Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp Black (Used)

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

I've been playing guitar for over 20 years. I mainly play Rock, Metal, Blues, Punk and even some instrumental surf stuff on the side with friends, so I need a versatile amp that has great cleans and a good amount of gain on tap. I was looking for an amp that I can use on stage, was 2-3 channels, had good cleans, good gain channels, reverb and took pedals well.

Some recent amps that I own or have owned in the past that I think compares well with the HT-60:
Mesa MKIV head with 2x12 Mesa and 4x12 Diezel cabs
1980's Marshall JCM800 50 watt 2x12
Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb w/ Celestion v30
Orange Dark Terror
A Peavey 5150 Head w/ Marshall cab

The HT-60 is in the same class as all these amps, in terms of quality and tone. It might not be as good as a boutique amp like a Diezel, ENGL, Bogner, etc, but for the price, it competes well with a lot of Marshall, Orange, Peavey, Line 6 and Mesa amps with similar specs.

Playing through a Fender strat that has been upgraded with single coil SD Blackouts with a mini-toggle boost switch installed.

I also have used the regular blackouts in a Schecter guitar and some high output Dimarzio pickups through a PRS. All of them sound great.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

I've been actively gigging with my HT-60 for well over a year now, and it's an awesome amp... It's an extremely flexible and expressive amplifier, especially with the ISF, Resonance and Presence controls, as well as the different voicing modes for each channel... I refer to it as my Swiss Army knife because of the variety of tone I can get from it... My current set-up is the HT-60 paired with a Blackstar 2x12 cabinet, so it's basically a half-stack without the backache...

Another couple of features that are nice about this amp are the effects loop and the speaker emulation... I use a LOT of effects, some in the pre-gain stage, but all of the delay and most of the modulation effects are running through the loop and it is extremely clean and dynamic with no noticible loss of fidelity... The 1x12 and 4x12 speaker emulation channels are great for recording or going direct to the board live...

The reason I mentioned customer service as a "pro" in the review is that my HT-60 took a bit of a tumble that resulted in some damaged pots... As my luck would have it, it happened two weeks before my first gig with my new band... The technician that does my amp repairs contacted Blackstar and had replacement parts within a couple of days... The repairs were made and the amp was as good as new with a week to spare! Blackstar is also really good about answering customer inquiries via e-mail... I give them a gold star and A+ rating for their customer service...

If my HT-60 were stolen, I'd definitely replace it, either with another HT-60 or the 100 watt head...

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

i played marshall amps all my life.but this blackstar is my new fav very good amp for all rock blues even jazz sounds great best amp out right now good job blackstar thank so much. and thank you musicians frend,if you like tube amps this is the one.good clean channel good dirt channel good hevy channel.this amps is great.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

First off, this amp is incredibly versatile. I can see where you could use this at home for practice, for studio recording, and for stage use.

However, for home use, this amp is very loud so would not be good if you are in an apartment or bedroom since you cannot get the benefit of the tubes without reconfiguring the setup somehow (attenuator, pedalboard, etc.). If you are looking for a practice amp, I would test the HT1, HT5, HT20 alongside this one. Of course this amp has a few more features, such as the bass and treble knobs on clean instead of a tone knob, the extra speaker, extra power, not sure if the others have the resonance and presence controls, but all of these options come in handy. For the extra eq options if used at home, I would say use an eq pedal or a pedal board with the eq and that should serve very similar function without having to sacrifice the tone of turning the volume so low that you are not benefiting from the full tone of the tubes. Again, I think a good eq could do the same as the bass and treble knobs for the clean instead of the tone knob on the smaller versions and an aftermarket eq pedal could compensate if the smaller versions do not have presence and resonance knobs. I do like these options on the amp, but this thing is loud and heavy, so if you get similar results and are using this for home or don't want a 70lb beast to lug around...

