Home › Forums › Discuss Your Gear › Looking for an amplifier
- This topic has 9 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 11 months ago by Anonymous.
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May 12, 2020 at 8:04 am #173800
I am looking for a new amplifier. I am a bedroom guitarist. Is a Blackstar HT-1R mkii or a Blackstar HT-5R mkii a good and not too expensive amplifier for what I want (playing in my hobby room)
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May 12, 2020 at 8:46 am #173804
Both good choices, can I also suggest that you have a look at Yamaha’s THR range.
..Billy..
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May 12, 2020 at 9:18 am #173806
And try out a Boss Katana II if you can. An extremely popular amp right now.
Richard
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May 12, 2020 at 9:24 am #173807
Hi Jan, I have a Blackstar HT-5r and love it. Although, sometimes I wish I had something more like a Boss Katana for the simulated tones built into the amp. Way more ability as far as tones without having to buy a single pedal. The Blackstar sounds great though and works awesome with pedals.
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May 12, 2020 at 11:46 am #173813
I have a BOSS Katana 50. It’s good, but too many options. Sometimes you are working with the amplifier more than you are playing the guitar. I want something simpler with good sound. Possibly with a separate delay.
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May 12, 2020 at 3:33 pm #173818
I would recommend the HT-5R. I have both a 30W Blackstar modeling amp (no tubes) with many effects, and a 15W Blackstar tube amp which has no effects except reverb and overdrive. On the clean setting, the tube amp sounds much nicer to me and everyone who hears it. And I found that the multitude of effects on the modeling amp are nowhere near as easy to locate and adjust as actual pedals. Whether it be tremolo, reverb, delay, or flanger, those effects are fairly primitive compared to actual pedals. And also, you can’t adjust the arrangement sequence – the order in which the signal is processed by the effects – which is sometimes important. One thing I have learned: It takes watts to make bass. The more watts the amp, the better the bass sounds are.
Sunjamr Steve
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May 12, 2020 at 4:41 pm #173830
I have the Blackstar HT-1R head. It’s pretty loud for a 1 watt amp. If you want the tube tone without being too loud, get this one. I use this with an Orange 1 x 12 speaker cabinet.
I also have the Yamaha THR10. It sits next to my computer and use it as a practice amp while watching lessons. It’s a very good amp to have as well.
If you want a clean tube tone, check out the Vox Lil’ Night train. It’s a very simple 2 watt amp and perfect for bedroom level.
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May 12, 2020 at 7:31 pm #173839
The Blackstars are good amp choices and a lot of people like them. I have a Bugera G5 head, which is a clone of the HT-5. Great features for a bedroom amp. My only beef with it is you will need pedals on the clean channel to get good clean distortion and the single tone control on the clean channel don’t offer much choice for dialing in. The overdrive channel is a little to much for my taste and I feel more geared toward rock/heavy metal than blues.
A couple months ago I picked up a used Hughes and Kettner Tubemeister 5 head. This is a simpler amp so is easy to set and doesn’t have the features of the Blackstar but I’m blown away by both the clean and driven tones I can get out of it. Of course since it doesn’t have built in Reverb you still need pedals. 😉
-Doug
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May 23, 2020 at 5:13 am #174705
I have had a Yamaha THR10C since 2013. It’s a great sounding amp at low volumes, either through it’s stereo speakers or headphones. The inbuilt effects and amp models are quite good as well. It also connects to a computer through USB which means you can play a lesson or jam track from the computer to the THR and play along. Having said that, the new model THRII amps are very expensive IMO. If I was looking for a home amp today, I would almost certainly get a Boss Katana II 50w.
DC
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May 23, 2020 at 11:04 am #174716Anonymous
A lot of good suggestions. I use a Carvin V3m. Tube amp, built in reverb. Reverb is a must with me. I never turn it off. It’s as loud as you need it but has a switch on the back to change it from 50 watts to 22 watts or 7 watts for the size of the room. The only effects pedal I use right now is a memory man deluxe. I use that mainly for delay and slapback echo. There are a lot of controls on the Carvin, and three channels with a footswitch. Funny thing. I rarely mess with the settings. I have a clean channel, an overdrive channel, and one kind of in the middle. When I dust I use a feather duster so I don’t mess up the settings. I should really play around and tweak the damn thing a little but it seems like too much work. I do keep a little Roland Cube amp, 15 watts, solid state. I don’t know why I have it. It just collects dust.
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