I’d been struggling with a solution for playing at home, especially when Mrs NickD is working and I’m not. My 18w Marshall is too loud, even with the attenuator on full, and the Roland Cube is a bit tinny to be honest, fine clean, and the effects are fun, but I don’t find the amp models all that satisfying. So I end up playing unamplified most of the time.
My local Cash Converters has had this Blackstar HT5 in for a little while, but it was too expensive TBH. They reduced it recently, and I made a cheeky offer a little below that, and got it this morning.
First impressions are that it sounds great at the volumes I need it to run at, I’ve gone through the different modes and voicings and settled on a vintage American sound, so probably an approximation of an old Fender. The 12 inch speaker means it has decent enough bass response, and on the 0.5 watt setting it isn’t disturbing Mrs NickD. Result. It also has the bonus of fitting pretty neatly between the cd racks and the records, so it doesn’t look messy in my office. It’s got a load of features too, line in, speaker emulated jack and line out, which also works on headphones.
No idea what it sounds like cranked, probably nowhere near as good as the Marshall, but then that isn’t the point.
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