HT1R More Clean Headroom?

[sr4815]

New to this forum and new to tube amps in general.

I love my HT1R combo. Wondering if there is a way to get just a little more clean headroom out of it. The amp sounds great on the "clean" channel but starts to break up when the gain is at like 3.5. I would like just a little more volume on the clean sound -- without the break-up. If I hook it up to a cabinet would that help?

[thephantum]

Changing the speaker and putting in better tubes will help a little..but the key words there are "a little".

The amp just isn't designed to have a lot of headroom.

[sr4815]

Thank you for the reply.

[amit]

I have noticed that if i keep it at clean, and hit it hard (through an external pedal) i get a lot of clean headroom as well as a lot of volume.

I have tested with my Seymour Duncan twin tube classic pedal (high volume ,low gain on rhythm channel) as well as a zoom digital G1Xon multifx pedal (use it for overdrives/ modulations etc.)

[Wild_Rose]

plug it into an external and bigger cab

[thephantum]

A bigger cab will not help with headroom. The amount of clean headroom is dictated by the amp, not the cab. The only thing a bigger cab will do is spread the sound out more, which will make is sound wider and more open. The amp will still starting breaking up/OD'ing at the same dB levels.

Bottom line, if you need more dB's while staying clean, the only way to get that is a more powerful amp.

[Adam-T]

......... or more sensitive speaker(s)

And yes a bigger cab can/will give you more volume before breakup (headroom) if it has sensitive speakers in. even the HT408Metal cab for instance which has four of the same speakers which the combo has one of is a lot louder than the combo for a given volume setting, with more sensitive speakers in , even better ..

Speaker ratings say it all, a speaker which gives 84Db for 1W 1M is going to be a lot quieter than one which is 97Db/1W/1m in the same amp .

Check out speakers

[thephantum]

My point was if you have a 1x12 with a v30 in it, getting a 4x12 with v30's in it is not going to change the headroom of the amp nor is it going to make any volume difference whatsoever.

You're correct about speaker sensitivity, but you're are talking about very subtle differences. The fact is most 12" guitar speakers being made today have sensitivity ratings between about 96 and 100dB. Yes, there are exceptions to that, but the Blackbird speaker that comes stock in the HT1R is rated at ~95dB (at least that's what the 8" Blackbrds in my HT408 were). So even if you swap that for a v30 which is rated at 98dB, the human ear cannot perceive 2dB changes in volume. So a 3dB (maybe 4) difference is going to be barely noticeable.

The same is true regarding headroom. That small of a difference in speaker sensitivity will have little impact on the point of tube breakup.

Couple all of that with the fact that Blackstar tube amps are designed to have early breakup and there is not much you can do to significantly increase the amount of clean headroom. Yes, you can put in more sensitive speakers and swap the tubes to ones that won't get knocked over so easily, but it's a lot of money to spend to get just that little bit of more headroom.

If the amp starts to break up at 95dB and you need it to stay clean up to 110dB, no speaker swap or cab is going to get you there. The only thing that is going to get you that of an big increase in headroom is more power.