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Nearly New: This product may have been opened for quality control purposes, returned by a customer, refurbished, or may have non-essential parts or software missing. Otherwise, the product operates as new. This is a great opportunity to buy a fully functioning product at a discounted price.
Product Ref: 97820
The S1-45's highly flexible two channel, 4 mode design features the unique DPR (Dynamic Power Reduction) and ISF (Infinite Shape Feature) controls and although it has a comprehensive control set, it is still simple and intuitive to use.
The S1-45 sees the distillation of decades of guitar amplifier design experience into the ultimate 45W valve combo. Every control has been honed for maximum sonic benefit through hundreds of hours of listening.
The S1-45 Clean Channel sets the precedent for no-compromise design, by featuring Bright and Warm modes. Each mode actually reconfigures the pre-amplifier voicing and power amplifier damping to reproduce either ringing Class A performance in the Bright mode, or crunchy Class AB tones in the Warm setting.
Careful attention was paid to the levels of overdrive available when designing the S1-45. Crunch mode covers the widest range of crunch gain levels possible from just on the edge clean break-up, to crushing modern rhythm tones. Super Crunch mode alters both gain levels and tonal shaping for maximum crunch flexibility.
The overdrive modes are characterised by a tone which is high in gain, but lacks any of the detached top-end often found in many similar designs. This is a result of unique preamplifier and power amplifier shaping techniques, which also benefit the player in the way the overdrives clean up beautifully as the guitar volume is reduced. Even at the most extreme settings, the overdrive channels remain natural sounding.
The Patent-Applied-For ISF control is unique to Blackstar Amplification and represents a major step forward in tone shaping flexibility. The ISF control shifts the response of the three control tone stack between at one end a US response and at the other a UK response. Importantly, an infinite number of alternative tone choices lies in between that would be otherwise unavailable.
Completing the tonal feature set is another unique Patent-Applied-For Blackstar innovation - the DPR (Dynamic Power Reduction) system. DPR reduces the power of the output stage from full power (45W) down to 10 (4.5W) and any power output in between. This means that the full tonal depth of the EL34 power amplifier can be enjoyed at any volume, making the S1-45 ideal for recording, smaller gigs and even home practice use. Working in conjunction with the power amplifier voltages, this method of power reduction suffers none of the loss in tone of other power reduction systems.
The tonal flexibility of the S1-45 is augmented by full MIDI implementation of the main channel and mode switching functions. Used in conjunction with outboard gear such as multi-effects units, MIDI allows a whole new level of creative performance to be explored.