tubes vs solid state - the real difference

One audio engineer and physicist contends that the physics involved with the recreation of sound are no mystery and, furthermore, pretending that audio reproduction is a black art only confuses the market. That engineer, John Murphy of True Image Audio (Escondido), has designed a number of tube and solid-state preamps and power amps for the musical-instrument and professional-audio markets.

"Any product containing vacuum tubes is especially likely to be surrounded by exaggerated claims of supernatural performance," Murphy asserted. "From an engineering point of view, there is nothing new or mysterious about vacuum tubes. They have been in use since Lee de Forest first inserted a control grid into a Fleming valve in 1906 to create the first triode. Today, tube audio products are surrounded by such excessive disinformation that the small, but real, sonic advantage that tubes offer is almost lost in the hype."

When operated in a linear (or unclipped) mode, Murphy explained, tube amps sound the same as their solid-state counterparts, provided that their frequency response and group delay characteristics are well matched and their distortion levels are sufficiently low. The audible difference between tube and solid-state amps emerges only when they are clipped. "Then it becomes easy to hear the difference between typical tube and solid-state amps. It is also easy to see the difference on an oscilloscope trace," he said.

A typical tube amp (such as a pair of triodes in series) can be seen to clip with a softly rounded waveform, while typical solid-state amps (such as op amps) clip with razor-sharp edges.

"Every engineering student who has studied Fourier analysis knows why these two waveforms sound different: the harmonic structure," Murphy said. The hard clipping waveform of the solid-state amp has a different harmonic content from the soft-clipped tube amp, simply because the waveforms are different. While the harmonics from the solid-state amp have strong amplitudes out to frequencies beyond the limits of audibility, the harmonics from the soft-clipping tube amp fall rapidly in level with increasing frequency.

Those harmonic differences account for the "raspy and obnoxious" sound of the solid-state amp in clipping, compared with the much-more-mellow sound of the tube-amp clipping. A second, more-subtle difference is that solid-state amps tend to have a fixed 50-percent duty cycle as they clip, whereas most class A tube amps clip with a duty cycle that varies as a function of the drive level.

Push-pull, class AB tube power amps tend to clip much like solid-state amps, but they sound different because of their high output impedance. In particular, tube power amps exhibit a peak in their frequency response by as much as 10 dB or more at the resonance frequency of the speaker they are driving.

"No wonder they are reported to sound 'warmer' than solid-state power amps," Murphy said . "This aspect of tube power amps is not seen in test reports, where reviewers use nice 8 ohm dummy loads for their tests. But measure the frequency response at the input terminals of your speaker, and you will see this effect clearly."

As for class A tube preamps, Fourier analysis helps reveal the harmonic structure of the clipped waveforms, Murphy said, noting that the unclipped waves have no harmonics, except for residual distortion. For instance, any square wave, regardless of its source, is composed of only the fundamental and odd harmonics (first, third, fifth, etc.).

To a first approximation, the clipped output of either type of amp looks much like a square wave, and spectrum analysis shows that the waveforms consist largely of odd harmonics. Even the tube-amp waveforms, with their rounded shoulders, consist only of odd harmonics as long as the duty cycle of the wave is 50 percent and the left half is an inverted image of the right half (in other words, as long as half-wave symmetry is maintained). The even harmonics are introduced only as the waveform deviates from a perfect 50-50 duty cycle.

"This is what I call duty-cycle modulation," Murphy said, adding that many class A tube amps exhibit that characteristic. But most solid-state and push-pull tube amps have perfect 50-50 duty cycles, he explained, and therefore have no significant even-harmonic content in their clipped waveforms.

When the tube amp clips, its duty cycle starts at 50 percent and typically shifts to 55 percent (or even as much as 65 percent) as it is driven further into clipping. That has the effect of adding even harmonics as the amp is pressed further into clipping. Plotting the duty cycle vs. the input level provides a kind of sonic signature of the amp. For a typical solid-state amp, that signature is just a flat fine at 50 percent.

"In response to a strong transient, these amps exhibit what looks like 'dancing harmonics’ on the spectrum analyzer. First the odds rise, and then the evens rise and fall between the odds. When a guitar is used as the signal source, the audible effect is a subtle, but musically interesting, sort of 'reedy' sound mixed with an otherwise 'brassy' sound," he explained.

"Besides the obvious soft clipping, I believe this to be an important reason why guitar players like tube amps. But so much for the truism that says: 'tubes have even harmonics, and solid state has odd harmonics.' Bull dung. The waveforms of both consist primarily of odd harmonics. Tube amps with duty modulation just throw in a sprinkling of evens.

Further, Murphy contended, "the occurrence of those even harmonics is not critically important , when you consider that most of the guitar-overdrive devices in use by players today employ solid state diode circuits, which exhibit soft clipping but with a fixed 50-percent duty cycle."

