Star Amps Blues Star

I stopped in the Chicago GC today to pick up some strings, and my jaw hit the floor when I saw a Blues Star sitting on the floor. I own a Gain Star which I love, but I have always thought that the Blues Star might fit me better. It has the same great clean tone as the Gain Star, but unlike the Gain Star, which only has Bass, Treble, and Brilliance for the clean channel, the Trim and Master Vol work on the clean channel of the Blues Star. In addtion the Blues Star has a Mid Eq knob that the Gain Star doesn't have. There is a gain control that only affects the boost channel.
While the Gain Star has a raunchy kind of overdrive that some people don't like, the Blues Star has a much smoother sounding overdrive. I thought that maybe the Blues Star would have less gain, but really it has a ton of thick gain on tap. My first reaction was to see if I could trade my Gain Star for the Blues Star. After playing the amp for about a half hour though, I started to miss some of the unique flavor of the Gain Star overdrive channel. Ultimately, I decided that although the Blues Star sounded amazing, the Gain Star is something special that I don't want to give up. Also, because the master only works on the overdrive channel of the Gain Star, you can set the two channels to the same volume or any relative volume you want. The Blues Star has one master that works for both channels. The other channel is really a boost that kicks the volume way up unless you set the gain really low.
Just to summarize this little review, I think that the Blues Star has the advantages of a more tweakable clean channel (the master vol on the clean channel is a huge plus) and a smoother overdrive channel that would appeal to a wider range of players than the raunchier Gain Star. For those of you that love the clean channel of the Star Amps, but not the dirty channel, check out the Blues Star.

 

30W 1x12 combo in Black with Green front panel.

 

There is very little info on Star amps in general, so I figured this was worth posting. Let me know how that speaker change works out for you, and hopefully we'll see more discussion of Star amps in the future.

I'll add one more note. I've found that sticking a nice overdrive or boost pedal in the effects loop of the Gain Star can give you a lot more control over the character of the gain channel. I've gotten a lot of nice smoothe overdrive tones this way.

 

Sorry, I forgot. Yes, I believe it does have the same speaker as the Gain Star.

 

Although Gain Star owners know this, I should have added that the effects loop is only for the gain channel. Unlike most amps in which the effects loop affects both channels, you can stick a pedal in the loop of the Gain Star and it won't affect the clean channel. This is cool because you can put an overdrive pedal in the loop to change the sound of the gain channel without having to turn it off when you switch to the clean channel. I didn't think to try this with the Blues Star, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that the effects loop works for both channels on the Blues Star since it is more like a one channel amp with a footswitchable boost.

 

I use an AC booster with the gain down pretty low so it is almost like a clean boost. I would like to try the RC booster, but I imagine that it wouldn't be as warm sounding as the AC. This sounds great both in front and in the effects loop of the Gain Star. I'll bet the BB would be great too. Let us know what you think of the BB with the Gain Star.

 

It was used. They were asking $2499.