it on stage and it sounded better than his orange rockerverb. His wife is maybe 5’, 90 lbs and carry’s is one handed easily. I haven’t played it yet but probably will eventually. It sounded great!

Blackstar have a patent pending on using switched mode power supplies in guitar amps, but it's tied into a bunch of other broader stuff such as power supply impedance switching and ir switching which definitely has prior art. Recently the designer was interviewed and asked if they expect to see others offering light weight smps options and he said yes, so that's an indicator of things to come.

Certainly if power supply sag isn't important then smps is cheaper and lighter so why not? If it is then say can be emulated with a heatsinked resistor anyway.

No getting around iron for an OT though...

JiveTurkey wrote:

GuitarBilly wrote:

JiveTurkey wrote:I've been mildly circling around these. The 112 is 28lbs and that is pretty attractive. The Blackstar name and price point enough to keep me away unless I came across an open box deal for significantly less. I wish the el34 was in the 6l6 finish.

Where did you see it's 28lbs?? Everywhere I looked said 38lbs...

Maybe you're seeing 212 combo specs? Sweetwater actually says 24 which is even better
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... -6l6-tubes

Yes.

I was looking at the 2x12.


I'll see myself out.

Find a Tone King Falcon 1x10. 30lbs and tons of great features and most importantly sound. Oh yeah and MIA!!!!! Humbucker music has them on sale since they no longer make the 1x10 just the 1x12.

I dont have any opinion, since I havent tried it, but here's a video of Gus G using it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5U2XPZ5aKw