Blackstar Entering the D-class game

[jimmy23cricket]

Interesting

Always liked their guitar stuff

https://www.blackstaramps.com/uk/ranges/unity-elite

[stevie]

Definitely an interesting head. Cabs not so much. Why only a single Speakon out when the amp can cope with a 2.67 ohm load?

[Merton]

16 minutes ago, stevie said:

Why only a single Speakon out when the amp can cope with a 2.67 ohm load?

Definitely a perplexing design choice!

[Marvin]

Aside the ponderous single speakon out (unless it's something to do with how their own cabinets and how they link up together) it looks like a well designed, well equipped and very decent looking amp.

[Stofferson]

I had the pleasure of using the combo and extension cab at a gig last year, was nice, I did ask when they'd bring out a head, didn't fiddle as I just chucked my pedal board with Sansamp in front.

Still, seems like most entry level Class D heads on the market nowadays.

[Lozz196]

Blackstar sponsored a gig I went to a couple of years back, and I thought the bass combo & cab sounded great.

[ped]

I've got the u500 combo and think it sounds great - lots of options and the built in compressor is excellent.

[BigRedX]

At least the controls are on the front this time...

[HazBeen]

All cabs have an In and Thru, so they probably felt 1 Speakon out on the amp was enough. Works for my setup, but clearly not everyone’s cabs will have a thru. Missed opportunity. Looks decent enough otherwise, but no GAS.

[funkydoug]

Looks great but the cabs are pretty pricey ... the head plus 2 x 210s would be about about £1850!! There's a lot of very good competition at that price.

 

Still though,  like the look of it all.

[HazBeen]

5 minutes ago, funkydoug said:

Looks great but the cabs are pretty pricey ... the head plus 2 x 210s would be about about £1850!! There's a lot of very good competition at that price.

 

Still though,  like the look of it all.

That is pricey!

[Russ]

The combos sound great, nice to see they've done what they should have done in the first place and released a head. Looking forward to giving it a try.

They've missed a trick with the cabs though - a single, smaller, full-range cab might have been a better fit, like a 2x12" or 1x15"+1x10" or something.

[Tim1]

I have been looking at these for a while, but nowhere can I find the power output at 4 or 8 ohms. 700 watts at 2.67 is all they seem to reveal.

[JapanAxe]

I had assumed that the Unity combos were Class D.

Regardless of whether they are any good, Blackstar are almost guaranteed to sell some of these. The shops that have accounts with them (particularly smaller ones, not that there are many left) will be required to take some into stock, and the folks who go in looking for 'a bass amp' will be pointed to this range.

[Stofferson]

39 minutes ago, Tim1 said:

I have been looking at these for a while, but nowhere can I find the power output at 4 or 8 ohms. 700 watts at 2.67 is all they seem to reveal.

from the manual dude

[Musicman20]

Looks very GK-like....

[acidbass]

Ah great, another amp with no heft!

[Dan Dare]

700w into 2.67 ohms? I'd bet they're using the ICEpower module that so many others do, with their own preamp. Blackstar make nice pre's - they've had plenty of practice building guitar amps - so it should work fine.

[EBS_freak]

Small form factor only allows for one speakon - simple! Mind you, as stated, given Blackstars cabs have thrus (they aren't really thrus are they, they are just a parallel split) and they should be pushing the cabs as a companion to the amp, it's not really an issue. It's not really a deal breaker either - if you were desperate to use other cabs without thrus, it's not difficult to knock up a cable or a little box to plug cables into it.

The reality is, if you are buying an amp physically this small and light anyway, you are probably only interested in having a single cab to run with it anyway... probably a 212... and that's the real point at which Blackstar have fallen down with this suite of products - a missing 2x12 cab, or a single 12 that you can daisy chain with another.

[fretmeister]

For some reason the blackstar website keeps setting off my Malwarebytes for Trojans.

Weird.

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 8, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Rich]

That's weird. I'm looking at the world via my office server at the moment, which is usually on an absolute hair-trigger when it comes to malware and adware and anything-else-ware, and yet it's perfectly happy with the Blackstar site.

[Dan Dare]

4 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

Small form factor only allows for one speakon - simple! Mind you, as stated, given Blackstars cabs have thrus (they aren't really thrus are they, they are just a parallel split) and they should be pushing the cabs as a companion to the amp, it's not really an issue. It's not really a deal breaker either - if you were desperate to use other cabs without thrus, it's not difficult to knock up a cable or a little box to plug cables into it.

The reality is, if you are buying an amp physically this small and light anyway, you are probably only interested in having a single cab to run with it anyway... probably a 212... and that's the real point at which Blackstar have fallen down with this suite of products - a missing 2x12 cab, or a single 12 that you can daisy chain with another.

True. Virtually all cabs have parallel inputs/outputs, so easy to run more than one if you want.

[stevie]

I'm not sure this actually is a small form factor amp - it's 380mm wide. The Peavey Minimax is only 280mm wide and it has two Speakons. The old Ashdown Little Giants were only 200mm wide and they had two Speakons.

I'd consider this a minor niggle rather than a deal-breaker. It's certainly good to see another British company active in the market. The more competition the better for us all.

[Russ]

24 minutes ago, stevie said:

I'm not sure this actually is a small form factor amp - it's 380mm wide. The Peavey Minimax is only 280mm wide and it has two Speakons. The old Ashdown Little Giants were only 200mm wide and they had two Speakons.

I'd consider this a minor niggle rather than a deal-breaker. It's certainly good to see another British company active in the market. The more competition the better for us all.

There's actually some great Class D stuff coming out of the UK. Ashdown's Rootmaster series are excellent, and Laney's Nexus range are fantastic. Not sure Trace counts as a British company anymore, but there's also the Elf. Just need Marshall to put something out now. I know they have Eden for all their bass stuff these days, but I would pay through the nose for the old DBS preamp section coupled with a big-powered Class D amp.