Blackstar Superfly - Quick mini review.
Amp arrived from MF on Friday. Unboxed it after work. When I removed the battery cover I found one of the preinstalled batteries had leaked and there was dried acid around the contacts. Cleaned it up best I could and added a new battery. Unit powered right up. Streamed some music using the bluetooth function while I made dinner. Saturday morning took it with me to my practice space 30x80 conference room to try it out.
The size, weight and portability are great on the Superfly. Easy to carry and the molded in handle works as it should. It looks good and is more amp-like that the ultra small Fly-3. Tested it with a Yamaha A3M, Ovation Ultra and a G&L ASAT. I used a Shure SM-58 for the mic check. I was only able to test on battery power as the Blackstar power supply for the Fly-3 and the Superfly are not compatible. I do not think there is a difference between battery and AC performance though.
Keeping in mind that this is a portable mini amp that runs on batteries I wasn't expecting earth shaking performance.
Streaming - When streaming using bluetooth all controls are done with the device that is streaming. The Superfly only acts as a speaker. So you cant adjust the tone. Not a big issue but frankly when used as a bluetooth speaker
The Superfly is not very good. Under powered and flat sounding. Played multiple types of music through it and all sounded meh. If you plan to play along with tracks you will be underwhelmed I think. But at $99 I can live with it.
Acoustic guitar - I was able to get decent tones out of it with both guitars. It doesn't get very loud but it wasn't designed to gig with. Decent was about all I could get though. It was still pretty boxy no matter how much I adjusted it.
Electric - I ran it clean, with OD and also used a Zoom G1X4. It sounds much better with an electric than an acoustic. The OD works well enough but running a pedal through it works best. Still sounds sort of boxy but it can chug so I guess that's something.
Vocal - I was hoping that despite its size the 2nd channel would at least perform well enough for busking. It might work with an acoustic performer but it's way under powered for almost any other application. Even with the controls almost pinned it really is rather anemic. It is louder than unplugged but only a small amount. It would be better than nothing but that isn't saying a lot.
Overall - If I had paid $229 msrp for the Superfly it would already be back in the box and on it's way back to MF. Luckily I didn't so now is it worth $99? For busking it would be ok as it is small, light and battery powered. You wont have to worry about bothering folks across the road as they wont hear you. Outside with background noise you are only going to be heard within a very small range. I think this is good though. If you play electric and sing you can forget it. It just doesn't have enough power for the vocals to cut through. You would be better off not carrying the mic and stand and just practice yelling. I think if I were a busker I would save up for something more substantial.
For me it's a keeper as I will use it around the house to stream podcasts and such. I don't see it ever getting used for acoustic amplification but I will use it when noodling with the electric on the couch. I buy used guitars here and there and it's perfect for testing electronics.
Tested head to head with the Fly-3 and extension it did very well. It is much louder and the sound quality is better. The problem is though that it still sounds like a battery powered mini amp made out of plastic. When you step back and look though, that's exactly what it is. I think my expectations were a little high and was hoping for more. Oh well. It's the nicest battery operated mini amp that I own. Hope this helps anyone who is on the fence.
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