Customer Reviews

Crate Blackheart BH5H Little Giant Guitar Amp Head, 5W All Tube with Attitude

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This thing is fantastic.
I guarantee this to you: There is no head for this kind of money that comes even close. The tone is amazing, the build quality is top notch and it's a LOUD 5 watts.
No master volume. Just turn it up to get some crunch.
Have a pedal? Use it here. This amp loves them.
I run it into a 2x12 cab with Eminence speakers. Sounds amazing.
You get classic EL84 British tones with this baby. BUY IT!!

Some stores sell the BH-5 head with the BH-112 bottom as a set. I see that AMAZON sells them as separates.
Blackheart did a great job of pairing these two units together. As you probably already know the BH-5 head has a neat feature of a 3 watt or 5 watt tube output. To be honest, for whatever reason the 3 watt setting sound a little muddy But the 5 watt output really drives the EMINENCE BH-112 speaker cab nicely. Very full sounding a breaks-up almost on command depending on your guitar strike accent. In other words, that great speaker break-up sound is predictable, and controllable depending how you play.
If you read my other reviews you'll see that I love EMINENCE SPEAKERS and this little BH-112 cab really delivers quality tone BUT don't count on it to fill a room with sound. I use mine as a high end practice amp, or using it in smaller venues. Don't worry though because I find the BH-5 amp head easily drives my 150 watt Celestion 212 bottom. Even with the 212 bottom I still found the 3 watt to be a little muddy But the 5 watt had great clarity and punch. To ADD tone control try adding an overdrive pedal chained with a reverb pedal. YOU'LL LOVE THE RESULTS! Hope this helps, and as always, THANKS for reading my reviews. Be well. The WebbMan.

This little amp rocks! I have the bh5h stack and i love it so much i think i will upgrade to the full stack when i get the dough. It is really warm, but i suggest if you want sweet overdrive tones, you should get an overdrive pedal. (unless you can crank it.)
Overall, this is a really great amp that is worth as much as amps 3x as much.

A lot of guitarists are discovering the magic of small tube amps these days. You can run them full tilt and get that saturated, overdriven sound at reasonable sound levels- great for recording, or for small venues. There are a lot of new "boutique" amps that deliver this sound in small packages, and most of them aren't very cheap. But this one is, and it sounds better than you might expect. I'd bought one of the Epiphone Valve Junior amps (the original one, without reverb) and while I liked it, I was looking for more tonal variation. Then I saw this Blackhart, with full tone controls, and a triode/pentode switch, for not much more that the Epiphone cost. I ordered the Blackheart and sold the Epiphone.

The Blackheart didn't disappoint me. On the triode (3 watt) setting it delivers chimey tones from my Tele at decent levels. Turn the volume control past 12 o'clock, and things start to get gritty. Plug in a hot humbucker, switch to 5 watt mode, crank up the gain, and suddenly, it's a real screamer, with incredible, rich tone and great sustain. I run mine into a 12" cab with an inexpensive Eminence speaker, and it puts out enough sound in 5 watt mode to keep up with a bass and drums in a small setting. Incredible.

If that's not enough, you can get heavier transformers from Maercury Magnetics and turn your amp into a real killer- of course, you'll spend more on transformers than you did on the amp! But even stock, this is an absolute killer. If you have a big stack, you need a little amp like this for practice, recording, and small gigs. If you're a beginner looking for your first guitar amp, this won't disappoint you- and it'll will take you through the gigs with your first band. If you want a super recording amp, it'll do that, too. It's just a great little amp.

I have to say, I'm very impressed with this little amp. I've used much larger amps before, (100's of watts) compared to this little guy's 5 watts, and I'm not missing any of them!

The sound is great, the controls are simple and the best part is, I didn't go broke buying the thing. For a small venue, for having your sound mic'ed or for practice in the bedroom, this Amp is perfect. My wife hasn't complained once about furniture vibrating or glasses breaking and I've gotten great comments on my sound from my band mates. All in all, its a great purchase and does everything I need it to!