Discuss: Are combo amplifiers a compromise?

[gooman]

I think he's fulla fucking shit.

And I base my opinion on four + decades of practical experience at the "end-user" level.

As usual Phantomman hits square on the money

[thegeezer]

I played a small club last night and my 15 Vox Ac CC was just the ticket besides a stack needs a big car and help carrying it, although they are fun to crank up.

[bloosman1]

I think it's a matter of taste... I've been playin' guitar since 1970 or so, and I found reasons to use both set ups.
---J---

[trevorus]

One thing about the combo/head thing, when they get transported, I am sure the tubes see a lot worse vibration than when playing... regardless of the amp setup. I prefer combos for transport, but there is something great about a head and big cabinet.

[concert410]

My own experience says that the 120 watt tube head\4-12 cab rig I used in the 80's and early 90's did NOT fill the room up with better tone than my current 30 watt combo\1-12 ext. cab rig. The bigger rig did give me something to duck behind when there was a bar room brawl.

[trevorus]

My own experience says that the 120 watt tube head\4-12 cab rig I used in the 80's and early 90's did NOT fill the room up with better tone than my current 30 watt combo\1-12 ext. cab rig. The bigger rig did give me something to duck behind when there was a bar room brawl.

That's really the whole point, isn't it? Amp distortion was discovered partially by a ripped speaker cone! Some people thought it was awful... So, what's best for one may not work at all for someone else. That's one of the biggest things people need to learn in this music world. A friend I know doesn't think Marshall makes a respectable circuit, and when asked why, it's because he's not a Marshall fan... Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

[phantomman]

The bigger rig did give me something to duck behind when there was a bar room brawl.

LMFAO!!!

Sounds like a scene right outta "Road House".

I've played a few dives like that myself!

[Bill Moore]

I was there! Guys started waving guns around, the band ducks behind equipment. Then the bartender fires a round into the ceiling with the 12 ga. Complete silence, like new mirror ball glass everywhere!

[Jazzguru]

You know the place is a dive when all the drinks are served in paper cups - to keep people from getting too cut up when (not if) the fights (note plural) start.
Been to a place like that only once and not for long.

[concert410]

I played a place in once where they had everyone take off their "colors" at the front door. Once the beer took effect and the women started making eye contact with the guys on the opposite side of the room, the bar owner paid us a bonus to quit immediately. He didn't want to have to replace all his furniture. And I made sure I had my 4-12 between me and the bar as I loaded out the back. One set and I got paid extra.

[CzarSketch]

So I've read through about 3/4 of the book now, and here's my second take:

In accordance with what Kap'n said, O'Connor knocks the ball out of the park technically. I have a much better working knowledge of the science and physics present within the circuit--my schematic reading skills have increased in speed and in accuracy.

That being said, I've realized that I disagree with EVERYTHING he has to say regarding tone. He prefers switching and sees SF circuit changes as a GOOD THING. We don't see eye to eye.

[TheArchitect]

He's partially right about the wear and tear aspect. A head is usually sitting on top a vibrating cab anyway, and thermal cycling, like taking your gear outside rigth after a gig will kill your tubes and such just as easy.

"do not give good distortion tones" That is just -to borrow a phrase "fulla fucking shit"

I guess he's never heard the benchmark distortion tones made by AC-15, AC 30, all the Tweeds from Deluxe to Bassman. The little SUpro that made Jimmy Page a household name.

Fuck this guy. He doesn't know shit.

I've only been gigging for 30 years, so I don't what I'm talking about. I spent most of those years with a SF Twin Reverb. The last 15 years or so has been with mostly Fender combos from the Vibrolux Reverb, Pro Reverb, Super Reverb and my main go-to Fender Combo, the 1964 Deluxe Reverb which is constantly on guitar pubs desert island amp short lists.
Othe combos that I gig frequently are small Vox Cambridge Reverbs and a Marshall 18 watt clone.

You ever here of a "bluesbreaker" combo? That shit put Clapton the map as "God"

OK, well you know "distortion" has evolved into to other things since 1965. There is a whole generation who would not even consider Zeppelin to be using distortion. I would bet there is a generation or 2 that would not exactly consider an AC30 or similar era amps as a benchmark of overdriven tone. The heavier tones really don't work so well with open back cabs. The loss of low end etc compared to the closed back cab is quite meaningful in that realm. He may be full of shit but this is not the reason why.

[TheArchitect]

I think he's fulla fucking shit.

And I base my opinion on four + decades of practical experience at the "end-user" level.

You have probably driven a car for 40 years too.....built any lately?

[curtisstetka]

Well, that's hardly analagous, especially since we're talking about how an amp sounds. You don't need to know how to build a car in order to evaluate how it drives.

[Rickenjangle]

Uh-Oh...

