Amp Dilemma : Blackstar vs Caline SOLD

[Tonray's Ghost]

Wow...I started to get some inklings of how I play, my patterns and preferences last night but I thought I'd sleep on it before weighing in.

So this morning, Saturday here in Thailand, I usually refrain from turning the Blackstar 12" speaker tube amp on as my neighbor works all week and I know she sleeps in on weekends so I usually wait until after lunch to noodle around. She's a very nice neighbor and I try to be courteous too.

So i plug into my little Caline S4 amp with 4.5 inch speaker running thru my VOX Stomplab 1G and Boss Blues Driver. Oh man, I have not had this much fun since I don't know when. At low volume, low enough not to disturb anyone, this little setup is the bomb, and the upside is you can get some great Lo-Fi tones just not available in anything but a solid state setup.

So of course i give up the fullness and richness of the tube power amp and 12 inch speaker...that's a given..but in reality the Blackstar Gain is set at halfway and the Master has never gone past 8 AM on the dial. Anything more and it gets way too bassy for a living room situation. So in essence I am playing the Blackstar at pretty much the same volume that I played the Caline S4 this morning.

With money and budget always an issue (if you ever 'marry' into a Thai family you'll know what I'm talking about), I might rather use the resources locked up in the amp towards a couple of nice guitars seeing that I can get tones I like and will never utilize the Blackstar to its full potential.

So the dilemma is, would it be crazy to sell an amp that I just got about 7 months ago for about $700 and of course take a loss..maybe I can get $500 or $450 for it..and stick with the little solid state home rig. I mean if the Stones ever call and need me to fill in for Woodie or Keef I could always pick something up, right ?

[deeaa]

Wow...I started to get some inklings of how I play, my patterns and preferences last night but I thought I'd sleep on it before weighing in.

So this morning, Saturday here in Thailand, I usually refrain from turning the Blackstar 12" speaker tube amp on as my neighbor works all week and I know she sleeps in on weekends so I usually wait until after lunch to noodle around. She's a very nice neighbor and I try to be courteous too.

So i plug into my little Caline S4 amp with 4.5 inch speaker running thru my VOX Stomplab 1G and Boss Blues Driver. Oh man, I have not had this much fun since I don't know when. At low volume, low enough not to disturb anyone, this little setup is the bomb, and the upside is you can get some great Lo-Fi tones just not available in anything but a solid state setup.

So of course i give up the fullness and richness of the tube power amp and 12 inch speaker...that's a given..but in reality the Blackstar Gain is set at halfway and the Master has never gone past 8 AM on the dial. Anything more and it gets way too bassy for a living room situation. So in essence I am playing the Blackstar at pretty much the same volume that I played the Caline S4 this morning.

With money and budget always an issue (if you ever 'marry' into a Thai family you'll know what I'm talking about), I might rather use the resources locked up in the amp towards a couple of nice guitars seeing that I can get tones I like and will never utilize the Blackstar to its full potential.

So the dilemma is, would it be crazy to sell an amp that I just got about 7 months ago for about $700 and of course take a loss..maybe I can get $500 or $450 for it..and stick with the little solid state home rig. I mean if the Stones ever call and need me to fill in for Woodie or Keef I could always pick something up, right ?

I never keep amps. Just sell what I don't need and get what I do. Maybe that's why I've ended having the JVM four times and many amps several times, altogether dozens of 'em. So just go for it! Why keep something you don't need, exchange it for something nice you will use instead.

I mostly just play the Boss GX-100 anyway into something, usually the PC, or plugins.

I may even not buy an actual amp again. I don't need one with the band or to play gigs, and certainly not at home.

Sent from my M2103K19G using Tapatalk

[tlarson58]

You make a strong argument for selling it.

[Tonray's Ghost]

You make a strong argument for selling it.

Don't get me wrong, I love it. The richness and dynamics can't be duplicated but I guess I'm just not using it to its full potential. It may be hard to sell unfortunately as the Thai economy is not in a good place right now so we'll see what happens. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I kept it for awhile. If they would add reverb and/or delay to this little Caline S4 amp it would be killer. It has a lower noise floor than the Nux mini amp and paired with an effects box it's a winner

For anyone interested: And yes it actually does sound like this

[BatUtilityBelt]

I can't say either way, but you can. All I can do is add a word of caution that @deeaa already alluded to. Every time I've sold something off, then missed it and bought another, I lost money doing so. Just be sure you would won't suffer seller's regret.

[Tonray's Ghost]

I can't say either way, but you can. All I can do is add a word of caution that @deeaa already alluded to. Every time I've sold something off, then missed it and bought another, I lost money doing so. Just be sure you would won't suffer seller's regret.

Yeah...I haven't even listed it yet and I'm regretting it....ha ha ha ha

Truthfully...I don't have a humbucker guitar at the moment and I think those pickups would push the amp harder at lower volumes and make me love it even more...so maybe I'll wait until I pick something up before making a decision...love my Strat but it does have probably the weaakest pickups in the guitar universe as far as pushing an amp to 'fatness'

Just ordered an AB/Y box so I don't have to keep plugging and unplugging cables when I want to switch amps...I guess I'm keeping the Blackstar for now..."Wow man that's totally tubular"

[Tonray's Ghost]

Well..I got an offer I couldn't refuse for the Blackstar. Wonderful amp for sure but the issue for me was the space it was in, a small alcove off the main living area, and the sonic characteristics of the space do not match using even a low watt Tube Amplifier. Thinking hard about a SS replacement, the Vox Mini Super beetle with that NuTube in the preamp might be up next we'll see.