In 1983, Murphy designed a tube-emulator circuit that, to his knowledge, is the only solid-state overdrive device to exhibit duty cycle modulation. "I have worked with at least one well known guitar player who sets up an array of tube-amp stacks on stage, only to use a small solid-state pedal-effects unit 'stomp box,' as players say-for his actual overdrive sound," he said.

'From the [perspective of the] audience, you would think he was using the amps, but those are just for show. The advantage of the stomp box is that it is reliable-no tubes to change, it's consistent and it usually provides more gain or overdrive than a typical tube guitar amp. The stomp box drives another guitar amp - tube or solid state - which then drives a limited number of the speakers. Most of the amps on stage are just props without any electronics or speakers."

The point, Murphy said, is that some professional artists would just as soon use their solid-state pedals as their tube amps. They can get a satisfactory overdrive sound from either. The pedal is simply more convenient. "But ask a kid in the a audience," Murphy said, "and he will insist that his favorite guitar player uses a tube amp, because he saw it. Ha! A lot of really expensive tube amps are sold this way.

"As far as other characteristics of tube guitar amps are concerned, I have found that the pre-clipping frequency equalization and post-clipping EQ are absolutely critical adjustments. Once you have a well-behaved clipper-even if it's just simple diodes, as in the stomp boxes-it is the precise combination of pre- and post-clipping EQ that mostly determines how an amp sounds. The 'secret' of the best sounding guitar amps lies in the pre-clipping EQ response curve."

If one could devise a solid-state amp that had soft clipping along with waveform duty-cycle modulation, Murphy contends, the amp would look substantially like a tube amp in the lab and would sound much like a tube amp in the listening room-down to the subtle effects of the time-varying even harmonics.

"From our knowledge of Fourier analysis, we can be confident that the waveform tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 'The waveform contains no 'secret' information as to whether it was produced by a tube amp, a solid-state amp, a digital waveform generator or hundreds of sine wave generators operating in parallel, for that matter," he said. "The mathematics of Fourier assures us of this. If we can make a solid-state amp produce the same waveform as a tube amp when it clips - including duty-cycle modulation - then we have successfully simulated the tube amp with solid-state components."

Murphy created his solid state tube emulator circuit in 1983, when he was chief engineer for Carvin Corp. He claims his invention reproduces the significant characteristics of a tube amp. "This circuit was first used in a line of solid-state guitar amplifiers by Carvin and introduced in their 1987 catalog of musical-instrument products. That circuit continues in production today in Carvin’s SX series solid-state guitar amps," he said. Carvin could not be convinced to pursue a patent, and as a result, the tube simulator is now in the public domain.

"Common diodes are employed to clip first the one half of the waveform and then the other half of the waveform, but not at the same stage," Murphy explained. That follows the way in which a pair of tube triode stages, operating in series, clips only one half of the waveform at a time. It is the independent clipping of the two halves of the waveform that allows the duty cycle of the clipped wave to modulate away from 50 percent and introduce the even harmonics.

"My invention employs op amps to buffer each diode-clipper stage," Murphy said. "To more closely match the waveform of a 12AX7 triode clipper, my circuit also employs diodes in the feedback loop of the inverting op-amp buffers to make the clipping a bit less soft."

Reprinted from Electronic Engineering Times, October 3, 1994


sound samples - bet you can't tell what amp I used.

:cool:

A good read, Algernon. Lotta good info in there. TNX for the post.

I still like my tubes best :D

Hammer on.....Blair

Listen to my VOX-AC 30 and any Solid State Amp and if you don't hear the difference then you have been playing to loud for to many years wether or not you like the difference thats up to you. On paper everything works but in the real world it's totaly different. Many of the great sounding tube amps today are very poorley designed but through total fluke they sound good. Such things like microphonic chassis and the use of rectifiers that collapse are all things that add to the unique sound of these Tube Amps. I consider true Tube Amps with no Solid State parts to be like a well made Guitar. Well made guitars have there own unique sound. This is a combination of the physical design and the woods and electronics that are used and even the finishes change any of these things and the sound of the Guitar changes.
A solid State Amp is a better Amp with regards to true preformance specs but has no unique color that it adds to the tone. In some cases this has been compensated for by electronics to simulate Tube Sounding Amps.

Can I tell the difference between lets say a Fender Twin and a Marshall JCM 800 Combo? I would have to say yes and I'm sure most of the older Guys here would be able to as well not that you young guys can't just that we have been around these amps longer thats all.

In Closing I will always use Tube Amps. Most our poorly designed and are prone to failure sooner than solid state but thats what makes them what they are unique beautiful sounding instruments.

Just my Opinion

Old Guy

Great post, many thanks. Hope you cut and pasted that and did not type it.

My feelings are that for clean sounds I cannot tell the differecne between S.S. and Tube amps.