Architect, you know that flag from the Revolutionary War that said "Don't Tread On Me?" Well it's good advice around here...

Anyway, your argument does not hold water, since Roger (that's PhantomMan) is discussing tone, as a subjective thing, and he owns dozens of amps both open back combos and closed back piggyback designs, and therefore IS qualified to speak to the tone.

Now, I've never built a car, nor an amp, but 40 years of driving a car or playing through various amp designs DOES give one the right to say that someone else's subjective, qualitative opinions - especially if they're presented as definitive fact - are "fulla f***ing sh**" as Roger put it...

Now, from a circuit designer's standpoint, perhaps the head/closed back cab design is superior...and we all know that the Fender CBS-era techs started introducing tweaks to the BF circuits to make them electronically "better" - often at the expense of tone. The book author's argument about distorted tone being poor in a combo is akin to positing that an SUV is a "better" vehicle than a sedan simply because the author likes it better. It's opinion presented as fact. And that dog won't hunt, at least not around here...

[Rickenjangle]

OK, well you know "distortion" has evolved into to other things since 1965. There is a whole generation who would not even consider Zeppelin to be using distortion. I would bet there is a generation or 2 that would not exactly consider an AC30 or similar era amps as a benchmark of overdriven tone. The heavier tones really don't work so well with open back cabs. The loss of low end etc compared to the closed back cab is quite meaningful in that realm. He may be full of shit but this is not the reason why.

Well if you get right down to it, how does one define such things as "Distortion," "Overdrive," "Fuzz," etc.? How about "Boost?" What about "Gain?" What about Class-A as used in classic Vox circuits? What about true Class-A (single-ended). What about A/B? The point I'm trying to make is that clean to overdrive to distortion to fuzz is a continuum that is not a series of discrete points on a graph. In fact, it's really impossible to truly apply more than vague descriptions to these because half of the sound is in the ear of the listener. One man's clean is another man's lightly overdriven sound. If the note is highly compressed, it acts just like it's overdriven, with sustain for days, but it's not distorted. Some distortions (like on Marilyn Manson's albums) are so incredibly whacked out that when I've tried to transcribe them for my students, they're virtually impossible. Somewhere along the line from ultralinear clean sound to white noise exists all of these things, and 10 guitarists in a room hearing the same series of clips could potentially define them in different ways.

Oh, and yes, I personally do define the sound of a British combo like the AC30's and the Bluesbreakers as definitive clipped sounds. Call it overdrive, push, distortion, sustain, gain, etc...doesn't matter.

[Wilko]

of course there is even more to the discussion of distortion.

The EQ curve is not reproduced faithfully. That's distortion.

[CzarSketch]

We can define distortion electronically, but the rest of those terms are, just like the statements made on this thread, entirely subjective.

Granted, I do believe that opinions are immune from being "right" or "wrong." That's what protects the minority from the majority.

RJ: to expand on your point, I've seen several attempts by tech-savvy professionals trying to define the difference between the different types of non-clean tones we are all so crazy about. None of them really do it justice on their own.

This is my own personal definition:

If you draw a continuum where the left represents JUST amplifying the fundamental and the right represents the amplification of all possible harmonics, then you go from the cleanest HiFi clean on the left to rich, just-short-of-clipping guitar amp "clean" on the right. This is harmonic distortion. We also call it overdrive. Some of us call it any number of other things. I call it beautiful.

You need a SECOND continuum to explain the effects of clipping. This is its own process, although the two are of course related. Someone with more than a couple years background in physics (any number of the guys on this board!) can explain it wayyy better than I can.

And the fun part is, you can clip the signal WAY before you start adding on a lot of harmonic distortion via signal bounding or simply by adjusting voltages across your tubes. Fuzz comes from intense clipping rather than cascaded gain stages, and to me it seems to "ride" on top of the note rather than modulate the tone itself.

Ultimately, unless we expect sonic analysis to go the way of wine and beer tasting, this is going to be a subjective process. Builders will see things in terms of the way the signal wave is modified, and musicians will see things in terms of the way things sound. No one's wrong in this debate unless they make that statement about someone else's opinion!

[Kap'n]

OK, well you know "distortion" has evolved into to other things since 1965. There is a whole generation who would not even consider Zeppelin to be using distortion. I would bet there is a generation or 2 that would not exactly consider an AC30 or similar era amps as a benchmark of overdriven tone. The heavier tones really don't work so well with open back cabs. The loss of low end etc compared to the closed back cab is quite meaningful in that realm. He may be full of shit but this is not the reason why.

O'Connor talks about things in absolutes. Using your example "superior bass response." Those boom box cars crusing around New Haven have superior bass response too, I guess for modern tastes. They still sound like crap, even playing the types of music they were poorly designed to reproduce.

