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What is it?
Home practice sessions are something that benefit every guitar player and there’s plenty of gear options out there to facilitate that when it’s not possible to use a full rig, whether that be a headphone amp, affordable amp modeller, guitar plugins or a small practice amp that can be run at a reasonable volume. The latter being dominated most recently by the likes of the Positive Grid Spark and Boss Katana series and most comparable here, the Positive Grid Spark Go.
Blackstar has had the Beam Solo guitar headphone amp available for a while, and now that has been joined by the Beam Mini, a tiny desktop amp with speakers and a comprehensive set of practical features.
The Beam Mini looks and feels classy with a textured rubberised finish and sits solidly on any table with its controls easily accessible on the top. It takes its power from any five-volt (500A) USB-C charger like you would use to charge your phone – a cable is provided with the unit.
A full charging session will give you 18 hours of playing time. You plug your guitar into a socket on its right cheek, and there are headphone and USB sockets on the rear.
The headphone socket will also handle headsets with mics should you wish to input vocals, while the USB socket facilitates recording via the built-in audio interface with multiple audio inputs and outputs.
The unit is not only a source of guitar tones but also uses a Bluetooth connection to function as a speaker for music streaming, which you have a choice of playing along with.
Blackstar has really paid attention to acoustic design here and the combination of the sealed, acoustically-tuned cabinet with two full-range drivers and auxiliary bass radiator units puts out an extremely powerful sound for such a small device, with expansive imaging courtesy of Blackstar’s Super Wide Stereo technology.
Specs
- PRICE: $229 | £169 | €189
- ORIGIN: China
- TYPE: Portable practice amp
- FEATURES: 5x presets, Bluetooth audio streaming, removable carry strap, USB audio interface, app with tuner, metronome and more
- CONTROLS: Power button, Bluetooth pairing button, Patch, Gain, EQ, FX, Volume, SpeedDial
- CONNECTIONS: Standard instrument input, 1/8” stereo headphone output, USB
- POWER: Internal Lithium-ion battery charged via USB (18 hours’ use on a full charge)
- DIMENSIONS: 152 (w) x 89 (d) x 79mm (h)
- CONTACT: Blackstar Amplification
Usability and sounds
The full functionality of the Beam Mini is accessed wirelessly via the Beam app, which is available for iOS and Android, but the physical unit itself is usable straight out of the box and perfectly capable of standalone use without a phone in sight.
The 12 modelled guitar amps include several Blackstar models such as the St James, plus the brand’s Ampton range of modelled classic amps
There are five user-defined patches stored onboard and accessed from the top panel, which has a small array of buttons to access various aspects of the sound to be adjusted by a rotary SpeedDial. Basically, you can choose your patch and adjust the Gain, EQ, FX and Volume – the white light Beam intuitively illuminates in line with any changes you make.
The patches are constructed in the same way as those in the ID:X Floor pedals. You get a Pre-FX in front of your chosen amp, then the amp followed by a fixed chain of three effects (modulation, delay and reverb), all passing through Blackstar’s proprietary IR-based CabRig DSP. All of this is easily set up in the app, which has very clear visual representations of everything – just pair up your phone and the Beam Mini over Bluetooth and you’re good to go.
The 12 modelled guitar amps include several Blackstar models such as the St James, plus the brand’s Ampton range of modelled classic amps, which includes Fender Twin, Vox AC30, Marshall Plexi and JCM800, Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier and Peavey 5150. All have fully adjustable conventional controls and you get Blackstar’s ISF to adjust the tone stack characteristics from UK (Marshall) to USA (Fender) sounds.
You also get some bass amps and an acoustic preamp. The CabRig facility gives you a choice of six cabinets with either a mic’d sound via a choice of virtual mics, or the ‘In the Room’ option, which works really well in a practice situation, offering more of the experience of standing next to an amp while you play.
With 35 effects available to populate the pre- and post- effects slots, there’s a wide range of flavouring to complement the amps and create quality, playable tones for a wide variety of musical styles – something that is reflected by the factory-programmed patches provided by Blackstar in the app.
What really sets the Beam Mini apart, though, is that besides all of the modelled sounds provided by Blackstar you also get access to a humongous range of amp captures. Blackstar has teamed up with Neural Amp Modelling pioneers Tone3000 for access to the open-source NAM platform, including the recent A2 capture technology.
Scroll down to the bottom of the Blackstar amp menu and you can engage NAM and scroll through its range of snapshot captures of physical amps and rigs for selection for placement in your signal chain (at the moment you can’t have a Pre-FX with it, but you can add the post-FX).
Checking out the captures, I found some excellent tones among them ranging from staple amps to weird-and-wonderful curios. Yet, as anyone can upload their own captures, there are also plenty that are a bit lacklustre. However, sort out the wheat from the chaff and you’ve got access to a cracking range of sounds, playable straight from the hardware for free.
The Beam app also comes with a metronome and a range of backing tracks in various styles that you can stream into the unit and play along with, but you can also stream any music you want into it, which is where an update expected in late summer will offer even more potential for practice.
In August 2026, Beam Mini will be able to integrate Moises AI stem separation, letting you isolate or remove instruments from any song, thus you should be able to take any song and remove the guitar part, allowing you to play your own part along with the band instead.
The other side of that coin is that if you’re struggling to learn a particular guitar part, you may be able to isolate it from the backing and the vocals to hear it with clarity.
Verdict
Verdict: ★★★★★
The Beam Mini packs all the elements you need into a fully portable practice amp and does it in style for a very reasonable asking price.
MusicRadar verdict: It’s a somewhat different take on a dirt pedal, and probably not designed for chasing what we generally think of as traditional guitar/amp tone. But it offers an alternative set of flavours and textures and is especially useful for anyone who records DI guitar. More colours in that paintbox is no bad thing.
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