When it starts to get dirty I think I can.

My first amp about 3 years ago was a Fender Deluxe 90 SS. I then bought an HR Deville 2 x 12 shorly therafter.

When set to Clean it was hard to tell the difference. But when given a bit of gain the HR Deville sounded better. I can't define better but it was. The Deluxe 90 is since sold and replaced with a TSL 122 and an AVT 20. The AVT 20 with a tube preamp sounds good as well.


brianf

another good article about tubes

Good posts and good answers too,i also prefer tube amps better than ss ones.My personnal perception is that ss amps gives a more dryer sound than tubes and are not as "present" (soundly speaking),but when i play them stereo through a guitar processor it gives me an interesting mix!

Solid State Vs. Tube is such an old debate.


Comes down to personal playing preference. I have both types of amps and they serve their purposes.

In the end it is what you feel comfortable with and that only happens over time anyway. If a kid wants a JCM800 just because Zakk Wylde uses one, well, what's wrong with that? It's a hell of a start and money and logic aside, let the kid get what he wants.

The debate is incredibly moot when you extend the amount of your playing experience really gives you your discrminating ear a chance to determine what you are really after.

So...for all intents and purposes, let the kids get what they want, when they are not satisfied with their tone, they'll know it and the vicious cycle of Gear Acquisition Syndrom ensues.

Hey it helps the economy.

;)

It was in the '30s that the idea of attaching a transducer, amplifier, and loudspeaker to a guitar first caught on. Early guitar amps were used primarily with lap guitars, usually made of solid wood or metal with no resonant body to increase volume. Later amps were adopted by big-band guitarists, and in the '50s, amplifiers became pretty much mandatory for the amalgam of blues, country music, and jazz known as rock 'n' roll. Since transistors did not enter wide usage until about 1960, all of the originating styles of rock guitar were developed on tube amplifiers. Later, musicians discovered that using a gain device before the guitar amp forced the amp to clip heavily; they liked the resulting sound, and it became the foundation of hard rock, later called heavy metal.

Since all the past styles of guitar playing are still regarded as musically valid, the market for guitar equipment has fragmented. Various manufacturers offer arrays of amplifiers, preamps, effects processors, and other means of electronically processing the guitar signal. Both reproductions of early equipment and innovations are available. Most remarkably, the basic designs of tube guitar amps tend to be based on a few prototypes that date from the '50s or early '60s. Extra channels or gain stages are added, tone controls are modified, sound effects (like reverberation and electronic tremolo) vary, and speaker cabinets become available in various configurations. Yet the basic circuits keep returning to the same set of paradigms.

No manufacturer of guitar amps has been as influential as Fender. Between 1946 and 1965, founder Leo Fender and his design team created most of the rock guitar sound in the form of the amplification used with their solid-body guitars, such as the famous and widely-copied Stratocaster model.

The most primitive design for a Fender amp is the Champ model. Being intended as a low-cost amplifier for students and beginners, a typical Champ uses a single 6V6GT or 6L6GC power tube. Because of its single-ended power stage--and the large amount of second-harmonic distortion thereby engendered—the Champ had a sound often described as "soft" and "lush." The amp's small, cheap output transformer saturated easily and gave very poor low-frequency response. Early Champs used 6V6GTs, were extremely primitive, and had no feedback, while later models had more complex circuits and loop feedback. In spite of their crudeness, early Champs are now valuable collector's items, and have been much imitated in recent years. The Champ sound is a standard, typical of many low-cost amps used on early rock 'n' roll records.

The most popular Fender models among serious professionals are the Bandmaster, Twin, Showman, and Bassman with push-pull 6L6GC or 5881 output tubes. The tone of these models has a ringing quality much sought after. The peculiar distortions from these amps and their matching speakers, in addition to the inherently light regulation afforded by tube rectifiers, gives distinctive inherent compression effects. This combination is what makes possible the infinite sustain effect mentioned earlier.

Even though the Bassman was intended originally for bass guitar, it was widely used for lead guitar and became possibly the most copied guitar amp in history, especially the 1959 model equipped with four 25-cm speaker drivers. The Twin Reverb model is often modified with extra gain stages for more distortion, producing a fair degree of compression and allowing the lengthy sustain of guitar notes. It served as the prototype for many modern amps with complex preamp sections.

Starting in 1962, a new sound appeared in Britain. Jim Marshall, a London music dealer, found that imported Fender amps were popular but too expensive, and so he developed his own. While his first amp was a copy of the Bassman, he later changed the output tubes to push-pull EL34s. These European tubes were true pentodes, different in electrical behavior from the beam tetrodes used in Fender amps. With the new tubes, Marshall's amps took on a tone described as very distorted and "crunchy," which is now considered the classic British blues-rock sound. Interestingly, the EL34 had reliability problems when operated in deep clipping for long periods, so in the '70s the U.S. distributor for Marshall amps switched the output tubes to 6550 beam tetrodes. As the sound of these amps was much more like very powerful Fenders, some preference arose among U.S. musicians for a "harder" sound than Marshalls give with EL34s. New distribution in the 1980s had EL34-equipped Marshalls entering the United States, as Jim Marshall preferred.

