New amp range coming from Blackstar?

ecc83

p90fool said:

Given that all the band gear I've had to throw in a skip over the last 15 years was down to SMPS failures I'm out. 

That's also my biggest objection to Tonemasters, that they're essentially disposable out of warranty and they're just not cheap enough for that to be justifiable to me. 

That does concern me as well. My experience of SMPSUs started 40 yrs ago with CTVs, then they were called "chopper" supplies and were just about THE most unreliable part of the TV. They were also difficult to fix because you did not know if they had just 'self destructed' or the rest of the circuit had borked them (S/C and overload protection? 'Avin a giraffe!) So, to test a chopper supply when you (hoped!) you had fixed it you really need a dummy load to simulate in service operation.

As I said and hoped, the supply could be in its own self contained tin and made available to bona fide service techs but the scant look I got of the chassis seem to show the supply as well integrated into the main PCB?

But then, Blackstar have an enviable reputation for superb service so maybe my misgivings are groundless?

Be interesting to see what the magazine make of them?

Dave.

Grumpyrocker

dindude said:

The Musicradar review states that the light up logo is powered by a separate 9v power connection, WTF! 

That's just the light on the cab, not the combo/head. 

bertie

Grumpyrocker said:

dindude said:

The Musicradar review states that the light up logo is powered by a separate 9v power connection, WTF! 

That's just the light on the cab, not the combo/head. 

but no 9v supply from the head  (as stated in the Anderton's "review" ) 

chrisj1602

A light up logo is not a selling point for me but I do like the aesthetics overall.  The specs on paper are good I think though I've not watched any demos yet.

Danny1969

jeztone2 said:

Lebarque said:

I like the lit-up logo, but how many people need 50w amps these days? 10 watts is the new 100 watts.

Not with my drummer it isn’t. He plays like a man beating someone to death in a murderous rage. I once asked his wife to w*** him off before a gig just so we got normal volume out of him.

The weight thing will be interesting. But it needs to be Tonemaster light. Also I don’t get why amp makers aren’t doing a flat response in for modellers. 

A decent sounding 2 x 12 combo with a variety of routing options is what most people would want. Surely? 

If you ever need a dep, I play a bit loud myself though !


I don't think it's a good idea to use a SMPS for the HT, it just builds in a whole heap of problems and solves very few. Yes the amps a bit lighter but it still has to have a linear output transformer so will never be as light as a class D amp with SMPS. In my experience 10 years is about the life of a hard working step down SMPS .... I don't know what voltage the HT is in the new amp but it must be 400+ the secondary side and must have quite a few secondary windings for the lower voltages around the amp. Chuck all that on a PCB and it will be like fixing the little TC  and Ashdown bass amps, complete nightmare. 

As for the light on the cab needing an external supply, why didn't they just supply the amp with a TSR speaker lead supplying the 9V on the ring with a gate chip which only switched the 9V on if the sleeve wasn't shorted to the ring with a normal speaker lead. Or could have used a 4 pole Speakon with 9V on the 2+2- as well as the normal speaker jacks  .... optional BS accessory at £20 extra 

Horrible demos as well, just didn't sound great to my ears. 

ecc83

Danny the HT generator does not need to be a 'conventional' power oscillator and transformer. The decade+ old HT pedals used a simple charge pump circuit using a UCA3845BVD chip and a power MOSFET. That circuit generates 300V although at very low current, about 2mA. I see no reason why that cannot be 'beefed up' to supply 150mA or so? They said they had been working on the design a long time so who knows what they have come up with?

I had almost zero failures with that HT generator.

As for the demos being Horrible? They weren't to your taste I can see but sounded much the same as scores of others I have heard over the years.

Dave.

Danny1969

ecc83 said:

Danny the HT generator does not need to be a 'conventional' power oscillator and transformer. The decade+ old HT pedals used a simple charge pump circuit using a UCA3845BVD chip and a power MOSFET. That circuit generates 300V although at very low current, about 2mA. I see no reason why that cannot be 'beefed up' to supply 150mA or so? They said they had been working on the design a long time so who knows what they have come up with?

I had almost zero failures with that HT generator.

