Blackstar Series One MkII 100 review: a pro-level 100-watt head for… who, exactly?
$1,999/£1,999, blackstaramps.com
The Series One was the first Blackstar flagship amp. It launched alongside the brand all the way back in 2007, embodying the brand’s promise of ‘the sound in your head’ from the start. Since then the amp has received a few minor updates, but for 2024, Blackstar has introduced the Series One MkII 100 – describing it as the “ultimate modern flagship amplifier”, tailored “specifically for the needs of today’s metal guitarists,” which is what I’m looking at today.
READ MORE: Blackstar TV-10B review – mighty Plexi tones have never been so practical
That “modern” angle is, let’s be fair, a bit bold – the Series One MkII 100 is still a 22-kilo, 100-watt behemoth of a head. Not everything has to be a Quad Cortex, of course, but it’d be naive to suggest heavy, high-powered tube amp heads still hold the same appeal as they did in 2007. Stage volume has generally tended downwards, especially at the ‘modern’ end of metal. And given the state of the touring economy, a lot of bands are looking to avoid the costs involved with taking 100-watt half-stacks on the road, or even amps altogether. Not unrelatedly, a lot of new metal amplifiers are launching with at least the option of one-hand-lift 50-watt heads.
We’ve also seen amp design come a long way since 2007, with Blackstar itself introducing innovative power supplies, direct sounds and digital connectivity into even its tube heads – the excellent CabRig system, plus USB-C control, was integrated wonderfully across all wattages of the HT range just earlier this year. With all that in mind, just how modern is the new Series One?
Image: Press
What’s new for the Series One MkII?
The Series One MkII range is, at the moment, just a single 100-watt head and a single 4×12 cabinet – perhaps acknowledging the fact that it would be completely excessive in 2024, Blackstar isn’t offering a 200-watt amp anymore. For MkII we do have a smarter look, in keeping with other recent Blackstar range refreshes. Rather than a bulky plastic Blackstar logo it wears a small metal badge on its honeycomb front grille, giving a great view of some lovely 6L6 glow. The complete effect is a lot more tasteful than the slightly dated look of the original.
Blackstar has also hinted at “over 30” internal circuit tweaks to the amp – but as for everything else, shockingly little is actually new. It has the exact same front and rear panels as the 2011 Series One 104 6L6. The manual for MkII even seems to have been the victim of a hasty find-and-replace – within the list of 128 MIDI program change commands, “104” has been replaced by “MkII 100”. Whoops.
Not that the manual actually needs a major rewrite. Like the 2011 amp, the back panel has an effects loop, MIDI in/through, XLR and ¼” line outs and a screw-in VGA port for the same FS-3 footswitch – with the MIDI and footswitch operation still being limited to just channel switching.
It’s not exactly a terrible feature set. But in modernising the platform for 2024, you’d think replacing the generic “speaker emulated line-out” with the CabRig system would be a no-brainer, along with updating things to a slightly more user-friendly footswitch standard. After all, the Series One MkII is now the priciest head in Blackstar’s lineup, over twice the price of the equally high-powered 100-watt HT – which does have CabRig integration.
Additionally, the Series One MkII 100 is, like the original, not for the faint of spine. A sadly missed upgrade for MkII would have been some side handles, as both of the amp’s transformers are on the same side of the amp. Picking it up by the top handle, my wrist has a pretty bad time as it’s twisted by the unbalanced load.
Image: Press
Does the Blackstar Series One MkII 100 sound good?
Not very promising so far, but the amplifier regains a lot of goodwill when I actually turn it on – there are some very good sounds to be had here. Let’s start clean: the Bright voice is a little dull, but does the job as a neutral pedal-platform channel. The Warm voice on the other hand is a lot nicer to play by itself, but still interacts in a very pleasing way with some overdrive pedals.
Next, the Crunch channel. It’s a pretty damn great sound off the bat, and while an amp with this many knobs can sometimes take a while to dial in, everything at noon is a great starting point: articulate, but gritty enough for rock rhythm playing. Blackstar’s Marshall pedigree is very evident here, particularly with the ISF control over on the UK side, it’s a growling-yet-chimey voice reminiscent of a pushed JCM800. The Super Crunch voice gives no major change other than a small bump in saturation – perfect for some bluesy leads.
