Blackstar has made a play to take over the headphone amp market with the Beam Solo – a new device that looks to take on Fender’s Mustang Micro Plus and the Boss Katana:Go.
Over the past three years or so, gear firms have been piling resources into the headphone amp market, leading to a handy range of silent-practice solutions for guitarists and bassists.
The key players in this corner of the market are the aforementioned Mustang Micro Plus and Katana:Go (back after its strange discontinuation and relaunch earlier this year), both of which promise tube amp-style tones in a package geared towards noise-conscious playing companions.
Now, Blackstar has entered the headphone amp arms race with a new gadget it claims to be “the most immersive, intuitive headphone amp on the market today”.
The headline here is that, though the Beam Solo looks like your humble headphone amp, it behaves slightly differently, with an intuitive ‘Beam’ light display on the edge, which lets you quickly refine tones on the unit itself.
It’s a nice visual aid to the Beam Solo, which clearly has sought to double down on a screenless-yet-intuitive UI in a bid to wrestle interest from the arguably more simplistic Fender and Boss designs.
At the core of the amp itself is the SpeedDial – an ever-scrolling, multi-function parameter wheel that is responsible for gain, EQ and volume tweaks. It also works with ‘XpressFX’, which Blackstar says can be leveraged for instantaneous, multi-layer effects adjustments.
Speaking of the app, Blackstar’s Beam partner software offers more than 35 amps, cabs, mic sims, effects and “pro-level tone tools”, as well as a built-in tuner and metronome.
Those tonal assets come from Blackstar’s “Ampton” collection – which fuses “authentic valve character with advanced digital algorithms” – and are bolstered by the immersive “In The Room” tech, which hopes to make the headphone experience “feel alive – like a real amp, in a real space”.
From that Beam app, players can also upload, download, explore and share presets, with some of the firm’s biggest players – Jared James Nichols and Doug Aldrich included – present on the platform.
For singer-guitarists, there’s a headset mic input with built-in preamps and reverbs for solo set rehearsals, for example, with Bluetooth compatibility allowing for streaming music to jam along to.
The question that guitarists will be concerned with is just how well the Beam Solo stacks up against the competition. Well, variety, community, versatility and tone-tweaking options certainly look to be on its side. That Beam Light display looks very neat, too.
It’s also competitively priced. The Blackstar Beam Solo weighs in at $129. For perspective, the Fender Mustang Micro Plus is $135, while the Boss Katana:Go is $139.
You can pre-order right now from Sweetwater (US) and Gear4Music (UK/Europe).
Head over to Blackstar for more.
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