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  #16  
Old 08-07-2020, 03:30 PM
RedJoker RedJoker is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by webwzrd View Post
My Super Fly arrive a little earlier today. My preliminary review is not disappointed with fingerstyle acoustic which is how I'll use it the most.
Mine showed up today and I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest. I knew it wouldn't be super loud but I think it's only slightly louder than my singing without it. My guitar definitely needs a preamp to be heard.

MY kustom pa50 is significantly better sounding and WAY louder and those can be bought for $80 all day long. No battery but I think a small battery inverter and the pa50 is easily a better deal for a small amount of $.

If I paid full price, it would definitely be going back. It still may go back but I'm grumpy and tired so I'll give it another try tomorrow.
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  #17  
Old 08-07-2020, 04:29 PM
Morrill Morrill is offline
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Mine is waiting for me at home. I'll post thoughts sometime tomorrow. Have an empty conference room available so i am bringing a bunch of different stuff to try out.
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  #18  
Old 08-08-2020, 04:33 PM
tenderland tenderland is offline
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Default Build one

A little reading, A Few chip amps . If you can solder you can design you're own
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  #19  
Old 08-08-2020, 05:33 PM
LeDave LeDave is offline
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Originally Posted by Morrill View Post
Mine is waiting for me at home. I'll post thoughts sometime tomorrow. Have an empty conference room available so i am bringing a bunch of different stuff to try out.
Awaiting your detailed review! 😬
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  #20  
Old 08-08-2020, 07:41 PM
Morrill Morrill is offline
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Review coming. Played with it today along with the fly 3 plus extension and a few other amps. Hope to be able to write something up tomorrow.
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  #21  
Old 08-08-2020, 08:36 PM
Chipotle Chipotle is offline
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I use one of these. Works a treat!



Not really, tho I did use it for a halloween costume one time.
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  #22  
Old 08-09-2020, 11:13 AM
RedJoker RedJoker is online now
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Originally Posted by tenderland View Post
A little reading, A Few chip amps . If you can solder you can design you're own
It's funny you bring this up. I'm now thinking I might use the Superfly as a donor for a a homebuilt amp. Maybe I can correct what I think are shortcomings while still using what I consider benefits.
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  #23  
Old 08-09-2020, 11:52 AM
bsman bsman is offline
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Originally Posted by Chipotle View Post
I use one of these. Works a treat!



Not really, tho I did use it for a halloween costume one time.
Back sometime between 1979 and 81 I did that with a custom telecaster around one shoulder and a Pignose amp around the other. Had a buddy put together a tomtom, a snare, and a cymbal on a shoulder harness and on Halloween we marched up and down State St. in Madison playing Ramones tunes. Didn't have to buy any drinks that night!
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  #24  
Old 08-09-2020, 12:42 PM
tenderland tenderland is offline
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Default Donor amp

Great Idea , no need to start from scratch, Try different drivers. I wonder which type of amp they use in there. Tried looking for schematic, none to be found.
Probable 10.00 worth of parts in it
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  #25  
Old 08-09-2020, 03:48 PM
Birdbrain Birdbrain is offline
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Default My quick Super Fly review...

It doesn't work. Mine, anyway. I tried it with one guitar and two different cords, and the instrument channel only works when two of the three buttons are set to "Electric" and "Overdrive." The tone I get that way is brittle, metallic, and cheap.

I've used the regular Fly before, so I know my way around these things. And, yes, I did read the manual. But could I be missing something? Tell me before I send it back tomorrow...
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  #26  
Old 08-09-2020, 04:33 PM
RedJoker RedJoker is online now
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Originally Posted by Birdbrain View Post
It doesn't work. Mine, anyway. I tried it with one guitar and two different cords, and the instrument channel only works when two of the three buttons are set to "Electric" and "Overdrive." The tone I get that way is brittle, metallic, and cheap.

I've used the regular Fly before, so I know my way around these things. And, yes, I did read the manual. But could I be missing something? Tell me before I send it back tomorrow...
What pickup did you try? My schatten hfn passive was almost non-existent, my JJB was ok, but my strat knockoff was fine. It seems like the instrument reverb doesn't work but I wouldn't use that anyway.

Edit: I also took it apart and I may modify the speakers in the future.
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  #27  
Old 08-09-2020, 04:46 PM
Birdbrain Birdbrain is offline
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Default Just crank 'er to 11...

OK, thanks. I've gotten some acoustic sound out of this by diming the Volume control and raising Gain to about 1/4. I'd been comparing the Blackstar to my Boss Acoustic Singer, which would run me out of the room at that setting. I used a Seagull with a Godin Qii active pickup. It's sounding good now with my Godin electric, with humbuckers. So don't mind my opinion- it's still under construction.
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Last edited by Birdbrain; 08-09-2020 at 05:25 PM.
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  #28  
Old 08-09-2020, 06:52 PM
Aspiring Aspiring is offline
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With my Nux I was looking to bring up the volume of the clean and it has the option of bringing peadal drives in. I was hoping to use a compressor so that I can get a little more overall volume without overdriving it The amp didn't have a compressor pedal but playing with a cleaner drive effect bringing the level up and keeping the gain down allowed me to get a boost in volume and it basically added some compression without adding much distortionand thickened the overall tone some.
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Originally Posted by Birdbrain View Post
OK, thanks. I've gotten some acoustic sound out of this by diming the Volume control and raising Gain to about 1/4. I'd been comparing the Blackstar to my Boss Acoustic Singer, which would run me out of the room at that setting. I used a Seagull with a Godin Qii active pickup. It's sounding good now with my Godin electric, with humbuckers. So don't mind my opinion- it's still under construction.
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  #29  
Old 08-10-2020, 12:43 PM
Morrill Morrill is offline
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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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  #30  
Old 08-10-2020, 02:58 PM
RedJoker RedJoker is online now
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Morrill's review is great but I wanted to add something I stumbled on that makes this amp far more useful for me.

For everyone finding that their acoustic guitar doesn't sound great through the guitar channel, try this experiment. I used my schatten hfn passive guitar into channel 2, set to acoustic guitar and it wasn't good. It was quiet, even with everything at full power and the reverb didn't work. Then, I switched it to electric and hit the overdrive button. COMPLETE difference! With that setting, I was able to bring the gain knob down to get a clear signal with no distortion and it's much louder. And the reverb works! Now, even fingerpicking with just fleshy fingertips, the guitar is louder than my mic channel.

This is what I was hoping for! Now I'm confident I can plug in any of my guitars, play any of my normal ways and be able to get balanced volume and decent tone, as much as the 3" speakers will allow anyway.

I'm now satisfied and for $99, will definitely keep it.
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Last edited by RedJoker; 08-10-2020 at 03:10 PM.
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