I've wondered in the past if this is partly due to the ISF.
The basis of the ISF control is that the 'American' and 'British' tones are defined by a certain mid range character. If that's true, maybe you could say the midrange of any amp is a big part of its signature sound. That said, if you make the tone stack so flexible that it allows you alter that character, maybe by definition there is no solid 'Blackstar' tone, because the normal basis for defining such a thing has been made largely variable.
Might not be true. I'm just speculating.
That's a very good point actually.
When referring to Marshalls alot of people will talk about it's midrange focus etc, but with Blackstar you can't really do that because (as you said) it's completely variable.
A mate of mine has a small guitar shop and he's bordering on being obsessed with Blackstar; thinks they're the best thing since sliced bread. Myself and Tony popped in over the weekend and he forced a 2x10 HT5 Anniversary combo in our direction. He said that 'with it's improved EQ, bigger cab, more speakers etc it sounded alot better than the normal HT5 combos', and was really worth the £400 price tag. I plugged into it and was massively unimpressed (my feeling of all Blackstars I've used so far tbh) by it. He's actually said that when Blackstar release their new amps with the built in FX over the next year or so that they'll be the best amp on the market. He's a hell of a player, but I must admit to not sharing his choice in tones or amps :lol:
I was alot more impressed with the tone of an Orange Micro Terror through a V30 loaded cab, and that was a 20w hybrid with only 1 preamp valve and a solidstate power amp.