The third common guitar-amp design is that of the models AC15 and AC30 made by Vox Amplification Ltd., London. These were often used in Britain and throughout Europe, most notably by the Beatles at the peak of their popularity. The AC15 uses two push-pull EL84 output tubes, the AC30 four EL84s. Both models use self-bias of the output tubes, in Class A operation and with no negative feedback, unlike many other push-pull guitar amps. The result is a unique tone that varies greatly with string-plucking force. AC30s were made available with a Top Boost option, adding gain stages for further versatility. The Top Boost AC30 design is widely imitated by modern amp designers.

Bass guitar amplified otherwise

A bass guitar has different needs from a lead guitar. Bass is used to reinforce the song rhythmically, working with the melody at a pitch several octaves below. Nearly all bass guitars are solid-body types--simply larger versions of regular electric guitars with very thick strings. Since the bass sound is not always assisted by distortion, solid-state designs have come to hold sway over this market. Any amp with a high damping factor and capable of generating high powers at low frequencies can serve as a bass amp. Yet a ground swell of interest in tubed bass amplifiers has surfaced since 1990.

Early bass amps, such as Fender models, were essentially little different from guitar amps. Then the Ampeg SVT was introduced in 1969. It dwarfed previous bass amplifiers, producing 300 W from six 6146 or 6550 tubes. The SVT became a standard much imitated, especially in the last 10 years. Modern tube bass amps are usually very large, producing 200 W at least from a set of 6550 beam tetrodes--as many as 10 in some models.

For those who think I never post in forums other than off-topic.

As I understand it, the output transformer and voltage sag from a tube rectifier react to the load (speaker) differently at different frequencies and power saturation levels.

While the output waveform may be easily duplicated (at a given load and frequency), the way that waveform changes in response to playing dynamics and power usage vs. speaker loading over the entire frequency spectrum is not so easy to do.

Best bet - trust your ears. If you like it, use it.

My .02

I've read this many times before. I even own a Carvin SX100, and a Carvin X100B from the mid 80s. Soundwise it is obvious, for any type of blues sound, even blues clean, any type of strong dynamic music, you can tell the tube vs. the SS Carvin.

There were lots of things Murphy didn't get, and www.pritchardamps.com goes into more detail. I have ordered a Pritchard amp to see if Pritchard can succeed where Murphy failed. I hope he has, as I'm not the 100% tube snob who says it can never be done.

I am not an Electronics engineer or even an amp tech.I do have a great amp tech, and am familiar with tubes and "dialing" in my "own" amps for the sound I want with TUBES.
What I LIKE about tubes, besides the fact that tubes "sound" better to almost ALL guitars players I know, is the fact that I can CHANGE the SOUND of my amps by replacing TUBES and combining different tubes, something you CAN'T do with a solid state amp. Makes me wonder why the changing of tubes does in fact CHANGE the sound of the amp IF solid state amps are able to reproduce the sound of TUBES. I am not talking here about replacing bad tubes, but mixing and installing good tubes for warmth, depth gain etc...Does that then mean that a "fixed" solid state amp is the BEST replicated sound of a tube amp?
I dial in my amps in at LOW volumes and look for warmth, sustain, increase in volume(adjust head room) at a certain level, while it is CLEAN. Been doing that for years, you CAN tell, and it does make a difference. It usually takes care of things working on top too, where at high volumes and high gain you can't hear it as distinctively.
Similar to a car engine if it is idling smooth, and the mixture is right at idle, it is going to perform better at top end. If you have a bad cylinder misfire etc.. or uneven cylinder, it won't show up at 7000 PRM as easily as the other cylinders will carry it.
Hey, I am no expert, but from my own eperience with amps, and playing, tubes do make a difference for me.

By a cruel twist of fate, engineering theory has been adversely affected by the Behaviorist philosophy. This philosophy, in reaction to the previous Mentalists, reject the subjective and believe that only the measureable is scientific. I can not fathom this position because it ignores important information simply because it can not be quantified readily.

(The Mentalists were quite sympathetic to musician's philosophy.)

The Behaviorist philosophy also proved to be convenient because it lends itself to the paradigm of accuracy and linearity. Both tube and transistor behavior were linearized and consequently they appear to be the same. The mathematics that would prove different is so complex that it is quite unmanageable. Plus the coup d'grace to the discussion is the rejection of actually listening and learning how to listen.

