HT1R MKII 1x8" 1-watt Tube Combo Amp with Reverb Review

Great

Both the clean and overdrive channels sound great. The overall fit and finish is high quality. You can easily get a nice overdriven tone even at bedroom volumes.

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Great little amp.

Love this little amp …. Great for practice & you can crank the amp & your guitar to the point of break-up without getting overly loud . Very nice tones from this amp . Very satisfied with this purchase & highly recommend it.

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Killer

Huge rich sound, plenty of warmth and crispness in a surprisingly small enclosure...

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Great Sounding Amp

After buying this amp I read that some people believe that blackstar amps aren't real tube amps because they have solid state pre amps, making them in fact a hybrid. But I'd like to set the record straight on this because I was confused about this. Blackstar uses solid state preamps that basically act like boost pedals to push the tubes to the point of distortion. Most modern tube… read more amps have some solid state components. So they tone you get is mostly generated from the tubes, with some clipping generated outside the tubes at higher gain settings (probably). Having the solid state preamps is actually an advantage rather than some sort of cheapening mechanism. They allow you to distort your signal at lower volumes. Anyone who's played a tube amp without the more modern features will know that you have to crank them insanely loud to get any distortion, which makes them impractical for practice. This amp allows you to have crunchy tube tone at extremely low volumes, and also has the ability to get VERY loud. I was mostly looking for a pedeal platform in this amp and I found it. The amp takes pedals very well, much better than the modelling and solid state amps I've used in the past. The overdrive channel is especially useful for distortion pedals because you can switch into a highly distorted tone without a huge volume boost. The amp is also capable of generating an enormous amount of distortion and compression at its lowest volume. The clean channel is also capable of being pushed into crunchy overdrive but only at higher volumes. This is a very expensive-sounding amp that sounds as good in my opinion as many tube amps in the lower price ranges. It's also more practically useful for practicing, and has modern features like a headphone output. It's capable of getting very loud and also playing at very low volumes while still sounding just as good, unlike solid state amps which need to be cranked to get their best tone to come out. The digital reverb is also decent and sounds as good as a mid range pedal. The EQ feature is nice as you can dial in either a british or american sound, however you'll need to use pedals for overall tone control. I don't know of any other affordable small-size tube amps capable of generating such a wide variety of tone. Don't be fooled by purists saying it's a hybrid amp. The earlier generations had some solid state components in the tubes as well to make them cheaper, not sure about this one, but it still sounds like a tube amp and most of the distortion is tube-generated. If you want an affordable and practical practice amp that sounds as good as a vintage tube amp, then this amp is for you.

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Perfect

If you want a great little tube amp that's easy to move around, great with pedals and sounds awesome , this is the perfect choice. My favorite thing about it is you can play it at really low volume and it still sounds so good. It gets pretty loud but I don't think that's really what you want an amp this size for. The line in and headphone jack are a nice bonus. Highly recommended.

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