There are plenty of contemporary musicians that don't feel the need to hit the brown note to express themselves musically. That's more a genre thing.

Similarly, channel switching is an advantage only if you believe that clean and dirty are distinct things, and not a continum.

[TheArchitect]

Well, that's hardly analagous, especially since we're talking about how an amp sounds. You don't need to know how to build a car in order to evaluate how it drives.

He was evaluating the aspects of how they were built effecting the sound.

[TheArchitect]

Uh-Oh...

Architect, you know that flag from the Revolutionary War that said "Don't Tread On Me?" Well it's good advice around here...

Anyway, your argument does not hold water, since Roger (that's PhantomMan) is discussing tone, as a subjective thing, and he owns dozens of amps both open back combos and closed back piggyback designs, and therefore IS qualified to speak to the tone.

Now, I've never built a car, nor an amp, but 40 years of driving a car or playing through various amp designs DOES give one the right to say that someone else's subjective, qualitative opinions - especially if they're presented as definitive fact - are "fulla f***ing sh**" as Roger put it...

Now, from a circuit designer's standpoint, perhaps the head/closed back cab design is superior...and we all know that the Fender CBS-era techs started introducing tweaks to the BF circuits to make them electronically "better" - often at the expense of tone. The book author's argument about distorted tone being poor in a combo is akin to positing that an SUV is a "better" vehicle than a sedan simply because the author likes it better. It's opinion presented as fact. And that dog won't hunt, at least not around here...

I have been a member here since 2003. I don't feel any particular need to bow to anyone. My opinion is just as valid as yours or anyone else's


As for "better" , since none of you has bothered to put anything in context as I have, your points are pretty nebulous. There is a reason Dream theater is not using Vox and Tom Petty is not playing Mesa's but somehow the Vox is a "benchmark" of distorted tone?

We are ALL PRESENTING OPINION AS FACT. So take that argument and stow it

[Cygnus X1]

I still like a ProCo Rat in front of a Deluxe Reverb better than
most Marshalls driven hard.


And that's my fact.

[Kap'n]

I have been a member here since 2003.

And I've been here since 2002 (I had to look). What's your point?

We're not presenting opinion as fact. We're presenting opinion as opinion. And throwing the court of teenage girls out of the equation, I'd daresay that there are a lot more guitarists that buy Tom Petty records to hear Tom and Mike than there are guitarists who buy Dream Theater records to hear Petrucci.

Not that I think Petrucci sucks. He's a monster player. But his playing doesn't say anything to me...or a lot of other people. Not that I really care what other people listen to. But it's at least a gauge of relative interest in the sounds.

[Rickenjangle]

Architect, I'm not going to get into an argument with you on here, but if you've been here since 2003, and only had 99 posts or so, then perhaps you like to lurk? Anyway, Mike Campbell's tone IS a benchmark for me, as is his taste in playing...as for Petrucci, I won't dispute his technical prowess but the last time I listened to Dream Theater all I could think about was "where's the song? Where's the melody?" Their music, and his playing, seems like nothing but technical exercises TO ME. My opinion, and perhaps mine alone. But just because Petrucci uses Mesa doesn't mean that Mesa is the only way to get a good distorted tone. Brian May's tone through a wall of AC30's is pretty damn good. Page's tone on the first two Zeppelin albums, through a (relatively) small Supro is pretty damn good. Clapton was God when he played through a Bluesbreaker. In fact, when he played through a tweed Champ on the Layla album he was pretty good, too...

[Rickenjangle]

...only if you believe that clean and dirty are distinct things, and not a continuum.

Thanks, Kap'n...you said in one sentence what it took me a chapter to say... ;-)

[grandturk]

I love the distortion that comes out of my MK II Boogie combo. Big round and fat, full of mids (almost too full) and crunchy. Gimme a Strat with a Super Distortion and I'm in my tone heaven.

[grandturk]

Similarly, channel switching is an advantage only if you believe that clean and dirty are distinct things, and not a continum.

That's why my favorite Marshall is the JCM 900 Mk III - no clean channel.

[TheArchitect]

Architect, I'm not going to get into an argument with you on here, but if you've been here since 2003, and only had 99 posts or so, then perhaps you like to lurk? Anyway, Mike Campbell's tone IS a benchmark for me, as is his taste in playing...as for Petrucci, I won't dispute his technical prowess but the last time I listened to Dream Theater all I could think about was "where's the song? Where's the melody?" Their music, and his playing, seems like nothing but technical exercises TO ME. My opinion, and perhaps mine alone. But just because Petrucci uses Mesa doesn't mean that Mesa is the only way to get a good distorted tone. Brian May's tone through a wall of AC30's is pretty damn good. Page's tone on the first two Zeppelin albums, through a (relatively) small Supro is pretty damn good. Clapton was God when he played through a Bluesbreaker. In fact, when he played through a tweed Champ on the Layla album he was pretty good, too...