I was leaning on my engineering training and experience while I was working on the PRS amplifier and for a few years thereafter. Finally, having making little headway beyond developing a triode tube emulator, I checked my engineering knowledge for logical rigor that I had learned as an undergraduate mathematics student. Beyond circuit analysis and signal analysis, it has little rigor (and that is being kind). Basically for artistic questions, engineering depends entirely upon opinion that is not based upon personal experience because that is rejected by the Behaviorist philosophy that is so imbedded in engineering.

If this is not sufficient, after developing the tube emulator for 12AX7's (which operated at approximately the same current but at about 1/10 the voltage), I built a microphone preamplifier in the style suggested by Russell Hamm (Tubes Versus Transistors - Is There An Audible Difference?, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, May 1973), measured it in the same way. and got the same results. This proved that my emulators worked the same as 12AX7's. This work was published in the now defunct dB Magazine and can be found on my web site www.pritchardamps.com

After this work was reported by Chappell Brown in EE Times, an other author wrote an other EE Times article quoting John Murphy's claim that his dual diode circuit was a true emulator and that it predated my work by about a decade. Carltonh has written in this thread that the Carvin amplifiers with this circuit don't sound like tube amps and others have written similar but less specific observations on the tubes versus transistor debate.

A couple of Fender engineers even wrote (long ago) a Tubes Versus Transistors paper based upon unspecified musician tests and found that there was no difference or that the difference was not detectible by musicians who did the test. Certainly, I believe that this is possible since many musicians have not trained their hearing and I had problems finding truly discerning musicians.

Part of this problem comes from the adverse impact that the master volume control has upon design. If the amp sounds acceptible with the master volume turned down, then the output stage does not need study because it is operating in its substantially linear region. However, the general knowledge is that the master volume creates a less attractive tone.

After my enlightenment and my successful, proven development of tube emulators, I started working on the output stage. This research ultimately produced many patents upon the creation of fat, power supply ripple modulaton, compression, and more work on expansive harmonics. The technically curious can get a list of my patents on my website www.pritchardamps.com and check them out via a variety of websites that have patents online. In fact, I have more patents in this niche than any one in the world - 29 utility, design, and foreign so far.

The development of my amps relied heavily upon musicians' critiques. I built many, many prototype amplifiers and took them to jams and gigs for opinions. These critiques presented another problem, the language of sound is hardly standardized and impressions are often translated into words of different senses, which for me made the critique even more difficult to understand. But free of the Behaviorist philosophy that would ignore these comments, I worked at understanding them. However, if the critique did not suggest greatness, I knew that I had more work to do. Fortunately, I did meet Phil Zuckerman, who was quite interested in this area because he could not find an amp that he really liked anywhere. He had the patience to work on meaningful communication.

Pritchard amplifiers do not attempt to recreate the classic amplifiers, but are exaggerations of the good and reductions of the bad. The results are really good. But you need not take my word for it even though I don't hype, check out the threads started by Carey Cox on the PRS Forum or the posts by Tyrone Shuz on this and PRS forums.

My design goal has been to recreate an exaggerated version of the vintage character and then to make that character more useful with importat features. First, the amps have voice switches that lets the player select the basic amp tone. Second, the amps have a Watts Knob that lets you turn down the amp while maintaining the output stage distortion features: ripple modulation, compression, expansive harmonics, sag, etc. Finally, in a contribution to domestic tranquility, I created the Practice Jack that lets you play screaming leads at conversational levels.

One important feature of tube swappin is to find an input gain that mates playing and a guitar with the amp. This is accomplished by the input level control that varies the gain of the first stage.

I disaggre with the notion that solid state amps are the most artistic choice for bass. I believe that bass amps and players need and want greater power levels and solid state can supply that readily. However, you can not push those amps without them complaining bitterly. Further these solid state amps do lack warmth, body, and life.

You can find amps that have great tone and you can find amps that have great versatility. But until my work, amps did not have both with one potential exception. While this might be taken as spam, I don't hype. You can see this in my website: www.pritchardamps.com And again, check out my amps with my customers or at shows. Eric Pritchard

In a discussion of amp tones on the PRS Forum, Tyrone Shuz posted the following discussion of the voice switch on Pritchard amps:

Originally posted by Tyrone Shuz

The "L" voicing is very smooth, creamy, and articulate. That's the most "D"-ish voice, and could be construed in that ball park. With my HB II, it sounded more "D"-ish than the Carlos tones on the sample above.

The "F" voicing seems to the the best "D" clean tones, because the "D" cleans are really an "F".

I own a '66 Bassman, and sold a '64 recently. Bassmans are much closer to Marshall Plexi than traditional Fender. The "M" voicing will work fine for this tone.

As for Trainwreck, the "M" voice gives you that kind of crunch, very dynamic, especially with a closed back cab. The "V" voice comes close to some 'wrecks as well, but I think it has a tad less gain, it's more like an AC-30.

