BLACKSTAR ST JAMES 50 EL34 COMBO
Blackstar claims its latest release is “the lightest 50-watt all-valve combo in the world”. Is this really the future for valve amplification? Time to plug in
Blackstar’s history goes back to 2004, when a gang of four guitar-playing mates left secure employment with a major amplification manufacturer to spend the next two and a half years developing their own range of amps, from the somewhat more dubious security of a shed in Northampton.
Blackstar Amplification made its debut in 2007 at Frankfurt’s Musikmesse trade show – and the rest we know. Today, it’s one of the top amplification brands in every niche, from hand-wired pure valve designs to cost-effective digital modelling, all presented with the typically down-toearth pragmatic attitude that’s a reflection of the company founders and the city Blackstar comes from. So perhaps it’s apt that Blackstar chose to pay tribute to its hometown with one of its most important launches yet: the St James range.
St James is the Northampton district that’s home to the Saints Rugby Union Premiership club and the skylinedominating National Lift Tower, and the St James amplifiers have a lot to live up to – and that’s before we peer inside the design – as Blackstar is proudly calling them “the future of valve amplification”. There are actually two different flavours on offer within the range, both available in combo and head format, one being a highgain 6L6-powered circuit aimed at modern rock and metal, while the one we’re looking at here is the lower-gain, pedal-friendly EL34 version.
The St James amps are billed as the lightest 50-watt valve amps in the world, with a number of innovations making that possible, the most obvious being the lack of heavy mains transformer. Instead, we have a patent-pending switched-mode power supply piggybacked on the top of the main chassis, which is carefully folded for improved rigidity. Inside, miniature SMD components cohabit with heavy duty power resistors and capacitors on high-quality printed circuit boards. There are separate PCBs for the front and rear controls, the valve bases and a smaller board for Blackstar’s Cab Rig digital speaker emulation, all securely supported and joined by ribbon cables, terminated with robust Molex connectors.
There are a few cool features. In the middle of the main board there’s a reactive load device, which mimics the loudspeaker’s
