One For Your Money

Following last year’s release of the award-winning Dept. 10 valve pedals, Blackstar’s multi-function, paperback-sized new tone machine has arrived to cover any need

- Nick Guppy

Blackstar's rise to fame as one of the world's leading guitar amplification manufacturers is well documented, and certainly one of the reasons it's arrived at the top and stayed there is that the team never seems to stop innovating. Almost every month, or so it seems, there's something new to tempt us and now it's the turn of Blackstar's Dept. 10, its blue sky' research and development team. Hot on the heels of last year's multi-award-winning valve Dual Drive, Dual Distortion and Boost pedals, the latest product to bear the Dept. 10 moniker is the Amped 1, a 100-watt multi-function amplifier in a package small enough to fit on your pedalboard.

Like all Blackstar products, the Amped 1 is smartly presented with clean, uncluttered cosmetics. The electronics are contained inside a tough chassis with a white enamelled aluminium faceplate and a contrasting black steel base. There's very little space inside, yet everything is neatly laid out, with mostly SMD components on high-quality printed circuit boards.

The Amped 1 is basically a single-channel design, with a choice of three preamp voices and six power amp response options. The top-facing controls are straightforward and easy to navigate, with knobs for Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble and a Master volume. There's also a level control for Amped I's digital reverb, and a six-way rotary switch that changes the power amp response to emulate KT88, 6L6, EL34, 6V6 and EL84 output valves, with a Linear option for when you want the amplification to be transparent. There are LED indicators for all the switches, as well as an illuminated Blackstar logo.