Let me reiterate that Eric's amps are analog, and since he's emphasizing the "back end" distortion-wise, you get all that randomness and liveliness we all love. And it /feels/ right, because it ain't digital. There's no feeling of a "middleman" like the modelers give you. Eric's amps are extremely responsive.

I was the one who asked the question that got Tyrone's response on the PRS Forum, so I'll explain the background.

"D" Refers to Dumble, and you can figure out the rest. The Carlos Santana sound samples refers to him playing a Dumble through 4x12 Tone Tubby cab at www.tonetubby.com.

"L" just means lead, but I understand is voiced somewhat like the original Mesa Mark 1 type sound, but just how close I won't know till I get my amp.

Quote:

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Originally posted by carltonh

"L" just means lead, but I understand is voiced somewhat like the original Mesa Mark 1 type sound, but just how close I won't know till I get my amp. [/B]

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Actually the L voice is a combinatin of the Boogie overdrive tone and the Marshall bass rolloff. These two are combined because the Boogie has problems in the bass region and the Marshall can have to much high-end treble. Eric

HI GUYS I HONESTLY LOVE THE CONTINUOUS RELIABILITY OF MY SOLID STATE STAGE 100 HEAD I BEEN USIN IT FOR 6+YRS ITS GOT TONS OF GAIN BUT I LOVE ITS VERSATILITY I SEEN ITS INSIDES AND THERES ALOT OF RESISTORS / DIODES ETC BUT IT STILL KICKS BUTT ONLY DOWNSIDE IS ME I CAN SONICALLY HEAR THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MY MAIN OLD TUBE AMPS AND THEYRE FENDER BASSMANS
THERES ALOT OF HOT WATER BETWEEN THE 2 TYPES IN MY OPINION MY TUBE BASSMAN HEADS SOUND VERY WARM DUE TO THE WAY THE POWER TUBES COMPRESS ETC AS FOR MY STAGE 100 HEAD I LOVE IT TO DEATH ITS A GAIN MONSTER IN MY OPINION I LOVE IT I USE IT INFRONT /PLUGGED INTO A TUBE AMP DRIVING MY OTHER 4X12 CABINET AND I THINK THE SOUND IS WONDERFUL YOU SHOULD EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT TYPES OF AMPS TOO BECAUSE FOR THE MOST PART I THINK TECHNOLOGY CAME SO FAR IN THE ELECTRONICS OF AMPLIFICATION THAT YOUD BE AMAZED AT ITS EVOLUTION FROM THE 60S PER SAY
I ACTUALLY USE 2-3 AMPS AT ONE TIME ALL INTO 4X12 CABS MOSTLY AND I THINK FENDER OVERDRIVE CIRCUIT IN THE STAGE 100 PREAMPED OUT/ LINED OUT TO A OLDER TUBE AMPLIFIER WILL REALLY OPEN EYES I USE ALOT OF DIFFERENT POWERFUL AMPLIFIER SETUPS I STILL SWEAR BY MY OLD BLACKFACE BASSMAN AB 165 HEAD I MODDED IT A LITTLE I LOVE IT TO DEATH I WILL NEVER GO ONSTAGE WITHOUT IT ITS ALWAYS THERE AND I OWNED IT FOR OVER 23 YRS I BEEN PLAYIN GUITAR THRU IT 31 SO I THINK I KNO MY BASSMANS I HAD MANY OF THEM I THINK MARSHALL IS A GLORIFIED BASSMAN IN MY OPINION TUBES PLAY ALOT IN THE SOUND SO DOES PLATE VOLTAGE AND PRE AMP TUBES
JUST EXPERIMERNT LIKE I DO
I STILL LIKE BOTH I EVEN THINK CARVIN MAKES ONE HELL OF A AMP LINE
CHEEZY CABINETS BUT HEY PRICE IS RIGHT
ITS IN THE FINGERS /THE PLAYER TO DIAL IN THE TONE NEEDED

Typically musicians find that they can "dial in a tone". This is only partly true. Tone controls can compensate for shortfalls in non-linear character, but it is hardly the last word.

Once apon a time, virtually when dinosauers ruled, players worked in the region between clean and dirty because this region is most expressive - readily trading picking strength for harmonic structures. In this region, tone controls don'e help much. The amp distortion character has got to be right.

An amp should give you a decent tone readily and dialing in should be to get a really good and great tones.

If someone is happy with their sound through their amp, I won't try to change their mind by criticising their solid state amp or even tube amp. (Though sometimes their opinion will change when they can play a different amp side by side with their current amp.)

