I'm looking at picking up a blackstar ht studio 40. Anyone have any experience with this model, or Blackstar in general?

I had the HT20 but took it back to GC after a couple of weeks. To my ears it had a digital and compressed sound that I didn't care for. The cleans were good but only had a single tone control. The gain channel seemed to me to be geared for higher gain metal more than old school like Priest or classic rock. The IFS would change it from a scooped to a more mid-bassed tone. Also the HT20, at least, didn't have a presence control which I thought it needed.

I have two Blackstars.....both are HT-5's.  One a head.  The other a combo.  My main amps are vintage marshalls....and the Blackstars do a great job at lower volume.  I have gigged with both..... I actually have run a Marshall 4x12 with mine....when they are dimed out....i am usually fine volume wise.  

For gigs that I can't use the Blackstar amps...but not big enough to warrant a 50 watt Marshall...i use a Hughes & Kettner Tubemeister 18 into a Marshall 4 x 12.  And rock it out just fine.

Both the Blackstar ht5 and Tubemeister are on the right side of the Marshalls

I have nothing to add, just wanted to say, niiiiiiiiiice!



 

That sounds pretty much along the lines of what I want. I'm not too concerned with volume, since i don't gig or anything. every once in a while i play with some friends though, and my Crush 35 isn't loud enough to hear over drums, so something that CAN get loud enough is a plus. But for the most part, its going to be played at a low volume.

Owning both amps what are your thoughts on the Tubemeister 18 vs the HT5RH?

I prefer the overdrive of the Blackstar actually.  At home the #1 amp BY FAR is the Blackstar HT5 head running into a Marshall 4x12".  I previously ran this head into 2 Blackstar HTV112 cabinets...and loved that sound.  

I bought the Tubemeister 18 for one reason and one reason only....to bridge the gap between the HT-5 Blackstars and the Marshall 50 watt heads.  The Tubemeister 18 is great....the controls are extremely sensitive.  It is a bit more flexible than the HT-5 sound wise...2 channels and a boost available on the overdrive channel, along with a gain and volume on the clean channel to tweek that channel.  I do NOT like the effects loop on the Tubemeister.  On the HT-5, you can set two diff levels for your effects loop.  On the Tubemiester 18...it is NOT adjustable.  I LOVE the REDBOX output on the Tubemeister.  In a nutshell..I can dial in a great sound on the Blackstar QUICK...it takes a bit more work on the Tubemeister since it has such a range of sounds.  The Tubemeister has a cleaner / higher headroom clean channel that is lacking in the Blackstar.

I am very happy with both...and could easily use just the Tubemeister with the built in attenuator for home, rehearsal and stage.  The HT-5 is home and rehearsal...although I have gigged with it too.

One amp to look at which I just looked at is the Bugera G5 Infinium....it runs around $250...and is CLOSELY modeled after the HT-5 with improvements.  

Not a lot of experience with them, their 2x12 combo sounded great, anything else I tried at the local place sounded flat.
Eventually went Marshall