Official Blackstaramps Forum

The idea of the balance pot is to trim for any differences between the two power valves and get rid of hum. Some people use an oscilloscope, but I think it's equally common to put your ear by the speaker and tweak the pot for the least audible hum.

To use the emulated out with no sound from the speakers, just turn the master volume to 0. The master volume of the amp doesn't affect the emulated out. Regarding the connector, my Blackstar is an HT-20 so uses normal 1/4" jacks, but I did have a Marshall amp that used a "PC type" D-sub connector fo...

The bias setting as far as I've read should be 11.5v across resistor R221. There's a discussion about it here: http://forum.musicradar.com/showthread.php?101179-Blackstar-HT20-Biasing I doubt you'll get an official answer on here because Blackstar are very reluctant to discuss these things (allegedl...

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Here's a few pics of my frankenstein Marshall if you're interested. This approach wouldn't work so well on a combo with a valve power amp though, like I said earlier - too much height would be needed for the head and you wouldn't be able to make a cab as well without adding more wood (or building a ...

I'm using a 12AY7 in my HT-20 drive channel, which is even lower gain than the AT (about 45% or something from memory). A few people on here have done that and reported good results - certainly suits my playing, and can still do more gain than I use (enough for Sabbath or Metallica anyway). I think ...

That makes sense Jamie - thanks for clearing that up. When I read the post I somehow interpreted it as "the volume (of the emulated out) is controlled by the master volume". Re-reading it, it doesn't say that at all

OK, hope it works out for you. I think the clean sound is nice as well.

I'm not a metal player, but I bought my HT-20 head because I like the sound of it, and its versatility. It's probably not the best at anything but IMO it's pretty good at a range of styles and sounds good both loud with a band and at home volumes. But amp tone is very personal - my idea of a good so...

Yes, if you want the voicing switches then the 20 won't help. I'm not a high-gain player either - I put a 12AY7 valve in my drive channel preamp to tame it down a bit, and I can get it to sound how I want it, much less "modern". I haven't tried an HT-40 though, so I don't know how good the alternati...