But the "All in the fingers argument" ignores important facts. SRV had more tone in his fingers than about anyone else, witnessed by his gauge 13 strings. Still, he was always on a continuous quest for tone, trying new amps and modifying old ones. So was Hendrix and many if not most other players famous for their tone in their fingers, hands, and soul.

one thing about that first article, he says ironically everyone relies on solid state distortion effects......but doesn't observe that these are used to overdrive TUBE amps.


a distortion box on it's own sounds like crap, it's the tube amp that smooths it out.











* I guess all the new modelling effects that are out now could be an exceptoin though.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Algernon
For those who think I never post in forums other than off-topic.

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Umm, I believe I apologized for that remark...:hmm

i can hear the difference both have their good / bad points i like both but mainly my main power amp driving my sound out is a old bassman i crank her up its 33 wats output but its got a kool nasty crunch (the george thorogood type ) i am old fashioned yet i still love my stage 100 head i just bought another as a kick around amp they do have tons of gain plus a great preamp xlr out put to preamp out line out to anything i done it with sending the gain signal preamp to a old bassman drivin hard but i use in between a volume pedal to control the warm sound of my old bassman amp it still is my fav amp
but the stage 100 when they were made in 94 96 were pretty useful tonally no jokin i think they lack warmth but hey i aint complainin when i first bought mine i called fender tech dept direct and told them it lacked bass response or else its still a great amp for the money they listened they are kool to talk to
all you keep rokin just figured id add my 2 cents
good luck
the stage 100 heads i use are the older ones without the dsp crap
mine have spring reverbs and aree very versatile amps and affordable in their day
i dont like the dsp stuff its fake sounding
to me at least

I can hear a difference. But it is not enough of a differnce for me to give up my Line 6 stuff.

Dale

hi i got a corny question if i was testing a load of a amp on a work bench without spkrs whats the easiest way to use solid spkr resistors 5-8 ohmn or 10 ohmn ones
i would like to make a homemade power soak that i can quiet one of my loud amps volumes down being i dont have lots of money due to illness but just a project that i can use 4-8 ohm impedence out to spkr cabinet if necessary i kno it sounds absurd but i cant find a old scholtz power soak anywhere so i want to make one i wish i knew the howes
i have a idea
do i shunt the resistors to grounds ?
i got a 6 way selector twist knob control and bunches of load resistors in many ohms including 8 ohmn spkr ones but theyre only 10 watters i need to kno how to wire these up
you seem very knowledgeable
thank you
maybe draw me a scetch schematic or idea how to use these load resistors to cut the output of a 160 watt amp that has mo master volumes on either channels it also has multiple spkr out puts in 4-8 0hms
thank you again
lou
guitarnoise2002@hotmail.com

The closest thing I have to a SS amp is my late '77 Pro Reverb, which has a SS rectifier and the (hated) ultra linear xformer. It's a clean amp until you nearly dime it.
I can tell the difference even at low volume levels- not at all difficult.
I doubt Mr. Murphy plays much guitar, if any.

I've heard bad tube amps, bad SS amps, bad modeling amps.

But I've heard GOOD tube amps.

Can't say the same thing for the other two, at least not for me.

I've heard other players make amps I'd never touch sound good. What does it mean?

I have the amps that make me sound what i think is my best.

That's all that matters because I have my amps and I don't need any more.

Well, the logic in the first post is specious at best. Taking only a single part of a system and using it as a basis for system comparisons is pretty weak engineering. (BTW, I'm an engineering manager by trade.)

wurlwynd is absolutely on the money. Rectifyer sag is an important part of the "tactile" quality of a tube amp. Also, the original article talks about overdrive, but from what I read, only in terms of the final output stage. Lots of the real OD comes from the PREAMP stage! Another part he casually omits is the way power is transfered to the speaker in a tube vs. solid state amp.

What he is doing, is basically comparing a tube to transistor. Not comparing guitar amplifiers. A transistor in a guitar amplifier is pretty much an FET device that doesn't change with it's enviornment. A tube is very much affected by it's enviorment. Speaker shakes the amp, the tube shakes, and it's output is affected. Anybody with an EL84 powered amp can tell you that.

Considering a "real" tube amp look at what you have - a dynamic rectifier, a clipping preamp that sends a harmonics to a power section which then adds even more clipping and harmonics, and a linear motor ( the speaker) being driven by the output, which in turn sends a mechanical feedback to the tubes... well you get the picture. It's orders of magnitude more complex than a simple Fourier analysis - for which nearly every engineer disregards anything higher than second order terms; 90% of the data is in the first term anyway.

The confusion these days is that most of the "tube" amps sold today really aren't tube amps. Even Fenders. Open up a Hot Rod Deville and look at the transistors! They are hybrids. To really understand what a tube amp is all about one needs to play the real thing.

That said, what really matters is how you like it.

All BLAH BLAH WOOF WOOF aside, any seasoned played CAN hear the DIFFERENCE !!!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Dale
I can hear a difference. But it is not enough of a differnce for me to give up my Line 6 stuff.

