Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head 

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

I bought the Blackstar HT-5 head and matching 1x12 cabinet as a practice amp. To my ears, the head and cabinet sound better than the combo. The combo sounds good, but I think the separate cabinet provides a better frequency response from top end to bottom end. Plus you can hook up two cabinets to the head for a fat, thick sound.

The HT-5 is plenty loud for bedroom/living room practice and home recording. It may not be loud enough for rehearsal or small gigs. I bet the HT-20 is loud enough for small gigs.

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

I've owned hundreds of amps over my 35 year career (I'm retired from the The American Federation of Musicians), and this is the best amp I've ever owned. And I'm the guy who always tries to "improve" an amp with different or more speakers, and this amp is perfect. With the exception of the stock pre-amp tube (is there anyone who doesn't upgrade the stock tube?) this amp cannot be improved upon. I installed a vintage JAN Philips tube from my tube collection and the amp is the most dynamic, most toneful, quietest and all around greatest amp ever. I use single coils and it will whisper when you want it to and scream when you want it to and everything in between. String separation is exceptional, it responds to every slight nuance of touch. Breakup is exactly what I've been looking for all these years and all that's in the rhythm channel. The lead channel goes from slightly more breakup to plexi territory and never gets mushy. I have the pre-reverb HT-5, so I don't know if the reverb circuit changes anything. Everything else I have is for sale, but not this one!

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

Overall I love this amp. Its the really the anti-marshall. Its a great amp for good crunchy rock tones. I'd say its like a mixture of a marshall and mesa boogie amp. I like to keep things simple and the controls are easy with fewer knobs. I keep everything on 5 and its the perfect tone for me. My only complaint is that it isnt quite loud enough for gigs unless you mic it through a PA with some floor monitors. Had i known this, I wouldve bought the ht 20. For band practice it hold up, but its not good for live use. Its also great for recording.

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

The amp is ok but for the money there are much better options out there. The distorted sound is decent but it is muddy. A Night Train or a Tweaker absolutely blows this thing away so I just don't see justification for buying it unless you are building a collection of lunch box amps. I had purchased this amp just weeks before a friend bought a Tweaker. He brought it to my home and I plugged it into the same cabinet I used with the Blackstar and there was just no comparison. I ordered a Tweaker that day and sold my Blackstar.

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

I really wanted to like this amp, but I found myself in a constant fight with it. Blackstar prides themselves on being able to deliver the "sound in your head," but for me their promise fell way short.

The Positives: The clean channel was surprisingly good. I read several reviews claiming the clean to be the weakest aspect of the amp, but I have to strongly disagree. I played this through an Orange PPC112 with a Vintage 30 and it sounded pretty crisp and chimey. Add on a bit of the built-in reverb and the sound was not bad at all. But unfortunately for the Blackstar, amps that do clean well are a dime a dozen (if you're looking for a cheap amp with fantastic clean then I highly recommend the Fender Super Champ). The included Blackstar footswitch is also a great feature since the majority of two channel amps force you to make a separate purchase for foot control.

Now the Negatives: Nothing about the gain channel worked for me. The ISF knob, which is supposed to range from an American tone to a British tone, simply doesn't capture the sounds it claims. The American side is too muddy and the British side is too harsh. Perhaps I should have adjusted my expectations going in, but most of the solid state amps and/or mini amps I've played sound better than this.

My next biggest complaints are with the volume control and touch sensitivity. If you roll back the volume on your guitar, the sound does not clean up like it does with most tube amps. It also doesn't correctly project the amount of string attack used. Whether strumming light or hard, the sound differences between the two are barely noticeable. An inexpensive amp that gets this right is the Orange Tiny Terror, which can go from almost clean to full on crunch simply by altering the amount of attack. I realize the Tiny Terror is slightly more expensive and has only one channel, but the sound quality is so vastly better that it more than makes up for the price and feature differences. And since the TT cleans up so well when using a volume pedal, it's almost like having two separate channels.

The Blackstar does not work well with pedals. My Jerry Cantrell wah, Boss DD7 delay, Ernie Ball VP jr, and MXR micro amp all sounded terrible. It made the wah sound way too tinny; the delay didn't sound as lush as it does with my other amps; the amp cut the sound of my volume pedal way too early in the pedal sweep; and the MXR was unusable since the gain boost became a noisy, fizzy mess.

Please do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. There are much better amps available in this price range. Best of luck!

