What bothers me here is that they're doing it wrong and they know they're doing it wrong. Pairing a mid gain preamp with a solid state power amp just isn't going to produce an end result that is on par with the rest of the series. Solid state power amps do well when you want a power section that doesn't intrude on the preamp sound much, high gain and cleans mostly. An ECC99(which is specced very close to power valves) in push-pull would pair much better and satisfy the low wattage market, but would be more expensive for that section alone. This is a product that fills a financial bracket, not a particular size/wattage need and is trying to obtain sales based on the success of the Terror name. They could have made better choices here. Blackstar's small offerings(which have been out for some time now) are using solid state where it's least important to produce an affordable product.
