Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp 

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

Wow!!! Was I blown away! At first I was highly skeptical being as Blackstar is not as big of a brand as marshall or fender, so I went on their website. The dudes who make these amps are PAST MARSHALL EMPLOYEES! And you can clearly hear that because of this amps awesome FAT TONE. This thing is incredible. With its distortion channel you won't need a pedal. The "I.S.F" nob
allows you to find your unique sound. It has literally ruined distortion pedals for me. Go from crazy punchy attack to bluesy bassy fat tone, and a crystal clear clean channel. YOU'VE GOTTA CHECK THESE AMPS OUT!!! I'M A BLACKSTAR GUY NOW!!! AND YOU CAN BE TOO!!!
P.s. I bought the 2x12 140w extension cab... just cause you can never have to much power! haha

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

I was looking for a small, tube amp that would produce quality high gain metal tones for recording. This is it.
No distortion pedals needed. So many tones from classic rock to modern chunk and beyond.Very quiet. Do yourself a favor and go to your local guitar store and test one out. You will love it. Quality built, reasonable price. These amps are fantastic.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

Although this amp is budget-friendly I was surprised to see what it was REALLY made of. The cabinet is made of particle board. I pulled the head out of the cabinet and was disappointed in what I found. The controll pots were the tiniest, cheapest pieces I've ever seen in this type of application. The output transformer was grossly undersized. It has 2 preamp tubes. One of them is the phase inverter and adds absolutely nothing to musical tone and feel. So you have 1 actual preamp tube and a group of transistors making up your tone! The name says it best.......Ht that's (hybrid technology). So what you're really playing through is a fuzz pedal. The company should seriously consider being more honest with their product description. I'll NEVER buy another Blackstat HT series amp again.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

I love this amp. I have owned it for about a year. Both the clean and overdrive channels sound remarkable. This amp is incredibly versatile thanks to the voice switches and the ISF control. A quality tube amp at an affordable price. You can easily dial in some sweet Fender sounds on the clean channel and some awesome Marshall tones on the gain channel. Just try it, you'll like it.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

the overdrive channel is fantastic, BUT the clean channel?? the amount of body and thump is really spectacular. A must have amp.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

First off, to the reviews who said this is too heavy, absolutely NOT unless you are a complete weakling or have a bad back.
Try lifting a Peavey JSX combo that weighs over 90 lbs. This amp is not heavy at all, but still has a very good solid quality feel to it.
I wish it had better tone controls for the clean channel.
Plenty of power. Plenty of high gain for metal.
I love the British sound of the ISF function better than the American sound.
Footswitchable reverb is great.
Very good tone with all of my guitars.
Oh, and I dropped it already too, and the only damage it had was a cracked power tube.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

A great small-ish (albeit a little heavy) amp for the money...all the sonic tube liquidity you expect from competent engineers in a straight-forward interface. In a live setup it works best cranked up to 6 or so and mic'd...after lugging around boogies and marshalls for years, it's good to see big thunder in a small package...good job.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

This is an amazing, amazing amp. For the price I paid and with Musician's Friend's unsurpassed customer service, this guitar amp is all I ever wanted and all I ever needed - until I get the money for Mesa Boogie Mark V | that's what I am comparing it to. Powerful bass, distortion, brilliant clean tone, ease of use. I am literally blown away. I can't believe I have not bought this amp sooner. Sold my Fender Blues Junior without a heart beat; this is the way to go!

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

I have pondered buying a tube amp for years and always talked myself out of it for one reason or another.....glad to have bought this amp it is solid as a rock and has incredible tone.....Blackstar rocks!!!!!!!! I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS AMP TO ANYONE!!!!!!!!

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Club 40 40W Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

The wide variety of tones you can create with this thing is phenomenal. From a haunting reverb backed clean, to a warm and edgy overdrive, to a chunky, thumping metal sound - you really have a lot to play with here and in between. Funk, blues, metal, even a decent jazz sound can be had with enough tweaking of the dials.

I use a Digitech RP1000 pedal board, but this amp sounds so good that unless I'm going for a very specific amp/cab simulation, I'll bypass the onboard amp and loop straight through the Blackstar's own system. I haven't played solid state for years, but even with the Line6 Spider modelling system, I couldn't imagine a tone like this being reproduced with all the live nuances very easily.
Clearly laid out controls, although I wish it had individual EQ knobs for the clean channel as it does the OD, but the single tone knob is sufficient. Simple and well designed chassis. Contains two ECC38 preamp tubes and two EL34 mains. Each channel also has a "voice" switch, and the OD channel has the unique Blackstar ISF (Infinate Shape Feature) dial. All three of those features have a significant effect upon the tone, to include the ISF.

I've read a number of reviews complaining that the ISF feature either doesn't affect the tone at all, or only an insiginificant amount. My assessement is that those guitarists either were tone deaf to begin with, or they need to begin wearing ear pro before they screw up their musical sensitivities more than they already have. The ISF has a very direct, if nuanced, effect on the shape of the tone, and very clearly shifts between the "American" and "British" sounds. I think that too many guitarists who jumped straight into electric did so because they were enchanted with the power of the instrument, and had no real musical interests or study beside. Not every knob is meant to go from "zero to eleven" and blow out the windows. If you know what you're looking for in your tonal pallette, you will appreciate what the ISF has to offer.
Sturdy, but a bit on the heavy side for a 40W. Haven't had any problems with hardware, tubes, or chassis. A well built and enjoyable amp.
Great amp, decent price.