Amp

Smear Starling 15

Name: Smear Starling 15
Brand: Smear Audio
Price: 9.9 EUR
Availability: InStock

€9.90$10.90£8.90

VST3AUStandaloneCircuit-derived model

There's a distinct flavor of British tone that completely redefined what high-end boutique amps could do: a specialized 15-watt, dual-EL84 design that runs completely free of negative feedback, creating an incredibly open, touch-sensitive canvas.

If you've ever fallen for those lush, shimmering '90s alternative records where every note sounds carved out of glass before blooming into an aggressive, singing crunch—this is your machine.

The Smear Audio Starling 15 is a physical recreation of a legendary hand-wired cult classic from that boutique revolution: we modeled its running-hot power section to capture a glassy, bell-like top-end that morphs into a thick, punchy overdrive when you push it. It's an expressive, living amp that responds instantly to your guitar's volume knob and the weight of your pick attack.

Current version 1.5.0 (12 August 2026)

“British chime with

boutique bite”

Schematic parameters

Your primary preamp driver. An integrated high-frequency bypass network keeps your tone bright, glassy, and articulate at lower settings, thickening into a rich crunch as you roll it up and push the preamp tubes.

Universal architecture

The Smear Audio Ecosystem: Common Amp Features

These are the ideas, design philosophies, and shared technical choices common to every Smear Audio amp. They are not one-off product notes or model-specific feature lists, but the baseline assumptions behind how we build our amplifier plugins.

Pure Circuit Soul

Instead of running our software through a single, compromise-heavy digital grid, every individual tube stage is calculated independently in real time.

Ghost Bloom - The Living Feedback Engine

Getting a software plugin to feed back naturally without a roaring 4x12 cabinet physically vibrating your guitar strings used to be a pipe dream. Our proprietary Ghost Bloom engine changes the game by emulating physical acoustic feedback with breathtaking realism.

The Custom Cab & Space Matrix

An extraordinary amplifier needs a real environment to breathe. Our unified speaker platform offers a range of distinct, classically voiced cabinet models to suit each amp's character, paired with an intuitive three-dimensional mic room.

Universal Input Boosters: On-Demand Analog Heat

In the real world, the perfect tone almost always starts with a great pedal slamming the front end of an amp. We have hardwired two switchable, analog-modeled boost circuits directly into the top bar of every interface.