Sonnet 120 - 120-watt 1x 8" Combo Amp - Blonde Review

Pros and cons

First of all no chance to service it locally, you have to ship it to main service center.No chance to get schematic. Any minor problem like a scratching pot you have to ship it. No pro information. By experience I learned its effect inserts operate at almost useless level of minus 20 dB that is instrument level, not line level typically - 10 dB or switchable + 3 dB. The power is… read more a joke. It is comparable with my other 20 Watts amplifiers. It is either speaker problem or something else . The speaker sounds overdriven,farts and breaks at mid level especially in midrange spectrum. It is not clearly said it is compressed. Beautiful for fingerstyle but no way for more dynamic action like flamenco music. I also own a Fishman Artist. The sound is different. The Sonnet sounds softer and airy, its competitor sounds tight with better trebles with one tweeter agains two Sonnet's tweeters probably due to biamping and active crossover. The Fishman seems to produce better bass despite it is no bass reflex system. The Sonnet excells with high class reverbs although The Artist is more flexible with effects. The Sonnet has some great features like high pass filter and sparkle. Shape feature that is really a contour in hi fi terminology. Great when playing at low level. The Sonnet is superior with channel sends that can be switched between pre and post position. What needs to be done by a customer is to add metal corners otherwise the leather like vinyl finish is substandard (I own black version). They told me at Blackstar such a modification won't void warranty. I like aux input level control with the Artist but I don't care for headphones input. The effects sound horrible with mono output. Generally all amps should have stereo effects send for spatial sound if two extra active monitors are used. It is too bad the Sonnet has no extension speaker output and unfortunately it could not use one because its speaker is a 4 ohm not expandable in parallel. The Fishman could,t use expansion speaker because it is electronically crossovered. Generally the Sonnet looks more classy and conservative. I intend to test the Sonnet with Eminence Acoustinator speaker that is 8 ohms. Theoretically the output might be not as loud but it depends on efficency of the speaker. Unfortunatelly they refused to give the spects of original "natural" speaker.

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PERFECT DESIGN BEHIND IT

Please accept my review of a person who hasn'n bought it yet but I am impressed by the design concept and from what i see it is a quality product.For my whole life of a troubadur I still bounce from walls between a small mixer and amplifier. So far none has reached mixer's flexibility for the price of those numerous cables. What the guys from Blackstar did is much options in simple… read more clear design. Why those usual various effects if none of them meet the professional standards. Yes, for acoustic instruments Blackstar concentrated on reverbs only and if one looks for choruses and delays one will employ outside boxes and this amp does provide send and return on both channels. What I miss in advance is lack of effect level controls. In times where usually rack effects were used they had input and output level controls, many advanced padals today don't have it. I wihed I had a 1/4 input jack for aux in addition to 1/8 and its level control. What I don't see and is not explained in the manual is lack of input overload leds. I'm not sure if I have input flexibility fom my passive LR Baggs low signal pick ups and some hotter magnetics, or how to adopt a preamp like my PADI. Will the pad button switch me from 10 Mega to , say 500 K or 1 Mega ? None of this is clear from the manual. What I like are separate sends from channels that will drive my small active monitors offering nice stage sound saturation in higher register. I plan to use TC Helicon Acoustic Player with Sonnet central attack and all those harmonies and spatial effects send to active monitors for stereo spread. I will wait a moment to see answers to my questions and maybe the British guys will introduce some upgrades to this great design.

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