Blackstar HT-Stage 100 MkIII

The HT Venue series offers all-tube guitar amplifiers, combos and associated speakers that evolved from the highly popular and award-winning HT-5. The products in this series offer sufficient power for playing in bands and superior equipment. If we were to choose three basic characteristics of these machines, then we would certainly mention the warm tube tone, high versatility and maximum reliability.

The HT Stage 100 MkII all-tube amplifier is a versatile guitar in a stylish "boutique" design suitable for producing a wide range of musical genres. It offers similar features to the Stage 60 combo, only in a more compact format and with a higher output of 100 watts thanks to the four EL34 end tubes used. This makes it reliable in club and studio environments, as well as on the large stages of halls and stadiums.

It offers three channels and a total of six different footswitchable sound modes. The first, clean, channel has a separate volume control, two-band EQ and a Voice button. Press it to choose between a clean sound with the punchy bass bottom end of American machines and the British Class A sound. Two channels with overdrive character offer four different sound modes, i.e. each has two. They can generally be characterized by higher gain, which, however, does not dilute into harsh, unpleasant, shades in the high frequencies. On the contrary, even at the maximum gain setting, the tone retains its naturalness and warm tube character. Both channels have separate volume and gain controls, and share audio corrections in the form of a three-band EQ and an ISF (Infinite Shape Feature) potentiometer. The latter allows you to switch seamlessly between sounds that match American and British tube amps.

A natural-sounding digital reverb serves well to add colour to the guitar tone. On the rear panel you can switch between two types - Dark with room reverb character and Light based on the plate reverb effect. The effect can be controlled by an optional five-button footswitch.

Among other features, we mention the Power switch with full and 10% power selection, a USB interface to send four audio tracks (dry signal, preamp out and stereo emulated out) to a PC or other recording device, two footswitch outputs, send/return effect loops, outputs to external speakers with 16/8/4 ohm impedance and a DI/line output with 1x 12/4x 12 speaker emulation.

FS-15 footswitch included.