As for the demos being Horrible? They weren't to your taste I can see but sounded much the same as scores of others I have heard over the years.

Dave.

Charge pump is fine at small signal levels but not at any kind of load so I suspect the SMPS is conventional pulse width modulation, varying the duty cycle to match the reference level on the secondary side. 
I would have thought BS spec'ed the SMPS rather than designed it there are many companies in China who could deliver a solution far far quicker than designing one in house. Fender for example didn't bother designing one for the Tonemaster series, they just used an off the shelf Icepower SMPS/class D module. 

I'm sure the amps can sound better than than they did in the demos, I've used loads of BS amps live and maintain the BS amps in Portsmouths busiest rehearsal rooms so know they can generally sound better than the dark lifeless tones that many demos seem to insist on using. 

p90fool

Danny1969 said:

I'm sure the amps can sound better than than they did in the demos, I've used loads of BS amps live and maintain the BS amps in Portsmouths busiest rehearsal rooms so know they can generally sound better than the dark lifeless tones that many demos seem to insist on using. 

There's a fat, grainy "demo tone" I hear all over YouTube but have never heard on a record.

ecc83

p90fool said:

Danny1969 said:

I'm sure the amps can sound better than than they did in the demos, I've used loads of BS amps live and maintain the BS amps in Portsmouths busiest rehearsal rooms so know they can generally sound better than the dark lifeless tones that many demos seem to insist on using. 

There's a fat, grainy "demo tone" I hear all over YouTube but have never heard on a record.

Right, so.  I am clinically deaf, 20dB down at 2 kHz and nothing beyond that. I cannot hear the top octave of a piano nor much of the top string of a violin. Yet, all the video demos I have listened to in the last two days have plenty of midrange energy. Really crisp and biting  WHEN the player intends that sound.

I have to wonder when the naysayers last had a hearing check!

I have also recorded the Blackstar demo and a Mustang and a HR Deluxe 3 and they all show very little energy at 4.5kHz and nothing beyond that in Samplitude pro X 6 RTA. The SYSTEM  bandwidth is ok because the chat often goes to 10kHz. I suspect this is a combination of the fall off of guitar speakers plus the less than stellar HF response of dynamic mics. You could make a case for recording demos with a dead flat instrumentation mic  but then I suspect peeps would say "Garrgh! Ice pikky!"

Perhaps one of the haters could give me a link to a video that DOES give a great sound?

Dave.

ICBM

The irony is that much though I detest the top-mounted controls on the combo, don’t really like the silly cabinet logo so the head isn’t very attractive either, have no need for a valve amp and don’t want USB etc in one… I actually think it sounds OK in the Andertons video. (As much of it as I can stand to watch, which has nothing to do with the amp.)

ecc83

ICBM said:

The irony is that much though I detest the top-mounted controls on the combo, don’t really like the silly cabinet logo so the head isn’t very attractive either, have no need for a valve amp and don’t want USB etc in one… I actually think it sounds OK in the Andertons video. (As much of it as I can stand to watch, which has nothing to do with the amp.)

WOW! That is praise indeed coming from you IC! I agree about the video but that is the world of YT...chat, BS, chat, bit o widdlin, chat, chat MORE  silly chat, BS short widdle...I record the sound ans skip the BS and chat.

Not got my head round the "reactive load" function? Was said to be "off speaker terms'" but then in anther scene it is done with amp in standby? WTF?

Top pots? Suit my son who sits down a lot to play and thus would not have to look over the amp front...Peeps MMV.

Dave.

ICBM

I *always* want front controls even if I’m sitting down - if the amp is raised or tilted you still can’t see them if they’re on the top, and they’re still a beer/dust trap. Just bad design, which Leo Fender corrected in 1960 - almost every other amp company then followed suit and stayed that way until the 90s, and then somehow this stupid regressive fashion for putting them on the top came back!

ecc83

ICBM said:

I *always* want front controls even if I’m sitting down - if the amp is raised or tilted you still can’t see them if they’re on the top, and they’re still a beer/dust trap. Just bad design, which Leo Fender corrected in 1960 - almost every other amp company then followed suit and stayed that way until the 90s, and then somehow this stupid regressive fashion for putting them on the top came back!

