Ideal for the gigging musician seeking an exceptionally powerful tube amp with the versatility to suit a wide range of playing styles and situations, the HT Stage 100 MK III from Blackstar, sporting a limited-edition snakeskin finish, is a compact 100W tube amplifier head with three footswitchable channels (a boutique clean channel and two high-gain overdrive channels) and six footswitchable voices. The two 12AX7 preamp tubes and two EL34 power tubes deliver classic tube potency, but can also be kicked down to 10W for recording or home practice.
With the patented ISF knob, you can shift through the full gamut of amp tones, from American to British, while you get plenty more control over your tone through the expanded clean tone controls, three-band EQ, onboard digital reverb with a dark/light switch, channel and master volume control, presence, resonance, and emulated speaker outputs via the CabRig analog XLR and 1/4" outputs. The onboard FX loop plays well with external FX, whether pedals or rack gear, and you get a USB-C output for sending multitrack DAW recording or emulated speaker output to a computer. This amp combo includes an FS-15 footswitch and a power cable.
The Overdrive channels have evolved from the original Series One range. The topology shares the same basic building blocks in the gain structure and tonal shaping and includes the cascaded gain stages of a 12AX7 double triode tube.
This includes EQ voicing, tone stack position in the circuit, gain, and power amp damping. Achieve diverse tonal options with the flick of a single switch.
Switch into standby for silent recording or silent stage use. The USB-C port lets you send 4 channels (clean/dry, preamp out, stereo emulated out) to your DAW, ensuring the easiest way to capture authentic tube tone in recordings.
This limits power output without affecting the tone shaping of the output stage and feedback loop, preserving your basic tone. Power amp overdrive occurs at much lower volume levels, giving the feel of a small tube amp verging on meltdown.
- 1/4" input for instruments
- Five 1/4" speaker output choices: 1 x 16 ohms, 1 x 8 ohms or 2 x 16 ohms, and 1 x 4 ohms or 2 x 8 ohms
- Balanced XLR out for CabRig DI usage, as well as a 1/4" line/headphone output CabRig emulation
- FX loop with level control for use with guitar pedals or pro-level gear
- Two 1/4" footswitch inputs, one 5-way and one 2-way
- USB-C port for multitrack audio recording and digital speaker emulation output