The “Star” of the show – Blackstar HT Studio 20

“Clean Bright Sharp Resonant Crisp Clear Warm Fat Dirty Bitey Driven Filthy Snarling Barking Brutal Wailing Screaming Tone”.

Ht Venue Series

That’s what it says on the card hanging from the volume knob anyways. (not in the pic though as it’s straight from the website.)

Blackstar HT Studio 20 Combo

Blackstar HT Studio 20 Combo

Yes you guessed it, my latest aquisition – The Blackstar HT Studio 20 Combo and what a spec. Straight off the Blackstar website:

The HT Studio 20 combo is the big brother of our critically acclaimed HT-5 and offers huge versatility for home, rehearsal or studio use. The carefully voiced preamp coupled with a cathode-biased EL34 power amp, provides the user with the ability to create wonderfully lush valve tones through the 12” Celestion speaker.

• 20 Watt valve combo
• 2xECC83, 2xEL34
• Two footswitchable channels
• 12” Celestion speaker
• Enhanced tone controls
• Patent-Applied for Infinite Shape Feature (ISF)
• Master volume
• Digital reverb
• Speaker emulated output
• Effects loop
• 1-way footswitch included
• Cool vintage styling

I have been looking for this spec for a long time. EL34 based amps are almost always high watts. A pair of EL34’s in Class AB will push 50 watts onwards. Way too loud for my use.

Along comes this Dual EL34 parallel Class A amp pushing 20 watts, bingo!

“Blackstar Amplification – the sound in your head

That is their strap-line and as far as I am concerned, it is right on the money. This is one of the best amps I have heard and I have played quite a few. All I need now is reliability and I am keeping this forever.

About Neil Ferguson

Neil provides the vocals (mainly) and much of the lead guitar work. One of the three founders of the band Neil also delights in the bands technical responsibilities.
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