HT5RH MKII 5-watt Tube Head with Reverb Review

Blackstar 5-Watt, perfect for my use

Thanks to Ryan Gregory at Sweetwater for helping me decide on which small tube amp to get. I have a number of amps, including an old Tweed Deluxe TV amp. I needed a low volume amp for practice, that included Reverb, a Headphone out jack and preferred a direct out to record also. Combined with the power reduction circuit that allows me to reduce the outage, this was the perfect… read more amp for my purposes. The clean channel has enough headroom, even at 5-watts to get crystal clear tones. And being able to (using the Infinite Shape Feature) to go from essentially an over-driven American Fender sound to an over driven British sound makes this amp wildly versatile. I'm running it mainly through a 12" Celestion Vintage 30 single cab.

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USB Bridge!

Awesome tone. Very versatile. This actually works out to being a 4 channel amp with the voice selection in each channel. I have played several styles of music through this - blues, country, jazz, pop, punk, rock, hard rock, and just about all forms of heavy metal. This head sounds great right out of the box, and it's easy to find any tone with just a little knob twisting.… read more Choices for recording are as diverse as you would ever expect to find. You get an emulator for simulated cabinets out. The USB out is worth the price of admission alone considering what tube interfaces are running. XLR, 1/4", 1/8", and USB - is there another way to get your signal to the recorder? Great cleans, and they crunch up nicely at about 12 o'clock. It's not super loud when totally clean, but plenty for recording at about 100 dB at the cone. The upper registry of the clean tone actually serves as a nice crunch channel with just a little dialing. The .5w function keeps things nice and quiet for your sleeping significant other; phones too - Killer overdrive; absolutely searing when maxed out. Anything from 60's British to 20's Black, and very responsive; growly and dark as I want for a black metal project. A little splash of overdrive almost picks up right where the clean breakup leaves off. I have tried it through several speaker configurations, and the HT5 is incredible - 1x10 & 2x10 from the Marshall MS series (glassy); Marshall 2x12 (perfect); 4x12 V30's in Engl and Mesa - 5w gets soaked out pretty fast here - just too much speaker for 5w to drive. The 80/20's seemed a little tinny, but I like a lower/hot mid tone. I'm settling on a Silverline 2x12 V30's, and I imagine that this will be where it sits for the duration. Blackstar was listening, and it shows.

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How does it cost this little?

This amp makes an incredible pedal platform. As a stand-alone amp, it is one of the better low-wattage, single-endes amps I've heard by far. I honestly wasn't expecting it to be this good. 5 watts can still be pretty loud with the right speaker and too, but if you love with other people or in an apt the 0.5 watt butting does make it instantly useable, a very nice feature. Effects… read more loop, DI out, switchable channels each with their own switchable voicings, they packed a lot into this little amp, & honestly everything seems useable, even with sitting in between 2 high-end amps at the moment.

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Absolutely loving this amp!

After 30+ years of gigging, those days are behind me now and all I need is tone that inspires me to play in a 6th floor apartment without getting evicted. But I also wanted something more than the 1 watt offerings in case I ever play parties & get-togethers again without a drummer drowning out my playing. A tube amp was what I was looking for and I already had a solid speaker cabinet.… read more I watched countless demo and review videos and noticed 2/3 liked this amp, 1/3 hated it. With Sweetwater's generous return policy, I took a flier. And man, am I glad I did! With or without pedals, this amp covers all the rock, thrash & blues music I can push thru it. Even at half a watt power scaling, the tone isn't lost. This is quite likely the last amp I'll ever need for my purposes. If like me, you're on the fence about buying this head, let me assure you it won't disappoint. As far as longevity and road abuse issues, it's too soon to tell, but as I said, my days of dragging gear into dirty taverns or the backs of vans are well behind me so this isn't a concern. Look over the many features you get for that almost budget price (for a proper tube head) and it's really a no-brainer.

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Best Amp Purchase Ever

Don't be fooled by the 5watt rating. This amp is loud, but it can also be quite as a church mouse. It also has some of the best guitar sounds I've ever heard come out of a stock amp head in over 50 years of playing. I had a Hughes Ketter TM18 and thought that was good but this amp eclipses that amp everyday of the week. Just check out the features and you'll have to agree that versatility… read more is this amps middle name. I'm considering purchasing a second one to have sitting in my living room to plug into there. What an engineering marvel this amp is. Thanks to Jeff Barnett as always for excellent service and attention to detail, best Sweetwater salesperson hands down.

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