Hi again folks,

I am currently considering purchasing the Blackstar HT-5H & matching cab.

My main concern regarding this little 5W head is that you don't normally see tube amps with headphone jacks. Would the amp sacrifice tone when using headphones? Would it still be driving the glass or flip into some other kind of mode for headphone use?

I ask because it would be a nice thought to be able to play at any time of day without bothering anyone at home. That and I haven't yet a nice pair of 'phones with which to demo the amp

Thanks all & best wishes

What Marshall do with the class 5 is have a switch. Full Power or Reduced Power/Headphones. Which comes in at about 0.25watt. It lacks a lot of treble that the amp has naturally when in reduced power mode. I presume to compensate for the excessive fizz that occurs when attenuating to under 1watt with a guitar speaker. And the natural treble excess of headphones. I have never used headphones with the amp so I'm just speculating.

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No no and no

That makes sense with regard to attenuation. My AC4 loses a lot if I run it at less than 1W. I am skeptical about a tube amp sounding as good cranked as it would through headphones.

as usual i can't answer your question or offer any advice being the worthless POS that i am. howevah, i haven't heard one bad thing about the amp you are considering. i recently got the ht-60 and after a few issues, i can honestly say this is the best amp i've ever owned. my first one was defective but the store replaced it immediately.

I just purchased an HT 5 R H. The headphone connection works perfectly -- zero tone suck, and it is LOUD! The icing on the cake: It sounds like your listening to music through a powerful, clean tube amp!

Hi Toronado: I can explain how this works - if you're up for a small dollop of geekery?

The front end of guitar amps and guitar effects pedals are both species of pre-amplifier. It means they both do a comparable job. So, for example, we've sometimes seen Nikininja on this Forum talking about plugging a drive pedal straight into the FX loop return on an amp, thus bypassing the amp's pre-amp section; and this works because the pedal is also a pre-amp. Conversely, when you plug a pedal into the input of an amp you are effectively setting up cascading pre-amps; that is, one pre-amp after another.

In other words, a guitar pedal and the pre-amp section of a guitar amp are essentially the same thing, albeit with variations of circuitry to get different sounds.

In the past people have built guitar amplifiers that copy the circuitry of drive pedals as their pre-amp section. The Blackstar HT amps are an entire range built upon this concept.

I like Blackstar HT FX pedals, and their HT-Dual is one of my favorite drive pedals. My HT-Dual and the HT-5 head you are considering are essentially exactly the same unit, except that the head has a power amp section as well to drive speakers. The HT-5 pre-amp, like the pedals, contains an ECC83 valve/tube, and the power amp section contains a 12BH7.

On the pedals there is an emulated line-out which imitates the characteristics of a power driven speaker, so that you can plug the pedal direct into a mixer or recorder without needing to go through an amplifier. The HT-5 head has this same emulated output which on the amp doubles as a headphone socket. I seem to recall it even has a button to choose between emulations of 1x12 or 4x12 cabinets. Pretty cool.

So what happens when you plug headphones into it is that you are hearing the pre-amp section complete with its ECC83 valve/tube. You will also be hearing the speaker emulation to give you a nice rich amp-like sound. That replaces the power amp with its 12BH7 valve/tube - that's the bit you won't be hearing through phones.

And of course you'll be listening to the headphones' tiny speakers, not the driver in a speaker cab. So the sound can't be exactly identical - but as RCB-CA-USA says (above), it's pretty good! You will be hearing the distortion of that ECC83 pre-amp valve and the driver emulation.

Does all of that make sense? And does it help any?

Everyone has their own ears and tastes, but in my totally subjective opinion you'll be onto a good thing with that amp. Give it a go, I'd say.

Cheers - C

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Thank you Ceri, you've been more than helpful. I feel I've connected quite a few dots with your thoughtful explanation.

The Blackstar it is, then.