Amp stopped working

There's another review here with one star that was my exact same situation. I contacted Blackstar support on this because I too was like 5 months past the warranty and hadn't used the amp that much. Evidently, this amp is sensitive to hot pickups. I use a G&L Fallout bass with it and it was clipping hard (there is no indicator light to show you this). BlackStar support recommended trying another bass and engaging the -10db switch. This worked! Then I connected the G&L and threw the -10db switch and the distortion was gone. Would I buy it again? No. The same hot pickup'd bass works fine on an old Peavey 115 and a Fender 40w amp. Thus I did not consider clipping. Hope this helps someone.

Fantastic bass amp.
Very versatile and sound is great.
Powerful enough for small and mid-sized shows, especially with the U250ACT extension cab.
I am thoroughly impressed.
The octave effect is not the best but I rarely use octave so no big deal for me.
Highly recommended.

This combo has it all. It is built like a tank, it oozes quality with its look and feel and most importantly, tone. The price/weight/power/feature ratio is unbeatable. This combo looks, feels and sounds like something much bigger that would carry a boutique price tag.
I come from the Ampeg, GK, Ashdown big-rig world, I needed a combo for grab-n-go kind of stuff...I've owned many, including Ampeg, GK, Ashdown, TC and Peavey and the Blacksatar U500 beats them all in every way. I highly recommend it.
FYI - I'm a lifelong bass player, I play metal and I'm in my mid 50's.
Big nod to my rep, Henry Moore...he never gives me a reason to buy anywhere else and always makes it work.

Great bass amp with a lot of power. Blackstar is a great company. I've used a few of there guitar amps as well. Cheap and great.

I bought my amp 15 months ago (so the warranty expired 3 months ago). The amp worked fine until now. I was practicing the other night and suddenly heard incredible scratchy, popping sounds, as though a speaker had blown (the wisdom of pushing 500 watts through 2 10" speakers is a different debate). In my entire lifetime, 63 years, I have NEVER blown a speaker but I assumed that was the issue. Checked my bass, the cord, eliminated them as sources. I pulled the front cover and looked for torn speaker paper - saw none. I lightly tapped around the cone circumference on both speakers and didn't hear anything odd. I haven't confirmed but it looks like the electronics are bad. After 15 months, of which about 8 the amp sat in my bonus room unused? And the cost to get it repaired will most likely equal the cost of the amp, or at least close to it, so I'll wind up throwing the thing in the garbage. Doesn't look good for Blackstar if this is the best they can do.

I'll plunk down some more money soon and do what I should've done to start with, by buying an Ampeg. Live and learn.

Had two of these shipped to me. Neither of the two worked. Blackstar has some work to do. What do you think the odds of getting two bass amplifiers back to back of the the same product, and neither work are?

We"ve used this amp on a few gigs now with my band. TONS of power. Great clarity and depth at the same time. Some good usable effects. You really can"t go wrong with this amp.

I waited 4 months for this amp and it was more than worth the wait . I've used a lot of bass rigs over the last 40 years and this is a monster. There are many really good combo rigs out there , but this is one I will never grow tired of and I think you will also feel this way if you play one . Most of my gigs are 200 seat rooms without me going DI and I have to turn down , that says a lot . No need to break down all the features , everything you hear/read is spot on .

While primarily a guitarist I've been playing bass for 10 years and for about 5 it was my main instrument. I was looking to get back into bass playing and I was torn between the Fender Rumble and the Ampeg BA series for that... 500w range. While the Fender has been getting fabulous reviews and has been reported as pretty reliable, I found it a little old fashioned tone wise, even using the overdrive and the contour to try to add some edge. Meanwhile the Ampeg was more up my alley, but it wasn't as flexible EQ wise and I couldn't always get it to sound quite right, not to mention reliability has been hit and miss.

I gave this Blackstar a shot after basically seeing it by accident. The first thing that got me excited was the tube modelling. You can set the amp to have a Linear response, a 6L6 response, or a 6550 response. I'm a total sucker for the idea of replicating real amp specs and models, so I had to give the amp a try.

Essentially, I had a good time and bought it and now I love it even more. Let me compare it to the competition. The Fender has a 4 band EQ, a controllable overdrive (Level, Drive) Gain, and Volume. It additionally has a Vintage switch, a Contour switch, and a Bright switch. While this does expand your options, I find that the tone will often be a little too round and vintagey no matter what the settings for me. However, if you want that jazz or even old rock vibe, it could probably get you there.

The Ampeg by comparison has a 3 band EQ, an Ultra Hi and Ultra Lo switch, and a Scrambler, which is essentially the Ampeg Overdrive circuit, but instead of level and overdrive, it has Drive and Blend. It's much more straight forward and gives a pretty great metal and rock grind tone, you're not going to get a huge amount of variation of the actual tone structure.

The Blackstar is just ridiculous. Three EQ structures (Classic, Modern, Flat), three tube sims (Linear, 6L6, 6550), three types of overdrive (Overdrive, Distortion, Fuzz), 3 band EQ with a 4th knob to change the Mid frequency, a gain knob, a master volume, a drive knob for the overdrive, and a built in sub-octave and chorus effect.

The biggest thing about this amp for me is the optional EQ and tube sims. Whenever I found my tone lacking I always had somewhere to go to not only change the EQ, but change the foundation of the tone, and it helped me find my perfect sound. Beyond that, I think the built in Distortion is absolutely fantastic. It strangely interacts with each EQ setting differently, but it does provide variety.

The critiques I have of the amp are partially subjective and partially have to do with how there's so many features that some of them feel like extras. The overdrive and fuzz circuits don't impress me much, but the distortion circuit blew the other amps out of the water so that was fine for me. The sub-octave seems odd considering it struggles with the lower notes, and the chorus is a sound I wouldn't typically use, but I imagine these are great features with someone who doesn't have a pedal board.

The last thing I want to advertise is the sheer connectivity on the back of the amp. WHile the Fender, Ampeg both have effects loops, MP3 ins, line outs, headphone jacks and ext speaker outputs, the Blackstar retains all of these while adding level controls for the chorus and octave, additional level and emulated out settings for the line out (THe fender includes this) it also replaces the external speaker with a cab link port. Blackstar sells a POWERED 1x15 extension speaker that adds an additional 250W allowing you to later upgrade your rig. Finally, it has a usb interface for connecting to the computer.

Personally, I think the extra money puts it heads above it's competitors and I think it's work giving Blackstar a chance.

NOTE: I have played the amp fairly loudly but not gigging volumes due to my current living situation.

I needed an amp for that day I get involved with a band. I hope that comes soon. Alex gave me a great tip on this amp. I had been reading up on these for months. I wanted something to cover even medium sized rooms. This will do it and more. The system is expandable with the extension cabinet. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go combo or component. I made a good choice. For the price I got the power and features that fit my playing. I go from slap stuff to pop to classic rock. I can get it all here. I really wanted built in compression. This does it well. Not sure I'll use the distortion tones much, but the chorus is great. Probably won't use the octave feature much either but it's there. Most importantly I found a tone that fits what I play without much tweeting after. I took a half star for the buzz you get from the front screen. Probably should have been metal. Certain tones really make it buzz. I can always pop it off if I really need to crank it. Hopefully something comes my way soon. I think my playing is good enough. I can't wait to get this baby on stage and crank it up.