I did and I sent it back.... it was a great little amp - especially for the money however the distortion channel farted out on muted strings. (supposed to be a tech problem but I didn't want to send it back for repairs and just bought something else instead - no amp though)
This is a discussion i've been looking for on the net.... personally i like to run my amps clean and shape my sound with my pedals....i looked at the blackheart stuff and it looks great but everyone on youtube or on sound clips all they want to do is crank everything up full so you never really get an idea of the clean sound of these amps.... the hansome devil looks like a great little combo...
Yeah, the Blackhearts are quality cleans.. almost Fenderish in my book. The upper range sports a natural OD breakup that's almost too clean unless you have a nice boost or OD pedal. Its like the reason I bought a Fender HotRod Deville for my son: plenty overhead for that clean power when you need it... & the ability to sculpt your tone into almost any genre with the right pedals. Metal with a Fender or Blackheart? You BET.
My new Rebel 20 packages the versatility of both the Blackheart's cleans & the Tiny Terror gain.. & then some. Its variable wattage, sweepable tube selector, & voicing switches really have become my "goto" amp. The cleans are very good but it'll provide almost all the dirt clods you need as well.
Of course it's no creamy Class-A Tiny Terror. Nor is it a one-trick pony like the Little Giant. But it does stand out as the single amp to grab on the way out the door! Now I should buy a cab for all my buddy's houses.
Once again, sorry for getting this thread so far away from the Epi-VJRs but I feel the Blackheart line is of far better value due to the quality, tone, & ability to mod them as well.. & I'll take every opportunity to promote them; I'm that happy with the company.
I'm running a wet/dry/wet rig on the acoustic stuff lately and i'm seriously thinking of going down the same route on the rock stuff as well.... basically one of my valve amps in the middle and the Pod/dynacord rack with a power amp running stereo either side for reverb/leslie/stereo delay etc...the pod has a unprocessed output jack that i use to run a dry signal to one channel of the PA at the moment with the two balanced outputs going to one of the stereo channels so pedalboard in the front end of the pod to amp(dry) and power amp to a couple of 1x12 speaker cabs ........the only thing is i wouldn't need the bigger amps.... i tried using my selmer 15 watt on a few gigs but it struggled as our drummer is a bit of an animal......and the selmer is over 40 years old with the original 30 watt goodmans speaker........good amp though...... the blackheart 15 watt is looking very tempting.....and i do have a couple of celestion V 30's lying around gathering dust.... i think a couple of sheets of 22 mm ply and get the skil saw/screw gun out.............
Epiphone Valve Junior...
Posted - 05/08/2009 : 11:36:53
....and the selmer is over 40 years old with the original 30 watt goodmans speaker.....