Style

I like the look of this. I've never been a fan of the appearance of the retro-styled smaller guitars amplifiers such as those from Epiphone, Gretsch or Harley Benton, but I looked twice at the style of this amp. For once, there's a retro-style amp I wouldn't mind standing next to on stage.

Volume

So it's a small amp but it's not that quiet. Face it, 15W is too loud for turning up full at home, but looking closer and it has a pentode to triode option reducing the output to 5W. That's still loud at full volume, but getting closer to suitable levels for home.

Introduction

This is more expensive than the Kustom Defender 5W, but offers a few features that may make it more worthwhile, depending on what your looking for. It's still a low power amp and has piqued my interest by being licensed by THD Electronics.

Introduction

I'm a fan of small, low-power guitar amplifiers for nailing the tone you want at the volume that your neighbours will condone. I know a lot of people give the cheaper models a hard time, expecting top-end boutique tone out of a cheap Epiphone valve junior hot rod. Well that's not going to happen.

Yet another addition to the small, low-power valve amplifiers. I like the idea of the Bugera V5's power attenuator as I know that 5W is still too loud to crank up in your house if you want to maintain relationships with your neighbours. 1W is a good amount of power and I'm not really sure about 0.1W.

Want to buy a starter package? Well I know you can buy a starter guitar package for $200-$300. But hold on a minute, you don't get much of a guitar for $200, let alone guitar, amp, strap, lead, stand, etc.

There's a trend especially among guitarists that involves them always trying to improve their gear in the search of perfect tone. For rock guitarists, the typical route is to start with a small practice amp, then a combo that's suitable for rehearsals and small gigs, then a larger combo or half-stack, all the way up to a 100W multi-channel amp. Some realise what route they're on before they reach the end and take the sensible option of avoiding a few stops.

An interesting thing happens at the larger end, resulting in one of the following:

Sure it's tiny, but do not mistake it for a toy.

What we say about the Blackstar HT5 stack

I wish this amp had been around when I was first learning how to play gu