And finally, the main event: the Overdrive channels. OD1 and OD2 both offer chunky, powerful lows, very little fizz and a lot of midrange. Even with the mids control on zero and the ISF in full US mode, neither channel approaches an ultra-scooped Pantallica tone, which, really, is no bad thing.
The original amp has a bit of a reputation as a metal beast – but without a boost in front, even OD2 on full gain is a little more Judas Priest than it is Meshuggah. Plus, the ‘sound in your head’ approach leads to an ever-so-slightly generic feeling distortion character on a lot of settings.
But that all changes with a mid-hump overdrive in front of it – it’s absolutely ready to chug with the best of them when I boost either OD1 or OD2, the neutral amp character suddenly coming completely alive. Fuzz and distortion are a blast, too – in front of all of the channels, the result is utterly fantastic. I don’t know if it’s the result of that extra tube doing some buffering at the input stage, but the amp just loves being boosted. Blackstar’s thing is providing a platform for your tonal imprint – that’s very much the case here across the board.
Attenuation? Not quite
Power reduction is often marketed as a “bedroom-friendly” feature, but that’s not the case here unless you sleep in a soundproofed recording studio – this thing at 10 watts is still enough to rattle light fittings three doors down.
Getting the best sounds out of this amp outside of a practice space or a venue will require an attenuator. The Dynamic Power Reduction is more about allowing those 6L6s to bring some sag and compression to the party without your sound engineer considering a mid-gig career change. It’s a good effect when you get the output tubes really going, going some distance to adding a bit of character to the otherwise neutral overdrive channels.
An internal load does allow for silent playing – however, the absence of CabRig means that you might as well not bother. The direct out is a sterile, fizzy sound that’s tiring on the ears to practise with, and not really viable for use in a home recording. This is hardly a home-focused amplifier, but if you were looking for one to pull double duty, look elsewhere.
Who is the Series One MkII 100 for?
Let’s just take a second to remember that Blackstar has apparently tailored this amp “specifically for the needs of today’s metal guitarists”. But it’s an increasingly small number of players that are in need of such powerful amplifiers. There is still some demand for them, of course, but £2,000 for a 22-kilo amp that only gigs is a tough sell from Blackstar, the company that has specifically set out to remind us how bloody heavy tube amps are and proved that direct sounds could be better. The whole HT MkIII range of heads throws a bit of a spanner in the works – comparable sounds, more power options and better direct connectivity… and over a grand cheaper, even for the 100-watter.
I can’t really fault the Series One MkII 100 tonally, direct sounds aside. In a vacuum, it’s a pretty damn good amp. But can I enthusiastically recommend you spend £2,000 on one? Maybe not. £2,000 is a huge amount of cash, and there are a lot of comparably-spec’d amps out there for less. And given the somewhat iterative upgrades over the 2007 and 2011 amplifiers, £2,000 is perhaps even harder to swallow when those originals go for around £500 on the second-hand market.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Blackstar Amplification (@blackstaramps)
Blackstar Series One MkII 100 alternatives
The most obvious I’ve already mentioned – Blackstar’s own HT MkIII range. If 100 watts is a must, there’s the Stage ($999/£899), if not, there are 50-watt and 20-watt versions, both giggable depending on your drummer and what kind of venues you’re playing. They still have that ‘sound in your head’ approach with plenty of different voices – and are a good deal cheaper and a good few kilos lighter.
If 6L6 power tubes are essential, then the 80-watt EVH 5150 Iconic ($899/£819) could do the trick – or the mainline EVH 5150III 6L6 in either 50- or 100-watt configurations from ($1,349.99/£1,249). Alternatively, if you’re looking for something with more character and that’s utterly superb at high-gain, then the very excellent Victory Kraken MkII ($1,479/£1,379) might do it for you.
The post Blackstar Series One MkII 100 review: a pro-level 100-watt head for… who, exactly? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
