Blackstar FLY 3 Bass Pack

Powerful for such a small amp

I get a great volume from this that easily contends with a kit in practice when played with rods. There is a very slight rattle from the plastic battery cover on the main cab when played loudly, which is an odd thing to over look. It definitely picks up well on the low bass tones and I use it as a great set of computer speakers when not using it with my bass.

Great Amp!!!

All perfect, sounds great.

One thing is speaker size could be bigger.

Actually very good value

Works great as a bass practice amp, the tone is very good . It won't shake the Windows but it's not supposed to. It also works great to play music through and as the speakers for our TV. In stereo. Good value for a very well designed and made product. So good my wife bought a blackstar unity 30 so she can shake the windows.....

funny little gadget

I bought this because I've always been interested in a good sounding portable bass amp.

I have used a Pignose HOG30, Vox amplug2 bass with cabinet, Yamaha THR10, THR30.

I was stupid enough to NOT purchase a 1/4 inch cable to connect my bass to this, so I haven't tested this properly. Yes, call me an idiot. But I have used this as my desktop speaker for about a week now.

Judging from this experience, I'm pretty sure it will give me an OKAY amount of bass sound when I play my bass through it. But just like any small sized speakers, it because annoying as you crank up the music volume because it doesn't bring up the bass as much as it brings up the higher frequencies.

Among battery powered amps, to play with music through Line in, Yamaha THR series sounded the best to me. I sometime use it just to play music on it. but it's not as compact. Vox stuff usually feels like toys.. Pignose is not even PORTABLE. :D

This Blackstar FLY battery powered amp feels pretty good for its own up sides. small enough, sounds alright, has a built in compressor(I don't like a compressor, but people love it, and I love free bonus features), AND IT'S BATTERY POWERED! oh, and it also looks good.

one strange thing is, this battery can run on 6 AA batteries. when used with rechareable AA batteries, that makes 7.2V(1.2 x 6). and the power adaptor that comes with this amp is 6.5V, which is smaller than when it's battery powered. weird.

Great practice bass amp

Well worth the money and has great tone

Fun for what it is!

Just to throw an audiophile's word in! I have played bass for a time and have a little experience in amps/heads/DIs etc. Although there is no use in comparing, this thing actually had a really fun sound for a practice amp! The "Sub" adjustment is great for filling out consumer headphones or hi-fi's to practice at home/travelling etc. For its features and still lower price than other equivalent options, this is great for personal use. I have also used it ad-hoc at an acoustic session and as a "DI" (only had line-in) at a compromised space/small desk. Saved my ass both times! Also, having the pair to even function as speakers is another useful advantage. This makes it particularly cool for younger users; music on the go! (And there is a fair bit of volume in them) Again, fun, light, extremely portable and a little more bang for the buck in the truly "fun" category of amp stuff! Hey, who doesn't want a mini stack at hand?

Fun and usable, but begs for an upgrade

If you?re wondering whether to buy the single amp or the stereo package ? buy the package because with the single amp YOU DON?T GET THE POWER SUPPLY! That?s just horrible in my opinion and easy to miss in the product description. What?s worse, the Blackstar engineers decided on the totally non-standard 6.5V 1.5A so it would be difficult to find a replacement.

The stereo pack however, comes with everything you need.

The size is indeed tiny, but it produces quite a big sound. It?s loud enough for the bedroom and can easily keep up with an acoustic band. Your bass will be heard, but not felt rumbling the room, which is to be expected from a mini-amp.

The sound is decent and quite usable, but it has a ?plastic? character to it. A real shame because it might be a killer set with a couple of improvements. I?d like to see a version with wooden enclosure like in Genius PC speakers. It wouldn?t cost much more to produce, but I expect it would sound more natural.

The OD channel is louder and has a lot more treble and hiss. On light gain settings it has it?s moments.

One knob EQ is actually great! Clockwise from the center you get a typical mid-scoop with boosted highs and lows, and CCW it gets more vintage by cutting the highs. Works great! My favourite setting is 1-2 o?clock.

Compressor is very useful when kept really low as it adds a lot of warmth and punch to the sound. However, crank it up past 10% and the artificial cut-off with hiss becomes too annoying. A slightly better compressor would have made this a far better unit.

The SUB knob is a simple analogue octaver with all its shortcomings. The tracking is so-so and what it adds to the sound is mostly farting noises with a slight delay from your playing. I think that wasn?t a good idea. A simple EQ bass boost or even a cheap chorus would have made more sense than the octaver which, for me, was unusable.

The headphone output is where this thing shines! It gives one of the most pleasing headphone sounds I ever experienced on a bass. With my AudioTehnica ATH-M50 the bass was deep and punchy, presence was decent and the noise was surprisingly low. If not for anything else, this amp is great for silent practice.

On the other hand, the Aux input was surprisingly crap. The Fly3 stereo speakers sounded weaker and more mid-rangey than my laptop speakers. Which was a huge disappointment.

The extra speaker does make a difference and I?m glad I bought the stereo pair.

Overall, It?s a fine mini-amp, good for bedroom practice and outdoors. I would recommend it to a beginner as a first bass amp, especially if you want to travel with it or play with headphones.

This amp has a potential to be a must-have, but because of all the unfortunate shortcomings, I?ll be looking forward if Blackstar decides to make a V2.

Great little bugger

I bought the Fly 3 Bass Pack for 2 reasons: For practicing my electric base and for giving a little extra bass volume when playing Trad with my Höfner HA-B174 accoustic bass.

When I bought the device I was a little anxious if this unit would actually do what I wanted it to do. Lets be fair: It looks like a toy and considering that the rated amplifier power is either 3W (single) or 6W (both speakers) it was more than likely you would not get anything more than a slight idea of a bass sound from it.

God was I educated wrong: The Fly3 is a total surprise to me. This is as it is fully capeable to perform even in life-pub situations against the scream of the audience and multiple accoustic instruments.

Off course: The speakers are not 15" monsters. Due to this physical fact the low end will lack. However: If you enjoy to hear your bass (specifically the acoustic bass I am using) loud enough to know you are playing bass this thing is your choice.

The distortion channel works. I cannot say more as I never really liked distorted bass sounds. The compressor does a decend job if your playing is uneven equalising these peaks. It also adds to funky bass patterns. The sound control is as good as it needs to be for this application.

I would recommend this unit to anyone. IF you use it in full volume the unit can get into a slight unwanted compression. Then again if you want to rock a hall buy AMPEG