The "song" you hear or don't hear is not really relevant to the discussion. The point is that you can't get that sound with a Vox or Blackface amp. Sure, May and Page get good sounds. I am not arguing that. I am saying those older amps will not do the more modern sounds.

Clapton being god is also not really relevant to what an old amp is capable. I am really not understanding why everyone is talking about how great a player is to justify how good or bad an amp sounds. Apples and oranges.

[Wilko]

"that sound" can be made with pedals and come right out my Deluxe Reverb.Or any amp I own.

Of course, it can also come right out my Mac using GarageBand.

[Rickenjangle]

OK I give up. Architect, you are right in every way, your logic is impeccable, you taste is second to none. You are smarter, better, faster, richer, and better-looking than I.

I withdraw my comments, and retire back to my corner to sit and drool and play my guitars through my old, broken-down amps that can't do anything but get old, unexciting, broken-down vintage sounds.

[Wilko]

I totally understand what Architect is saying, but it doesn't have anything to do with the inherent deign "flaws" mentioned about the book.

Amp noise, and tube damage, or distortion sound quality are what are mentioned. As I have already posted, combo amps and heads are all the same these days except the control plate labels usually need to be flipped over.

He's not mentioning open or closed back, or circuits designed particularly for massive overdrive sounds that are now popular. That's whole other discussion.
There combos that are closed back. Mesa is a big leader in that field--they even make convertible or open/closed in the same cab as that is a major element in how an amp sounds. but again, that's not what the OP mentions as the design compromise.

[TheArchitect]

OK I give up. Architect, you are right in every way, your logic is impeccable, you taste is second to none. You are smarter, better, faster, richer, and better-looking than I.
.

But I am supposed to take your word as gospel because your logic is impeccable, and taste is second to none? Get over yourself. You don't want to discuss you want to lecture.

[TheArchitect]

I totally understand what Architect is saying, but it doesn't have anything to do with the inherent deign "flaws" mentioned about the book.

Amp noise, and tube damage, or distortion sound quality are what are mentioned. As I have already posted, combo amps and heads are all the same these days except the control plate labels usually need to be flipped over.

He's not mentioning open or closed back, or circuits designed particularly for massive overdrive sounds that are now popular. That's whole other discussion.
There combos that are closed back. Mesa is a big leader in that field--they even make convertible or open/closed in the same cab as that is a major element in how an amp sounds. but again, that's not what the OP mentions as the design compromise.

The chassis for combos and heads are pretty much identical 99% of the time. No argument there. I am not really discussing design "flaws", thats correct. I am saying that closed back cabs are a better fit for many (dare I saw most) heavy overdriven sounds. I agree with that part of it. The flip is also true. I think open back cabs are often better for cleaner sounds. I don't know that I would call that a design flaw though. But, my experience does match the comment that closed back cabs are better for overdriven sounds.

Honestly I am hard pressed to understand how it could be a technical flaw strictly speaking. His tonal assessment in my view is correct even if the logic to used to get there is not correct.

[CocoTone]

There are so many players, amps etc with open backs that get fantastic OD and distorted tones. I think that statement is a bit hard to justify.

CT.

[Wilko]

whether cab is closed back or not does not make a "better" tone. It is one of the flavors. FOr what Architect wants to hear, yes, the closed back cab is the expected tool and does a better job at that tight thumpy bottom end. We all know an open back cab just doesn't do that.

You just to have the right tool for the job you want to do.
That doesn't make one or the other "better" for all applications. That's also not even related to what the "author" was on about. He was somehow implying that combo circuits are inferior, when in fact, they're usually the same.

I was also adding that some combos are closed back, and some head cabs are open back.

[grandturk]

Honestly, when I play an amp - the thought of closed/open back doesn't even come into my mind - it either sounds good or it don't.

[Rickenjangle]

But I am supposed to take your word as gospel because your logic is impeccable, and taste is second to none? Get over yourself. You don't want to discuss you want to lecture.

That's exactly what I was saying. You will bow to my impeccable taste and logic.



Thank goodness for the ignore list.

[gooman]

[Erock_Germany]

I have one piece of advice for that guy - insert head in ass.

He couldn't tell the difference between violin and an electric guitar with a statement like that.

The thing with wear and tear on the tubes etc. may have limited merit but I think before that happens, our ears tell us to change tumes etc.....or we just have some spares but.....

It is all in the sound. I have been playing for 28 years and have had many a combo that sounded great.

Now on the otherhand, you can turn a combo into a head and cabinet and that sounds just amazing but that is a different story....

[TheArchitect]

That's exactly what I was saying. You will bow to my impeccable taste and logic.



Thank goodness for the ignore list.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass