After trying both, I think I'm going for

[Tawlks]

The Blackstar.

I went to the shop yesterday and got to A/B the Blackstar HT-100 with the Jet City 100 watt. The cleans in the Blackstar are great, and although the 'base tone' of the Blackstar's OD channels aren't as authentic feeling as the Jet City, they still sound great and there's so much tweakability in this amp.

I think if I had a few other amps, say a 5150 for br00tz and a Fender Twin or a Roland JC and a Marshall then I'd go for the Jet City but since I can't afford to really have more than one amp at a time I'm going to have to favour versetility.

Can anyone comment on the reliability of Blackstar amps? On the Blackstar forum (which is useless, don't go there) there are lots of complaints about reliability, but the shop I tried one at said that the Jet City heads are really unreliable and the Blackstars are solid, complete opposite to what I've found on the internet.

EDIT: Does anyone know if these can take other valves or be modded to do so?

 

[Tawlks]

Bump?

 

[kasperjensen]

I would love to answer your question, but I only own a few pedals by BlackStar. No problems with them though.

 

[MYLILSS]

i have known a few people with the blackstar ht-5's and they havent had any problems with them. i dont know anything about the others though.

 

[Tawlks]

I would love to answer your question, but I only own a few pedals by BlackStar. No problems with them though.

Thanks anyway man, how are the pedals? Which ones do you own? I've been thinking about getting one or a Jet City pedal.

 

[Tawlks]

i have known a few people with the blackstar ht-5's and they havent had any problems with them. i dont know anything about the others though.

Thanks for chipping in. My understanding, based on reports of reliability and so on is that the HT-100 (and the 60, 40, etc) have a lot more complicated parts, especially the channel/voice switching systems that can break down sometimes. Lots of microchips in there.. I prefer solder and caps!

 

[kasperjensen]

I have the HT Dual, and The Blackfire.

Both hugely impressive in my opinion.

The Dual for nice saturated rock tones, or just soft OD.

The Blackfire for insanely heavy eat-puppies-for-breakfast evil gain. In the best possible way. I own it because I like to play stuff like that from time to time, but don't have any work involving it...

Oooh... I wonder how that pedal will sound with my new Brunetti 059 and the 4 x 15 Eminence Delta loaded cab...

 

[Tawlks]

I have the HT Dual, and The Blackfire.

Both hugely impressive in my opinion.

The Dual for nice saturated rock tones, or just soft OD.

The Blackfire for insanely heavy eat-puppies-for-breakfast evil gain. In the best possible way. I own it because I like to play stuff like that from time to time, but don't have any work involving it...

Oooh... I wonder how that pedal will sound with my new Brunetti 059 and the 4 x 15 Eminence Delta loaded cab...

Ooh, interesting, I'm more into boosts/soft OD so I may look at the Dual.

That Brunetti looks sweet! I really want a 415 cab, I'd love 2x12+1x15 cab in a 412 syle cabinet.

 

[university81]

i have 3 blackstar products that i use a lot

a Ht-5 at home that as said is used maybe 20-25 hours a week,

a blackstar artisan v30 cab - awesome

and a ht dual into a hiwatt custom100 for my main dirt/rhythm/lead tone - had it for over 2 months now, couldn't be happier, no reliability issues

only thing i did was to get the ht dual modded by a place called tonehunter in germany:

low volume, but gives an idea of what it's capable of, it smoothens out the sound a bit more to my ears a bit warmer, and gives an even more amp like kind of feel/texture to the sound, for about 80 euros shipped it's a worthwhile investment

have fun with the amp, i'm curious to try out the series one amps after seeing Katatonia use them last week

 

[Milo]

i have 3 blackstar products that i use a lot

a Ht-5 at home that as said is used maybe 20-25 hours a week,

a blackstar artisan v30 cab - awesome

and a ht dual into a hiwatt custom100 for my main dirt/rhythm/lead tone - had it for over 2 months now, couldn't be happier, no reliability issues

only thing i did was to get the ht dual modded by a place called tonehunter in germany:

low volume, but gives an idea of what it's capable of, it smoothens out the sound a bit more to my ears a bit warmer, and gives an even more amp like kind of feel/texture to the sound, for about 80 euros shipped it's a worthwhile investment

have fun with the amp, i'm curious to try out the series one amps after seeing Katatonia use them last week

Where do you find the dual for that kind of money,in Euorpe (if new)? Great sounding piece of gear.

