More Blackheart Stuff

[tunghaichuan]

I spent most of today with my Blackheart BH5H head. First I played it stock for about an hour. Mrs. Tung was at a home and garden show today, so I could crank it and not get yelled at :dude:

I plugged the head into my two RSA 1x12" speaker cabs. Each one is loaded with a Celestion G12M-70 "Modern Lead" speaker. The cabs them selves are ported and are copies of the Mesa/Boogie ported 1x12" design. The are made of 3/4" plywood and covered in 80s-approved carpet. :AOK: One cool feature of the BH5H is that it has parallel jacks for the 8 & 4 ohm outputs. That means I can plug both of my 8 ohm 1x12" cabs into the amp at the same time.

First of all, this amp loves pedals. I ran a Boss Blues Driver, a Boss Turbo OD and a Carvin Distortion into it and got some really great sounds out of it. The best tones were from the Turbo OD on the boost setting. The amp sounds very good turned about 3/4 of the way up with the Blues Driver set to clean boost (gain all the way down, level all the way up).

Later, I took the amp apart. I checked the voltages, but I won't bore anyone with my findings :) I swapped out the stock Chinese tubes for a JJ EL84 and a Sovtek 12AX7WB. They Chinese and JJ tubes biased up about the same, so I didn't bother to change the cathode bias resistor.

Despite what the Blackheart company says, the amp is not mod-friendly. To do any mods, you have to pull the entire board which entails usoldering several wires. I'm thinking this head may be a candidate for a gut and rebuild using an eyelet board.

The chassis is steel and heavy duty. As expected the jacks are kind of cheap. The transformers are pretty nice for the cost of the amp. The OT is marked 5.2k, 75Hz to 7kHz. Some of the solder joints on my amp look kind of iffy and will probably have to be touched up.

One thing to watch out for when removing the chassis: I managed to strip not one, but two bolts which hold the chassis to the cabinet. In case anyone needs to know, the bolts are 6mm X 30mm and are available at Home Depot ;)

The BH5H has more clean headroom than the Valve Junior which is a nice feature. The Blackheart will do a moderately loud clean sound. The Valve Junior starts to break up early on and gets crunchier and crunchier.

The EQ controls on the BH are almost worthless. The mid control does nothing that I can hear :( The bass control does very little. The treble has a lot of range, but since it is the only control that works, why not just put in the Fender-style tweed tone control? To be fair the TMB-style tone control does eat up a lot of gain, which is needed because of the very sensitive EL84. The VJ, without the TMB, gets around this by adding a tone sucking 1M/1M voltage divider :D

Anyway, after some initial dissapointment in the BH, I'm really starting to warm up to it.

tung

[Spudman]

The BH5H has more clean headroom than the Valve Junior which is a nice feature. The Blackheart will do a moderately loud clean sound. The Valve Junior starts to break up early on and gets crunchier and crunchier.

tung

That's why one of each is a good way to go, eh?;) (gas promotion)

Thanks for your review.

I'm enjoying mine stock. It does take pedals well for sure. I've been using a Bad Monkey and a Rat and liking that combo.

As for the tone circuit - I have an EQ pedal and have no complaints using it that way. They are subtle controls on the amph though.

I did a tube substitution (EH pre and Sovtek power) right off the bat too. I didn't notice enough difference to warrant leaving the new set in. It was a bit smoother with the EH tube though.

I don't think I'll mod mine. It works well enough for me the way it is. Besides, in the future the stock unmodded ones may be worth something.

[tunghaichuan]

That's why one of each is a good way to go, eh?;) (gas promotion)

Thanks for your review.

I'm enjoying mine stock. It does take pedals well for sure. I've been using a Bad Monkey and a Rat and liking that combo.



Cool. Good to hear. I have a Bad Monkey on layaway at Guitar Center. It was used so they have to hold it until 30 days to make sure it isn't stolen. I get to pick it up next week. :bravo:



As for the tone circuit - I have an EQ pedal and have no complaints using it that way. They are subtle controls on the amph though.

I did a tube substitution (EH pre and Sovtek power) right off the bat too. I didn't notice enough difference to warrant leaving the new set in. It was a bit smoother with the EH tube though.


I have some RCA and GE 6BQ5 tubes that I'm going to try. I also have some Telefunken, Mullard, and Aperex 12AX7 to try in the preamp. Although I really like the current JJ tubes. And to be fair, Sovtek EL84s don't sound that bad to me.



I don't think I'll mod mine. It works well enough for me the way it is. Besides, in the future the stock unmodded ones may be worth something.

I've been wanting to try a schematic that I've downloaded from Sewatt.com for a while. The preamp tube is a 6U8 which is a pentode/triode in one envelope. The pentode will be for gain and the triode has low plate resistance so it will drive the tone stack. The TMB controls might actually do something :AOK: I plan on running it it right into the EL84 output section. I'm going to do this to the head as most pentodes are microphonic and the head cabinet provides some isolation. Also, small signal/preamp pentodes are extremely high gain which compounds the problem. The hardest part will be making the eyelet board and coming up with a layout.

I'm going to do a tube swap in the combo I have and call it good. I'm not going to mod that amp. It sounds good as is.

tung

[marnold]

I'm going to do a tube swap in the combo I have and call it good. I'm not going to mod that amp. It sounds good as is.
So which is better--the combo or the mini-stack?

[tunghaichuan]

So which is better--the combo or the mini-stack?

That's the next step for me: to A/B the head and 1x12" cabs against the combo. Although to be fair, the speaker in the combo isn't broken in. The speakers in my 1x12" cabs are at least 15 years old.

tung