blackheart strange volume control

[Enzo]

No one will ignore you, we are happy to have new members.

I would point out that if your amp is only a couple months old, it should be under warranty. Any issues it has should be repaired under that warranty at no cost to you,.

[Steve Conner]

Indeed, also, the design of amps varies greatly. Some have a big treble boost built in, others don't. If you played a Fender Twin and an Orange side by side, you'd see what I meant.

Also, the taste of players varies greatly, and also the kinds of guitars they own, and even how much high-end hearing they have left after a lifetime in the rock'n'roll industry. If you're a young guitarist starting out, you may well find a Telecaster bridge pickup through an amp designed by a deaf baby-boomer agonizingly bright. (That doesn't mean you should be in a hurry to lose your high end, though. It may well be better to use hearing protection.)

So, maybe the Blackheart design just has a treble boost, and you don't like treble boost. I doubt that the production is so random that some amps are "screamers" and others are dark, they probably all sound the same. If your ears don't like it, then it's not a good thing. If you can't get it to your taste by twiddling the tone knobs, then you might want to go looking for a darker sounding amp. The Epiphone Valve Jr. might be up your street, it's basically a Little Giant with fewer knobs.

The volume you play at relative to what the amp designer expected is also an issue. If treble boost is done by a bright cap on the volume control, which is a common method, then the amp will be brightest at medium volume, and get darker when it's turned down quiet, and also when it's cranked.

I don't know anything about the crosstalk issue, except in so far as crosstalk isn't uncommon, and treble boost may make it more obvious. Like Enzo said, take it back to the music store, show them the problem, ask to try another Little Giant head and see if that does the same thing. If they don't have another one, or you mail ordered it, tell them it's broken and get it exchanged under warranty. Exchanged, not repaired. If the exchange unit does the same thing, and it bothers you, try for a refund, and if that doesn't work, maybe you should sell it and go shopping for another amp.

[Noviz]

Thanks Enzo and Steve Conner!
I guess I can't claim to be a newbie when it comes to guitars (~20 yrs of playing mostly acoustic) but I am fairly new to valve/tube amps and nearly totally ignorant of the innards. I am mostly the bedroom blues kind of guy. For some years I have been playing a Marshall JTM30, which comes with a clean channel and a boost channel, but I never liked the boost channel (sounds more like a pedal than true bluesy overdrive to me), so I wanted a small amp I could overdrive. Hence the Blackheart. I like it. I think it has a good bottom end. Playing it with my Tele bridge pickup (Texas Special), I think I get more bass than with the Marshall, but this is perhaps because I can crank the Blackheart up to something like real working volume. With the Tele neck and even more so with the classic 57 humbuckers on my SG, I get a nice (even crisp) full bass and middle. But I need always to turn the treble down to 2 or so, or (as I said) there is this kind of weird ringing going on in the highs when I play chords. It may just be overtones. Maybe the Marshall is simply a much darker amp, and the Blackheart is the brightest amp I have tried so far. And since I mail ordered it, I thought I would try (if possible) to get clear about whether the problem here is the amp or myself before trying to do anything warranty-claim-like.

One idea I had was that, supposing there is nothing wrong with the amp head, I would replace the stock Eminence speaker in the cabinet. When I play the Blackheart through the Celestion Heritage G12 that sits in my JTM30, I get less of the bright ringing. (It is 16 ohms like the Eminence.)

I may have drifted off topic here. Cheers!

[deadratsalad]

RE: Little Giant Volume problem

I know these posts are old but I have the same problem with my BH Little Giant. when the amp is on the volume at 0 is loud and sounds good,a tap on the amp brings it back to normal,I have the Bitmo triple bypass which I love and thought it might be the problem but I don't think so because after reading these posts it seems it is also a stock amps problem,my next step is to replace the volume pot as soon as I find out what size(ohms) I need. I also run a very hot signal in the front end,Motherbucker P/U @ 27 ohms,a modded MT-2 and an Art Tube Preamp Project with the gain set right before clipping,also I have had a static sound at a constant volume level once in a while as I thought my solder joints looked good there was a bad joint at the volume pot where the modded resister went and so far no static noise but I will change out the volume pot,any help with this problem would be greatly appreciated,Thanks.

[Noviz]

I am not sure I understood your description of your problem, but if a tap on the amp alters the function of the amp, this sounds like dodgy connection somewhere rather than a faulty pot. I seem to remember people having trouble with the input jack, the quality of which is apparently not that great. Did you check the jack?

After replacing the speaker in the cabinet with a Vintage 30, I am very happy with my BH5.

[deadratsalad]

Little Giant volume problem

Thanks,now that you have said the input jack I remembered that I wiggled the cable and did notice the occuring problem,I tried a few cables thinking the was the problem but now I will look into the input jack,thank you very much,2 brains are better than 1,,I use the Zakk Wylde mini stack(2x10 each speaker with it's own cab,top/bottom) with Celestions Vintage G10 80th Annivesary in it and it sounds great,I want to get just 1 Greenback for the bottom cab to see how that would sound,thanks for your help.

[deadratsalad]

I am not sure I understood your description of your problem, but if a tap on the amp alters the function of the amp, this sounds like dodgy connection somewhere rather than a faulty pot. I seem to remember people having trouble with the input jack, the quality of which is apparently not that great. Did you check the jack?

After replacing the speaker in the cabinet with a Vintage 30, I am very happy with my BH5.

Thanks again for your input.I just had it happen to me again and this time I messed around with the input jack and IT IS THE PROBLEM.I bought $10 worth of input jacks on Ebay so when I do the repair I'll have the right jack. I'm also wanting to install a Hammond 125ese OT and was wondering if that was an easy swap or if I have to do any mods? Are the wires color coded so I can just place them where the old OT was? Thanks again for your help.

[Noviz]

Thanks again for your input.I just had it happen to me again and this time I messed around with the input jack and IT IS THE PROBLEM.I bought $10 worth of input jacks on Ebay so when I do the repair I'll have the right jack. I'm also wanting to install a Hammond 125ese OT and was wondering if that was an easy swap or if I have to do any mods? Are the wires color coded so I can just place them where the old OT was? Thanks again for your help.

Happy to be of help. You should start a new thread on the transformer question -- me not knowledgeable in such matters.

Cheers from snowy Sweden!

[WholeToneMusic]

Also if you know someone with a scope they could see if your getting some type of high frequency oscillation you cannot hear that is shutting the amps volume off at that specific volume setting.