Blackheart Engineering BH5H Little Giant Head

5 Watts of all Tube Power. Made (really) by Crate Corporation in China. Simple controls. Sounds great with stomp boxes and digital FX units.

UTILIZATION

Got great cleans out of this unit. It suited my needs as a bedroom / practice or maybe even a mic'ed studio amp, but it wasn't loud enough to play over a drummer and bass player. You get lost in the mix, because it's still only 5 watts. Though it does seem loud.

SOUNDS

Sounds great, once you swap both preamp and power tubes. Responsive, tight clean sound.

OVERALL OPINION

I liked it a lot! It just wasn't loud enough to play over drummer , so I sold it. I kind of regret that now, because it would have made an excellent bedroom or studio amp when not playing with a drummer.

(Originally written by matt34500/translated from Audiofanzine FR)
Tube amp

5 watts / 3 watts (pentode / triode mode)

1 x 16 ohms, 2 x 8 ohms, 2 x 4 ohms speaker outs

Controls: volume, low, high, mid

Neither standby nor reverb.

UTILIZATION

The configuration couldn't be easier: simply plug your guitar, turn the EQ controls, turn up the volume and play. The user's manual is useless.

SOUNDS

I immediately liked its clean sound. It is a tube amp! To get a crunch sound, you'll have to turn the volume up, and it also sounds very good... In 3-watt mode, the gain isn't so aggressive, the low-end is less present, the response is very smooth and nice. Very good amp for the price. It works perfectly with effect pedals: Doubleshot, overdrive, delay, chorus, EQ (very useful with this amp), Pocket Pod. I even tried it out with a RC-20 and the result was very good.

OVERALL OPINION

Great value for money.

(Originally written by Námo Fëanturi/translated from Audiofanzine FR)
Single channel, class-A tube amp with 5-watt or 3-watt operation, bass, mid and high controls, 5 speaker outputs (2 x 8 ohms, 2 x 4 ohms and 1 x 16 ohms).

This amp was conceived by Pyotr Belov (Valve Junior designer) who packed into the Blackheart all the features the Valve Junior was missing. He also designed the Blackheart so that people with tube circuitry knowledge can easily modify it.

You'll find the circuit diagrams on several websites.

In the coming days I will have someone add an FX loop to my amp so that I can insert a reverb.

UTILIZATION

If you want a more simple product than the BH5H, choose the BH1H which only has one control.

You immediately get a nice sound and the amp sounds well both with Eminence and Celestion V30 speakers.

SOUNDS

The sound is beautiful with a Strat US. For a crunch sound you'll have to set the volume control beyond the halfway point, which already produces a loud volume in 5-watt mode.

The amp has a good dynamic response and the sound is superb, much better than the sound of much more expensive solid-state amps from other manufacturers.

OVERALL OPINION

I've been using it for 15 days: simply plug your guitar, set three controls and you already have a good sound!

This amp is simple and very effective, the finish is wonderful and the value for money of this high-quality tube amp head is almost unbeatable.

This amp is regularly out of stock since it was launched so I had to look for it 15 days until I found it secondhand.

This amp is a true revelation for me. In its price range the Blackheart is the ultimate weapon for blues, rock, funk and reggae.

The lack of power and distortion will be a problem if you want to play heavy metal in a band.

Other CF notice or site. In this opinion, I will try to answer the many questions related to the excitement generated by this small head lamps available at prices of a distortion pedal. The interest of this notice is to highlight the real qualities of the head, but also its voluntary limits that might thwart the most modest budgets hoping to find a tube amp to do everything on the cheap.

USE

It can not be simpler: 3-band EQ, volume ... We turn up the volume to cruncher. It is the strength and limits of this amp: Versatility is not his forte, in the sense that it can not move from metal to jazz in a channel change. Here the single channel is versatile, clear sound with the volume at 9am, nice distortion with volume background with a guitar equipped with humbuckers we arrive at a fairly beefy distortion, good for hard rock, power rock, punk, hard core reason not ... BUT no metal, since this is a recurring issue. Sound, next topic.

SOUNDS

We are in the presence of a very nice little amp, grain reminiscent of a Marshall Plexi (for those to whom the brand is scary, it is one of the best models of the brand). With a moderate volume, the clean sound is quite thick, but not really crystalline correct, british. Those who absolutely want a Fenderien grain can go their way. It gets a nice crunch as the volume goes up, we start to hear the sound cruncher, the intensity of the game with the right hand (I mean that there scratching lefties friends ropes!) Plays a lot on this. Volume background, one can get an intense distortion, as long as we play with a guitar equipped with humbuckers. For simple microphones is necessarily less strong. I find the relatively tight grain ... The equalization plays its role without being very versatile. Important: 5 watts prove particularly by increasing the number of speakers. Try a 4x12, it's amazing ...

NOTICE GLOBAL

This tube amp is a good amp, good in terms of price. Now we need to put it into context: it is addressed to me guitarists who know what they want in terms of sound, ie a small amp for obtaining a grain distortion characteristic powers of lamps that saturate .dropoff window A great little amp with regard to the price, which is far from knowing everything, because of the absence of such an effect and obviously gain loop ... for those who rely more on their fingers and their volume knob guitar on the 12 channels of their amp to qualify their game to take everywhere for endless jams!