I know this has been asked before but here goes!
I live in a second floor flat in and have a Black star HT-5210.
Love the amp and the gain channel is just the sound I want, no pedals, just plug straight in.
Great amp but the problem is I rarely get to turn it up loud enough to let it rip as I'm to considerate for the neighbors and the fact the flat is small so all the gear is in the living room.
Long story short the amp only gets loud enough to sound as good as it should when no one is home and the building is relatively empty.
Running the amp at 1-2 on volume makes it sound muddy/choked so Ive decided to purchases another smaller amp for the more day to day playing. The blackstar obviously isnt going anywhere!
Narrowed it down to either:
Blackstar Fly 3 Combo
Have heard a lot of great things about these but the last battery amp I had was one of those small Marshall ones an it sounded pants.
Blackstar ID: Core 10/20
Seems like another good offering from Blackstar
Roland Cube Micro/10GX/20GX
Micros doesn't come with the power adapter which is a pain but not a show stopper, these seem like a good bit of amp for the money, few different effects in there
.
Ultimately I'm after something
for noodling at home when I get a spare 5 mins
(Not worth getting the HT-5210 started up for that long), learning off the internet and just jamming along to music played through PC/HIFI
At the moment I'm leaning towards the ID:core or Cube.
Any experience/ words of advice greatly appreciated
Comments
I haven't tried the ones on your list so I can't compare but the little Yamaha sounds good to me.
Headphones is also not a bad idea with these two.
I play pretty much only with headphones (London flat and a little one) but the THR's so great at low volume and pretty cheap S/H
I'm looking around the £130 mark.
The newer models can only be better with increased functionality.
My thoughts exactly.
This is selling me on the cube to honest.
dont want to go for 10W and find its to quiet or 20W and have the same volume problem I've got now!
Part of me fancies the cube just to have something different
I think I've narrowed it down to a cube now I just need to choose between the micro/10 or maybe 20.
10 is actually cheaper than the micro?!
i found this yesterday, a quick one minute clip I did that shows what the clean and the gain channel sound like cranked. Not great sound quality as done on iPhone, but gives a flavour. It's far far removed from the little micro Marshalls etc.
What about the Marshall code 25
I'd have one if I didn't already have a Blackstar ID:Core 40, ( which I think is great actually).
Though that does mean it cuts through.
will likely skip the micro cube as I can't imagine it sounds as good as either the cube 10 or core 10.
narrowed it down to 2 choices so now for the final head to head
Can be had pretty cheap and seems to get praise.
mic'd up so sound better.
Questions I'm asking myself:
In reality are the micro and 10gx tinny or do they sound as full at volume as the videos indicate?
I imagine if I went for the micro I'd probably have to run it at near enough max volume to play along with my hifi
the 10gx and 20gx have the same sized speaker so there no benefit in going for the latter I don't think, if the cube sound decent it runs on batteries as well which is a bonus.
last battery amp I had was one of those mini Marshall ones and it sounded awful, how does the cube compare to this.