On both amplifiers, Channel I is inspired by those clean, dynamic American amps of the mid ’60s. St. James brings these circuits right up-to-date, producing a whole new level of clean headroom and dynamic compression to deliver inspired musical-mids and tight-lows. This channel is a perfect pedal platform.
In addition to the obvious tonal differences between EL34 and 6L6 power valves, both of the St. James designs are honed to their own particular use case. The St. James EL34 is the amp for Classic tones combining world-class British Crunch and jaw-dropping US cleans. The 6L6 version has the same clean headroom, but this is coupled with Blackstar’s highest gain overdrive circuit to date.
Completely separate EQ circuits are used for each channel. This is achieved by switching dual-ganged potentiometers, which means there is no compromise in tone between the two channels even with the shared EQ controls.
