BLACKSTAR HT5-R MKII

The perfect all-tube practice amp?

RRP: $1,069

Type: All-Tube

Speakers: 12-inch

Output: Five watts

No. of channels: 2

Tubes: One ECC83, one 12BH7 Weight: 14 kilos

PROS

• All-tube rarely comes this cheap

• Onboard reverb sounds awesome

• Super portable

CONS

• Not loud enough to play with a drummer

Simply put, Blackstar makes some brilliant amps. Their versatility and sheer ability has made a once fringe amp manufacturer one of the world’s most popular brands, and the small-but-mighty HT5-R MKII is proof of that. Designed to be a killer practice amp for those who want all-tube tone at affordable prices and sensible volumes, the HT5-R MKII emphatically fits the bill.

The layout is fairly simple – one clean channel, and one overdrive channel, and some reverb. Nothing crazy, nothing mental – just great tones. Each channel has a ‘voice’ switch which accentuates some of the high-mid and treble frequencies, giving a slight boost and an extra flavour to your playing. Blackstar’s legendary I.S.F (Infinite Shape Feature) control makes an appearance here too, taking your tone from ‘US’ to ‘UK’ in the twist of a dial.

Blackstar has also included a nice little treat or two for the home studio user, in the shape of a USB output and an emulated output. This means you can choose whether to use the HT5 through your interface, or as an interface. The emulated output can be used in live scenarios too, with one-by-12-inch and four-by-12-inch cab emulations to choose from.