Dale

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Whats a Line 6 :D :p :cool: :tw59

One's a concert and the other's a radio. :tw59

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jammin'John
Whats a Line 6 :D :p :cool: :tw59

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www.line6.com

Dale

Offshore Angler has it right: All that really matters is how you like it.

The rest is blah blah blah.

I cant say either sucks some types of amplifiers stink but to sokmeone else that particular amp may be their winning ticket to fame
i like certain sound factors fender's cyber line is nice the new line and the line 6 pod i like those also for practicality
we all have out own opinions



as for me and my #1 old tweed head bassman i love her she breaks up just right i got lots of bassman amps i own marshall heads but i keep going back to my simple 33 watt bassman head my uncle gave me

my good friend and songwriter swears by his line 6 pod so its all kool by me
what ever works for you is your ticket

good luck to all
lou

Quote:

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Originally posted by Dale
I can hear a difference. But it is not enough of a differnce for me to give up my Line 6 stuff.

Dale

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Heard a new Flextone III...pretty darn nice...my brother loved it too-very hard core tube guy...it's not the sound he dislkes it's jut the fact that it doesn't have at least ONE 12AX7 in the circuit ....cracks me up. I've never owned anything but tube amps, but the Line 6 stuff has defintely opened me up to the possibilty.

as both a musician (guitar since '59) and electronic engineer (BSEE since '82), I've followed Mr. Pritchard's research from the beginning -- still have a copy of his article in EE Times -- but have yet to actually "hear" a product.

The engineering-side of me knows the "How's & Why's" for the differences between vacuum tubes and solid-state devices (hint: different transient mechanisms and media), while the guitar/musician-side knows the "Sounds & Tones" differences between vacuum tubes and solid-state devices (right-on, Mr. Murphy!). And, rationally, I want the two technogies to "merge" but have yet to see (hear?) anything sufficiently "close-enough" to make me buy...

Well, how timely; I just tried out a Flextone III last week.

I've been waiting for years to find a modelling amp that can reasonably (to my ears, anyway) emulate some of my favorite tube amps. The relative lightness and flexiblity of such an amp is quite seductive. I like to believe that this 'grail' of modelling amps is still forthcoming; that said, the Flextone III ain't it, IMO.

NONE of the presets sounded more than moderately like the amps they are supposed to emulate; I'm not saying they are not usable tones but I certainly was disappointed in the 'blackface' and 'class A' settings, in particular.

Now, I'm not really a 'tubes at all costs' kind of guy--quite the contrary--I readily acknowledge that SS tones are intrinsically viable and even preferable in some circumstances (I'm thinkin' PODs here) and while the Flextone III is indeed another step toward the ideal (being able to accurately emulate tube amps), it is, however, just that--one step on what may unfortunately be a long road to this 'ideal.'

We are still in the salad days of digital emulation, I'm afraid. I anxiously await the day when a modeller can make me forget that what I'm playing through lacks tubes.

Quote:

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Originally posted by hudpucker
Well, how timely; I just tried out a Flextone III last week.

Now, I'm not really a 'tubes at all costs' kind of guy--quite the contrary--I readily acknowledge that SS tones are intrinsically viable and even preferable in some circumstances (I'm thinkin' PODs here) and while the Flextone III is indeed another step toward the ideal (being able to accurately emulate tube amps), it is, however, just that--one step on what may unfortunately be a long road to this 'ideal.'

We are still in the salad days of digital emulation, I'm afraid. I anxiously await the day when a modeller can make me forget that what I'm playing through lacks tubes.

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I'm still partial to tube amps myself...the Fextone III does have a ways to go...still a good amp, but not 100% dialed in on the modeling...and I sure do like that pickguard on your strat...might have to get one for mine!

I was in Chicago last November and we ended up at Blue Chicago
There were 2 of the best guitarist I / We have ever heard
Both were playing Strats with EMG's the tone was incredible.
One was using a stage 100 SS amp the other a Peavey SS amp the club had as a spare.
I was in disbelief! no way could a SS amp sound that good.
that is just not possible.
I equated SS amps to 2 dimentional chainsawdistortion squarewave clipping crap.

I been wrong before.

Just goes to show - you need to trust your ears

Suppose nobody ever told any of us what kind of gear Eric So&so or whoever used. What if all that happened was- you hear the music? End of story.
How could anyone decide if they sound good, or if they should keep playing, or share their music with anyone?

Seems like everyone is chasing down "that" sound. It was originally created on tube amps so everybody looks for tube amp sounds. What would happen if a totally "new" type of music (don't know what it'd be) came along like Rock & Roll came along. Only thing is, the basis for the sound came from SS amps. Would everybody be chasing down that "SS Sound" ? Just thinkin' out loud.