Blackstar unveils HT Venue MkII valve guitar amps with “massively flexible feature set”

Blackstar’s original HT Venue range of guitar amps won a lot of praise for its working-musician practicality and tonal bang-for-buck (not least from us), but the company has reworked the line for 2017 with the new MkII range.

The five-strong line-up comprises the HT Club 40 MkII, HT Stage 60 112 MkII, HT Stage 60 212 MkII, HT Club 50 MkII head and HT Stage 100 MkII head.

There are a wealth of tweaks onboard: clean channels now have bass and treble controls, plus a voice switch, while overdrive channels promise to be more responsive, each with their own voice switch.

All modes are now footswitchable (including a new boost), and a power reduction circuit allows for reduction down to 10% of the amp’s wattage.

USB and XLR recording outputs are also onboard, while the whole range is more compact and lightweight, and features a newly designed “studio-quality” reverb.

Each amp is fuelled by ECC83 and EL34 valves, and offers Celestion speakers, either in combo formats or in their accompanying cabs.

We’ll have verdicts on the revamped range soon, but until then, visit Blackstar Amps for more info and see below for UK RRPs.

HT Club 40 MkII: £699
HT Club 50H MkII: £599
HT Stage 60 112 MkII: £749
HT Stage 60 212 MkII: £849
HT Stage 100H MkII: £749
HTV-112 MkII: £199
HTV-212 MkII: £299
HTV-412A MkII: £479
HTV-412B MkII: £479