Blackstar’s third iteration of the HT Venue range features updated styling and powerful modern features, such CabRig speaker emulation and a brand-new digital reverb
Introduced back in 2010 at that year’s winter NAMM Show, Blackstar’s HT Venue series of mid-priced combos and heads quickly established the company as the go-to brand for working players at all levels. Seven years later in 2017, we were among the first to glimpse the updated HT Venue Mk II. And today, almost another seven years on again, we’re looking at the upgrade to the upgrade, in the shape of the new HT Venue Mk III.
Has Blackstar’s unceasing R&D program produced another winner? Let’s take a look at possibly the most popular combo in the range, the 1x12 Club 40.
Like its predecessors, the new Mk III Club 40 is a good-looking amp, with pleasing proportions enhanced by Blackstar’s elegant revised styling. Asmart new metal badge sits atop a black and silver sparkle grille cloth, which conceals a single 12-inch Celestion Seventy 80 loudspeaker. Inside the chassis, most of the electronics sit on one large high-quality printed circuit board, with the familiar clean layout and minimal wiring we’ve come to expect on Blackstar products.
The Club 40 is a footswitchable twochannel design with a choice of two very different voices on both channels. The straightforward controls will be familiar to Blackstar users and newbies alike: the Clean channel has knobs for Volume, Treble and Bass, with a Voice select switch that toggles between American and British influences; while the Overdrive channel offers Gain, Volume, Bass, Middle, Treble and Blackstar’s patented ISF (Infinite Shape Feature), which progressively changes the tone network from British to American configuration, adding great tonal flexibility. Another toggle switch changes the Overdrive channel between classic and modern voices.
As with the Clean channel, many circuit changes take place when these toggle switches are flipped, including EQ, gain, output stage negative feedback and speaker damping. Towards the far right of the front panel, there’s a Master Volume and Reverb Level knob, together with another small toggle switch that drops the Club 40’s output down to around four watts for home practice and recording.
1
2