That being said, I chose not to return this amp for one of the lower models simply because I'm using the Digitech RP1000 pedalboard with the four cable method. Don't get me wrong, the amp sounds great by itself without any other effects, but I wasn't able to push it like I needed to on the crunch channels to benefit from the tubes and when adding the eq on the board and a tube screamer, that's when this amp really comes alive and I can control the volume on the crunch channels and still get the beauty of the tubes with the pedalboard. I use the pedalboard's amp bypass so that I am bypassing the amp simulations and using the Stage 60 preamp and poweramp but using the effects of the pedalboard. This is the sound I've been looking for. Lots of headroom and incredible versatility. All channels have lots of headroom, plenty of punch, enough amp distortion to get a good dirty blues, crunch, or growl. I am pretty new with tube amps, but you can really tweak the eq options and the ISF knob (yes it works and comes in handy to change your tone) to really have a lot of options for your sound. I also use the RP1000's amp simulations as the preamp and use the Stage 60 poweramp and speakers. This also made the pedalboard come alive and warm it up and make it sound much more natural. It was good before, but even better with the tube poweramp pushing. It just adds headroom, warmth, depth. The effects loop on this amp works great in this manner. Yes, there is some slight hiss, but no worse and actually seems as good or better than many. The noise gate on the pedalboard handles this like a charm. Aftermarket pedal would do the same.

I've played through Peavey, Fender, Marshall, Line 6, etc., but all were very one dimensional or just seemed to not get certain tones. This amp comes as close as I have ever seen to being able to get wonderful cleans without being brittle (fenerish or vox-like), the crunch of Marshall or similar to Mesa (need pedal probably to get up to the rectifier but it's there with a od/distortion pedal) and hits on some of the Peavey turf too (clean and metal amps). I would say this does as much to be able to have several nice cleans (chimey, bright, warm, clean, jazzy, bluesy), to have classic rock crunch, and to be able to get to the metal sounds (need distortion pedal to push up to death metal or some of the extreme metal, but easily get metallica, maiden, ac/dc and 80's/90's rock and alt rock). My pedalboard gets everything else I need.

I wanted an amp that could get fender like cleans and crunch of a marshall or mesa and as much in between. Wanted to be able to use this for jazz, blues, rock and metal. This amp does all very well. Adding an eq and other pedals like od/distortion, chorus, delay and reverb just make this thing awesome. I played the amp for a while just on clean channels because they were really that nice even without a tube screamer, eq, or chorus. They sound beautiful. I was playing acoustic like material and jazz and was really impressed with how great the amp sounded. I could play these with some volume without blowing the windows out.

Switching to crunch channels and I was not able to have the volume past about 1 without it being really too loud for home use. Since I wanted an amp to do everything (practice amp, recording, and when playing with my band or if we ever play out in a bar), I wanted something that could do it all. Until I added the pedalboard to be able to use the tube screamer to control the volume a little more and still push the tubes to find those happy spots between the pream volume and gain and the tube screamer, I was worried about benefiting from the crunch channels. Now, I am happy.

If I could have tried the Soloist, I may would choose that over this if lugging to band practice since it's 20lbs lighter, but I also wanted this in case I ever play with a church or in a venue. I think the extra speaker could benefit in this area, but again I wasn't able to try the Soloist. You can always connect to a PA or mic it and probably just as good without the heft, but I love this amp so much I just decided to not risk it and keep it with all it's great options. Probably, overkill, but man it's sweet.

I may buy another a smaller Blackstar for convenience to lug around weekly to band practice and have this for performance if I really need it and that way I do not have to undo the four cable method everytime I move it. The HT5r head would be a great option for lugging around for band practice if it gets loud enough to compete with drums.

The quality is definitely apparent in these amps. NOTHING feels cheap. The knobs are nice material and the star design is great. They are sensitive so you can hear the difference with slight changes but you don't have to be so careful when adjusting to find sweet spots. The wood and metal binding is nice and tight and doesn't feel cheap. The speakers sound nice to me and I think with use they will shine even better. I see no need to replace, but am sure that you could step up the ladder of Celestions and really make this even better. Again, I don't feel these speakers are lacking. The reverb on the amp is nice and doesn't sound cheesy, but I tend to use the Digitech pedalboard reverb more since they are Lexicon. But, it's nice to have a good, working reverb onboard on the amp. The ISF feature is nice and is one option that makes this better than just having a fender or marshall since it allows so much more flexibility and tonal options. Three channels with two voicings on each comes in very handy. I think the emulated out will work very nice for recording and have read good things and it can also be used for headphones. Worst case scenario, mic it if you are unhappy with direct recording in this manner.