Well, son would just plonk it on the deck and sit aside it and jazz away. And yes WE know amps are best raised but he has no transport so, amp in right, Rikky in left, no way to carry a stand as well.

Dave.

CaseOfAce

ecc83 said:

p90fool said:

Danny1969 said:

I'm sure the amps can sound better than than they did in the demos, I've used loads of BS amps live and maintain the BS amps in Portsmouths busiest rehearsal rooms so know they can generally sound better than the dark lifeless tones that many demos seem to insist on using. 

There's a fat, grainy "demo tone" I hear all over YouTube but have never heard on a record.

Right, so.  I am clinically deaf, 20dB down at 2 kHz and nothing beyond that. I cannot hear the top octave of a piano nor much of the top string of a violin. Yet, all the video demos I have listened to in the last two days have plenty of midrange energy. Really crisp and biting  WHEN the player intends that sound.

I have to wonder when the naysayers last had a hearing check!

I have also recorded the Blackstar demo and a Mustang and a HR Deluxe 3 and they all show very little energy at 4.5kHz and nothing beyond that in Samplitude pro X 6 RTA. The SYSTEM  bandwidth is ok because the chat often goes to 10kHz. I suspect this is a combination of the fall off of guitar speakers plus the less than stellar HF response of dynamic mics. You could make a case for recording demos with a dead flat instrumentation mic  but then I suspect peeps would say "Garrgh! Ice pikky!"

Perhaps one of the haters could give me a link to a video that DOES give a great sound?

Dave.

oh ... alright then.
7  minutes in here... THIS is BENCHMARK tone

bertie

CaseOfAce said:

oh ... alright then.
7  minutes in here... THIS is BENCHMARK tone

mm  chewy,     

WTF is that choon tho.............................  I know it..................I do....................

but that tone,  you're spot on,  it is very much SPOT ON....................... wonder if you could tease that out of a 68 PR or even a TM

$600 in 1968  ??   wow 

ecc83

Not my cup of tea at all I am afraid. Sounded very 'plummy' and 'boomy' (could be the room of course)

Interestingly, again no signal past 4.5kHz except the briefest single blip at 5.5kHz...seems guitar amps/speakers just don't go past that?

So, the search for ICBM's missing HF goes on! Nothing has any top!

Dave.

Grumpyrocker

I thought the high-gain model (6L6) sounded pretty damn good in the Andertons video.

Not that I'm about to buy one, actually in the middle of downsizing and have two amps and two guitars heading out the door.

Lebarque

ecc83 said:

Not my cup of tea at all I am afraid. Sounded very 'plummy' and 'boomy' (could be the room of course)

Interestingly, again no signal past 4.5kHz except the briefest single blip at 5.5kHz...seems guitar amps/speakers just don't go past that?

So, the search for ICBM's missing HF goes on! Nothing has any top!

Dave.

This is the sort of tone I like:

bertie

Lebarque said:

ecc83 said:

Not my cup of tea at all I am afraid. Sounded very 'plummy' and 'boomy' (could be the room of course)

Interestingly, again no signal past 4.5kHz except the briefest single blip at 5.5kHz...seems guitar amps/speakers just don't go past that?

So, the search for ICBM's missing HF goes on! Nothing has any top!

Dave.

This is the sort of tone I like:

 that was a bit "thin and tinny"   for me - and I actually tend to like "higher" end tones, not bassy

if that was a "sales demo" it would put be off getting a Lazy J ,  


great we're all different tho  

CaseOfAce

bertie said:

CaseOfAce said:

oh ... alright then.
7  minutes in here... THIS is BENCHMARK tone

mm  chewy,     

WTF is that choon tho.............................  I know it..................I do....................

but that tone,  you're spot on,  it is very much SPOT ON....................... wonder if you could tease that out of a 68 PR or even a TM

$600 in 1968  ??   wow 

if only.
With modern kit you could get sort of close with the right sort of ears dialling it in?
but I guess that's why (decent) vintage gear like he has commands those sort of prices...
If I had that sort of tone dialled in I'd play an entire club gig with that - forget pedals... !!