 

[bigangryguitar]

the inside of the amp looks just like the engl's and Peavey's I have had apart. I have had mine for six months with no issues and the shop I got it at sells a ton and said they have had 0 issues. Stock tubes are a bit so\so in my opinion on these (something has to give for that price to sound that good). Some good EH's el34's, jj ecc82 and a couple tung sol 12ax7's and it's the best amp I have had. Good luck.

 

[srinivassa]

Try futzing around with clean ---into---> OD sounds and see what you like. You probably already tried this, but....

Mess around with the 'normal' channel on the Jet City. Get it up good and loud and play clean stuff. Listen for where it breaks up. The store won't stop you from making noise if you're going to buy a $650 amp head. Do the same for the 'clean' channel of the Blackstar Dual.

I have heard that the Blackstar holds onto its clean headroom a lot better than the Jet City. I haven't been able to compare, but from what I've heard, the difference should be obvious. I wouldn't crank the 2nd channel, just get a feel for it.

Anyway, that's how I'd pick. You could easily get a lemon regardless of the amp you chose. You might want to check for a local guy who is authorized to repair Jet City and/or Blackstar. Can do warranty work, etc. My main criteria would be to hear where I had more clean headroom and what the breakup sounded like on both channels. I think that is going to be the biggest difference in the amps.

 

[Tawlks]

Try futzing around with clean ---into---> OD sounds and see what you like. You probably already tried this, but....

Mess around with the 'normal' channel on the Jet City. Get it up good and loud and play clean stuff. Listen for where it breaks up. The store won't stop you from making noise if you're going to buy a $650 amp head. Do the same for the 'clean' channel of the Blackstar Dual.

I have heard that the Blackstar holds onto its clean headroom a lot better than the Jet City. I haven't been able to compare, but from what I've heard, the difference should be obvious. I wouldn't crank the 2nd channel, just get a feel for it.

Anyway, that's how I'd pick. You could easily get a lemon regardless of the amp you chose. You might want to check for a local guy who is authorized to repair Jet City and/or Blackstar. Can do warranty work, etc. My main criteria would be to hear where I had more clean headroom and what the breakup sounded like on both channels. I think that is going to be the biggest difference in the amps.

Thanks for the advice.

I didn't crank either of them, but I did notice that the Jet City sounds much... bigger at any volume, on both channels, the Blackstar sounds to me like an amp after recording, it almost felt like I was listening to the recording of the amp rather than being in the room with it, not fully, but that was one of my first thoughts. I actually thought that the Jet City sounded kinda overbearing, it was so huge sounding, lots of bass, lots of oomph, which surprised me actually. The Blackstar's OD-2 channel was sweet, thought it was great, beats the JC for modern tones but I thought that the OD-1 channel was lacking a little, then again I was playing through a Greenback cab which I have never played through before and I didn't have enough time to play with settings and my pedals as well.

I didn't feel that the ISF did what it is said to do. Cool range of tones though. The cleans on the Blackstar's warmer voicing were great, the tinnier, more sharp voicing I didn't like much at all, for the same reason I wasn't happy with the 5150 II cleans.

I've heard both great and shit things about the loops of both amps, same with the reliability. The Jet City in the shop had a non-working LED indicator light which pissed me off. There was no latancy with channel switching, no excessive hum, although the Blackstar had more hiss at similar gain levels.