Okay, I've covered everything I can think of. I wanted an amp that could do everything and wanted tube warmth and power so that I could get more of an organic sound. This does that and I have so much flexibility with this amp by itself, but adding the digitech board just makes me so happy since I can have the best of all worlds, clean, dirty, crunch, blues, jazz, tube amp, amp simulations (through the pedalboard) and warm them up with the tube poweramp. I play mainly a Fender American Deluxe HSS and a PRS Custom 24 and wanted them both to sound full, bright or warm when I needed them to. Both sound so great through this. I know a Les Paul would also shine through this amp. My PRS through this can sound soft, bright (without brittle), or warm and full like a punch in the chest. I think I have found the holy grail!!!!

I can say nothing negative about this amp or Blackstar. I am incredibly impressed with the design, quality, and most importantly the TONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

i have this amp for about 3 months and it is awesome. It will cover any genre you can imagine and does them all equally well. it is very easy to get great tone of it, just plug up and play. the isf function is extremely useful

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

This amp is very awesome. I mean awesome. Its my first tube amp and i couldnt be happier. I had a line 6 spider 3, with 150 watts and 2 12's, but this thing just has better sound! Welcome to tube world and dont ever look back.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

Good purchase that will get put to the test in the coming years. To soon to say how it will hold up year after year but plan to find out!
I purchased this amp in april 2012 and have been really pleased overall. Have gigged with it several times both inside and outside and have been able to dial in good tones easily. It has taken the place of a 20 yr old peavey classic 50 and so far held its own. LOVE the tones on all 3 channels.
all components seem well constructed and rugged. heavy as hell..
easily the best value in its class.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

I will be using this amp for recording and in the smaller club settings where a half stack is too much. While no amp deserves a 10, this amp comes as close as you can get in my humble opinion. Like every other amp that I own, I have ordered and will be replacing the speakers and the original tubes. I have my preferences and the manufacturers never agree with me. While this amp sounds very good in its stock form, the tube and speaker upgrades will move it into the "great" category. As I mentioned, this has been the case for all of my other amps, no matter who the manufacturer is.

The cutout handles on the side make it easier to carry this amp, but I would suggest that you do like I did and get some casters for it. Saves the back and makes the amp much easier to move.

Blackstar's tag line is "The sound in your head" and I have been able to get the "sound in my head" with every Blackstar that I own. I currently own Gibson, Fender, PRS, Vox, Epiphone, Burns (Brian May), and Danelectro guitars (18 total) and the Blackstars sound great with all of them.

The "record out" feature allows you to add some dimension to your recordings, when used in conjunction with some great mics on the front of the amp.

There are those who will disagree with my assessment of this amp, but for my purposes, this amp and my other Blackstars serve me very well.
This amp has the standard features of most amps with a few differences. The three channels allow you to set up the amp to cover clean, overdrive, and full distortion. By using different guitars along with this amp and a good pedal board, you can cover almost any sound. This is incredible for someone like me who does studio work and plays in a cover band, both of which require a lot of different sounds. The separate EQ for the clean and overdrive sections is a really nice feature. That combined with the ISF and the voice buttons allow you to set this amp for any sound that you want, with a little tweaking.
Seems to be built really well. I have several foreign made amps (6 in all) and this one is better than the others so far as quality and workmanship are concerned.
This amp is one of the best bangs for the buck out there. I currently own Marshall, Vox, Laney, Orange, and Fender amps along with several others. I have also owned Traynor, Mesa Boogie, Ampeg, Randall, Roland, Trace Elliot, and a list of amps that is far too numerous to mention here. Each amp has their strengths and their weaknesses. This amp is the third Blackstar that I have purchased and I am still amazed at how they put so much quality in a product as such a low price point. For the record, I still own the other two Blackstars.

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

This is my first tube amp. I went from a solid state Marshall MG30 to this.
The Blackstar Stage 60 arrived just a few days after my order was placed.
It looks great.
A lot has been said about this Amp already. It sounded fine at my house,
but when I set it up at my Church it sounded kind of Dark and not as loud as
I had expected. I also had a hard time dialing in a good overdriven sound.
Back to the MANUAL. AH yes, make sure the speakers are connected to
the proper outlet of the amp. This should be the 1x16 ohms (last hole on the
left as you look at the back of the cabinet). BIG DIFFERENCE!!!
God Bless
Top notch
Alot of bang for the buck!

Comments about Blackstar Venue Series HT Stage HT-60 60W 2x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp:

Overall a very solid amp with good tone for everything upgraded from my line 6 spider and not looking back
What more could u ask for
Bought mine used and when i got it looked brand new to me everything seems very solid
Sounds like amps that cost much more