Blackheart Bh5h Amp Review
Contents |
Information
Original author: Stratman58
Weapon: Blackheart head
Make: Blackheart
Model: BH5H
Price: $150 USD
Blackheart BH5H
Gear Review
All tube for $150? What's the catch?
Thrills and frills: None really. 1 12AX7 preamp tube and 1 EL84 output tube
Playing Style: Rock, Blues, Jazz (Sorry metal heads, need a distortion pedal for this one)
Sound
The sound and tone achievable of this amp is absolutely fantastic, and I'm not being relative to this head's price. If I had to take a stab and guess a price on this amp, I would call it about a $400 head, if not more (judging on other tube amps I've played through). The amp sounds great for blues and jazz type playing at about 11'oclock on the volume, and is plenty loud at 3watts for 'in the house' playing. Crank it up to about 2-3'oclock, and you're in tube mojo classic rock zone . I was only getting hum when I was about maxed on volume, and this was only on my strat's top single picking and a tiny bit on the bridge. My Ibanez Prestige produced hardly any hum through the amp at any volume level. Switch this thing into watt mode and you've instantly added more gain. Angus' ACDC tones can be achieved here at about 2-3oclock. Beware, this little watter is suddenly VERY LOUD! I'd have to say its just a bit short of volume when compared to my solid state Crate Powerblock (which is 150watts). Something that surprised me very much about this amp was the response from it. I can see the way I play guitar improving from this amp just from the clarity and response of it (as compared to a solid state, it's more unforgiving, as you're going to hear every note with tube clarity ).
Overall, I couldn't be much more happy over the sound and tone quality of this amp. Minus 1 for not having that Metal tone I wish I could have, but for $150 bones? What the hell, that's kinda unfair on my part expecting that
As with all my reviews...sound samples! A thousand words can't compare to a sample
What are we using today for sound samples?
The BH5H head of course...plugging into an 8ohm Crate cabinet (no worries, the Crate cab is armed with G12-30 Celestions ) and we're using the RG1570 Prestige and a Standard Fat Strat. For effects, I am only using a memory man, chorus/delay pedal...although most of these recordings are dry to give you a taste of pure blackheart tube.
Keep in mind, all of these recordings are in 3 watt mode except for the first one, labeled 5watt in the filename...
Hoaah, activate 5watt mode! Volume 8. Gettin some of them ACDC moments now....
Let's start with the strat. The Jazz above (yes, taken from one of Muris' lessons ) was set on a volume of 6 and pickups were in 2nd position
bh5h_strat_volume7_sw2dry_sw2chorus.mp3
The Strat again keeping things simple with some chording. Volume 7
bh5h_ibanez_volume7_sw1dry_sw2dry_sw2chorus.mp3
Now we're playing through the Ibanez. Neck bumbucker is first used (a bit muddy) then switch 2, much cleaner. Volume 7
bh5h_ibanez_funk_volume7_sw2.mp3
Some funk with the ibanez! Volume 5
bh5h_ibanez_brigehumdry_brigehumchorus.mp3
Some more chording on the Ibanez. We're using the bridge humbucker dry and bridge humbucker chorus. Volume 7
Value
11
This one goes to 11! An awesome sounding tube amp for $150? I'm sorry, we're above scale here. Not only does the amp sound great, it features 5 different ohm rated speaker outputs. 2 4ohm in parallel, 2 8ohm in parallel, and 1 16ohm.
The reason for this amp being produced and sold so cheaply is because of the overseas production. These amps are being made in China. Pyotr Belov designed these things in his garage, and decided to take the production on these things to China, making for us consumers a cheap tube amp. You can accept this however you wish (Criticism often follows Chinese production with cheap materials being used. I say whatever. The amp sounds great.)
Why this amp is made available so cheaply^^^
Quality
10
This thing feels very well built. It has some weight to it (I'd say this little head weighs about 22 pounds) and is very sturdy. It's very compact, and not the least bit cheap looking or feeling. 10 in this category.
Overall Impression
It's kind of hard to make an unbiased review when this is my first tube amp... but don't let my high score ratings fool. I've played through mesa Boogies, Fender 'verbs, and a Laney, so I've had my run through tube amps. This being the first I've owned, I simply love it. The little pieces of me that have died through solid state and modelling (not dissing my PODXT necessarily, it just can't recreate a tube amp. Period) are being rejuvinated and brought back to life I'm having a lot more fun playing guitar with this head, and for $150, I can say it's most likely the coolest thing I've spent money on in terms of guitar gear .
