Blackstar 10W Digital Stereo Combo (IDCORE10V2)

I really like this little amp. I just got it a few days ago so I can't speak for longevity or durability, but for value, features, and sound, I give it five stars.I haven't played my guitar in a few years but decided to pick it up again recently. I needed a practice amp and wanted to spend around $100 but wanted at least a little reverb to add some flavor to the sound. I've had a few practice amps before and they all needd a little something more than just EQ and gain.I cam across this amp on a "Best Practice Amps" google search and after watching a few YouTube reviews, decided to give it a try and I'm extremely impressed. Here are my thoughts.SOUNDThe 6 distinct sounds (2 clean, 2 distorted, 2 overdrive) all sound really good and the gain knob lets you customize them pretty well. The ISF tone knob instead of a 3-band EQ is good enough. It changes the balance of the sound a bit from a "British" sound to an "American" sound, whatever that means.This is a practice amp so it doesn't get super loud. It has 2 3" speakers that sound nice at lower volumes, but if you crank it up, they start to distort. You won't be playing any gigs with this amp, but it is perfect for messing around in your apartment or basement or wherever.EFFECTSThe amp has three types of built in effects, reverb, delay, and modulation. Each effect has four "types" and each type can be customized via a "level" knob. The effects are more than good enough to add some flavor to your practice sessions. You can turn on several effects at a time and the type and level knobs adjust the last selected effect.EXTRASThe amp has a built in tunder that works great. It lights up an LED around the tone selection knob to indicate which note you're playing and then uses the LEDs next to the effects to indicate whether you're flat, sharp, or on tune. It is a simple but effective and really convenient. To activate, you just hold the reverb button for a second or two until the amp mutes.The amp can be plugged into the computer and used to record or add patches to the amp for different sounds. I admit i haven't tested this and may never use the feature, but it is a nice bonus for a practice amp that costs just over $100.All in all I really like this little amp and look forward to spending many hours sitting in front of it.

After years of acoustic guitar, I finally picked up an electric guitar a month back, and needed a decent, affordable practice amp to guide me on my new journey. This amp met and exceeded my expectations, with incredible sound variety and output quality for an amp this size (and price).PROS: ease of use, portability, price, headphone output audio mixing, amazing versatility of voice and toneCONS: no integrated handle, heavy pop (especially in headphones) when switching the amp offOperation: Right out of the box the amp felt solidly built and heavy for its size. I had spent some time before it arrived looking over the instruction manual, so I had a head start on the functionality, and was almost immediately twisting knobs and setting presets with abandon. I expected a lower-end model like this to skimp on the interface parts, but the knobs have a nice resistance to them, which is especially useful for setting effect levels. The layers of functionality take a bit of getting used to, but overall the interface layout is excellent and provides alot of control for something so small and relatively cheap. The included handle is just a little pleather strap that works like a guitar strap, attaching to knobs on either side of the amp. I have yet to use this feature, since I don't trust those knob/strap things to hold much weight. So this thing is portable in the sense that it's small and quite light, not easy to grab with one hand.Sound: Not a gig amp, though this thing really roars for its size. Would be more than enough for a solo act, electric/acoustic jamming, etc. I mainly use headphones since I practice in my second floor apartment, and the simulated output is rich and full. On weekends, when I can be a bit noisy, I end up moving the amp off the floor (even at <50% gain and volume levels) because it catches the low end of my chords and vibrates the floor more than I'm comfortable with. This is partly a testament to my lack of strumming discipline on an electric, but the point remains that this thing is an audio monster in a small box.I love the effect level controls on this amp, and it's been a blast recreating guitar voices from songs I know (the chopped reverb from Boulevard of Broken Dreams [it was a test okay?], the flat woody buzz from Mary Jane's Last Dance, big juicy overdrives for 80s anthems from Toto and Journey). Together with coil-tapping and an out-of-phase function on my guitar, I truly feel limited only by my patience for fiddling with knobs. My main hobby project with the electric guitar is to create heavy rock/metal covers of decidedly un-metal songs ("Bye Bye Bye" is an example), and since this amp has a USB port and can run to my laptop for capture and post-processing, it could be years before I buy a bigger amp for performing!Overall, worth the extra $50-60 to get something of this size and quality, rather than settling on a $50 battery powered starter amp. If you don't play, you won't improve, so getting an amp that can keep up with you now and in the future (at least as far as practice/recording is concerned) is a valuable asset if you can afford it.

Giving five stars based on sound, options, and price. For $100 you cannot beat this amp for sound or options. Make no mistake this is a fully loaded modeling amp with all the bells and whistles. Out of the box it produces that chunchy Blackstar sound that I am partial to and plenty of on board options to model you sound the way you want and if more are needed or you want to store different presets just hook it up you your computer and more options and more tweaking become available to you using the Blackstar software. Don't let the two three in speakers fool you, this amp with the wide stereo technology will fill the room nicely though you will need to go up to at least the 40w model if you plan to play live with a drummer. This model however an excellent desktop/endtable/shelf amp that will make practice very pleaseant unlike the vast majority of the old school practice amps that make practice more annoying than productive.As far as build construction it is a heavy plactic casing with a tolerex covered look and a nice black/silver speaker cloth. Handle is the weak point here as it is basically a tiny guitar strap you wrap over two studs, one mounted on each side. It also uses the same exclusive power supply as the Blackstar fly3 so the power cord is not universal.The online software is a little clumsy compared to Fenders software/app for their Mustang GT series but with some playing around time you can get the changes you want. All in all a great sounding little amp I wish had been around when I started playing back in 95.