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

This is my low watt amp and it suits my needs very well. I don't live that close to any large musical gear and for a internet buy I'm extremely happy
PROS:
low watt- does not kill the ears to get a good distorted sound
Very solid foot switch (feels sturdier than my fender deluxe reverb)
I like the sound
can play loud, I play with a drummer and this amp is able to cut through

CONS: not a lot of low end: I use an eq pedal to boost the lower frequency and it sound much better
reverb sounds digital- I'm used to tube reverb.

Final thought: If you need a low watt amp I would recommend you try this amp. However, I probably won't end up keeping this; not because it is a bad amp but because I like to changing my rig.

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

I found this head very impressive. I purchased it because I needed a low wattage head that produces more saturation than my current head. I own a Jet City Picovalve which has a nice tone for some rock and hard rock sounds, but falls short on heavier tones. The HT5RH can achieve very nice crunch by itself and wil do wonders with an OD pedal right in front.

Awesome head!

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

I purchased this amp last August, it has outstanding tone, I was very impressed with the distortion sound but the clean channel blew me away. Sprkling clean!!
The issue that I have is that after six months of playing it exclusively in my studio the amp stopped working. Took it to an authorized repair shop and they were told by Korg Customer Service that they would rather give me a new amp than have the old one repaired, good thing this amp comes with a three year warranty. The problem is that I still don't have my replacement amp!! It has been four months so far and all I get from Korg USA is e-mails telling me that it is still not available. I am very disapointed with their service.

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

Well the sound is not terrible but I think an amp claiming to produce "the sound in your head" should be a little more flexible.

It is incredibly load for 5 watts, I think that number is fiction. It keeps up with my 40 watt TripleXXX tube combo and 200 watt PA. Of course that could have alot to do with the 300 watt 4x12 I have it pushing too!

They claim this to be an all tube amp but I don't think so, at least not in the more traditional sense. I think it is basically one of their HT distortion pedals in front of a little 5 watt tube power amp. It takes time based effects through the loop quite well and wah pedals and full on distortion pedals sound good in front of it but, overdrives and boost pedal do not effect the overdrive channel the way they would most traditional tube amps. EQ pedals as well do not seem to effect this amp as much as most, be it in front or in the loop. If you have an EQ after a full on distortion pedal it will shape the sound as usual but, if you try to crank the amps gain, put an overdrive in front with an EQ in the loop like you would with say a JCM800 you will get very little effect on the tone of the amp.

It is a very nice looking amp in my opinion. It looks really good sitting on top of my Marshall 1960a!
My advice, don't fall for all the hype surrounding this amp and try before you buy. Unfortunately that will be pretty difficult since no body ever has one in stock at an actual store.
This amp is not lacking in features especially for a low wattage head but, for the price, I think they could have done a little better . I would prefer a regular 3 band eq on the clean side but the tone control works pretty well. They used a stereo reverb but you only get the stereo effect through the line out or headphones. I think they should have better used the stereo aspect of the reverb by making the effects loop stereo with the use of Y-cables and of course running the stereo signal when two speakers are connected.

The ISF feature has not been very useful for me. I keep it all the way to the American side all the time because it sounds like total mud on the british side. This may not be such an issue with single coil pickups but all my guitars are double humbucker models and they get really muddy with the ISF past about 9oclock. On top of that the middle control seems very weak to me. I have never been one to completely scoop my mids but with the mid control on zero it seems like what it should be at about 12oclock.

I also don't care for the fact that the power and standby switches are upside down. Meaning up is off and down is on.
This is where I am still unsure. The build quality on this thing looks amazing. There is a noticeable difference between Korean craftsmanship and Chinese and that is something to keep in mind when considering the price/quality ratio of this amp compared to others in it's range, most of them are Chinese and this is Korean. In my opinion that is a mark in it's favor.

I have had this amp for about six months and it has been a little finicky a few times. It would start making a farting sound and fade in and out. It may have just been my crappy rural electricity, because when I got a power conditioner those problems went away. It also acts a little funny when using the effects loop level button. I have found it best to turn the power completely off when changing the level instead of just putting into standby. Since I have stopped messing with it and left it where it is I have had no more trouble.

Only time will tell so, no opinion yet.
I guess it is a decent value for the money (as long as it holds up for at least 5-10 years). I was not disappointed enough with this amp to send it back but, if had had to do it all over again, I would probably either spend more money on a Krank or save some money and try the JetCity. There are loads of things I would change about this amp but if the middle EQ control and the ISF feature was just more powerful I would consider this amp worth the price.

Comments about Blackstar HT Series HT-5RH Tube Guitar Amp Head:

Great Tone! Tubes are a little hard to install I removed the chassis.