The shop gives a 1 year warrenty that covers replacement, repair, etc. I have a friend who goes to the music college down the road and gets a 20% discount on everything there. I'd rather take an amp to my tech than the store tech since he's reasonable with price, experienced and friendly. One important thing for me is that if I got a Jet City and it broke down, simple repair, proabbly a solder job. If the Blackstar broke down I'd have to send it off to Guildford to then have them send it off to the Blackstar factory for a new microchip.

Sorry for the super long post.

Tawlks.

 

[srinivassa]

Try futzing around with clean ---into---> OD sounds and see what you like. You probably already tried this, but....

Mess around with the 'normal' channel on the Jet City. Get it up good and loud and play clean stuff. Listen for where it breaks up. The store won't stop you from making noise if you're going to buy a $650 amp head. Do the same for the 'clean' channel of the Blackstar Dual.

I have heard that the Blackstar holds onto its clean headroom a lot better than the Jet City. I haven't been able to compare, but from what I've heard, the difference should be obvious. I wouldn't crank the 2nd channel, just get a feel for it.

Anyway, that's how I'd pick. You could easily get a lemon regardless of the amp you chose. You might want to check for a local guy who is authorized to repair Jet City and/or Blackstar. Can do warranty work, etc. My main criteria would be to hear where I had more clean headroom and what the breakup sounded like on both channels. I think that is going to be the biggest difference in the amps.

Thanks for the advice.

I didn't crank either of them, but I did notice that the Jet City sounds much... bigger at any volume, on both channels, the Blackstar sounds to me like an amp after recording, it almost felt like I was listening to the recording of the amp rather than being in the room with it, not fully, but that was one of my first thoughts. I actually thought that the Jet City sounded kinda overbearing, it was so huge sounding, lots of bass, lots of oomph, which surprised me actually. The Blackstar's OD-2 channel was sweet, thought it was great, beats the JC for modern tones but I thought that the OD-1 channel was lacking a little, then again I was playing through a Greenback cab which I have never played through before and I didn't have enough time to play with settings and my pedals as well.

I didn't feel that the ISF did what it is said to do. Cool range of tones though. The cleans on the Blackstar's warmer voicing were great, the tinnier, more sharp voicing I didn't like much at all, for the same reason I wasn't happy with the 5150 II cleans.

I've heard both great and shit things about the loops of both amps, same with the reliability. The Jet City in the shop had a non-working LED indicator light which pissed me off. There was no latancy with channel switching, no excessive hum, although the Blackstar had more hiss at similar gain levels.

The shop gives a 1 year warrenty that covers replacement, repair, etc. I have a friend who goes to the music college down the road and gets a 20% discount on everything there. I'd rather take an amp to my tech than the store tech since he's reasonable with price, experienced and friendly. One important thing for me is that if I got a Jet City and it broke down, simple repair, proabbly a solder job. If the Blackstar broke down I'd have to send it off to Guildford to then have them send it off to the Blackstar factory for a new microchip.

Sorry for the super long post.

Tawlks.

Yeah, I like that about the Jet City stuff I've heard. It's a rude dude. Pure beef train OD. I'd be tempted by the Blackstar for a main amp though. I would think it would be more versatile, but you've heard more than I have at this point.

I know what you mean about the cleans. This is why a lot of people who are clean players will opt for a Fender or a Vox. Amp builders have to play with tradeoffs a lot. One of them is a clean/dirty thing. Higher gain amps will have a more stretched and sometimes icepicky clean. This is because every triode in the head has to be overdriven. This usually means that a good OD amp will have the more stretched sounding clean. It's actually due to more gain at each triode and often bigger resistors in the clean signal path and/or smaller value treble bypass caps. I did a mod like this to an amp and learned. It's brutal now, but the cleans are utilitarian. You can run pedals through them, and they sound alright, but they are pretty thin and tinny.

An LED out on the floor model doesn't mean much of anything. Floor models get beat up. They are never as good as 'new in box.' And yeah, I was concerned about having a local guy for warranty work. Sometimes that can be the deciding factor, having to ship something off to get it fixed versus just having a local guy who can bill the company for warranty work.