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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:19 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Solid state amps have great clean sounds, but like others on here have said once you throw on some distortion it sounds cheesy. A good tube amp on the other hand will sound really good for both clean and overdrive sounds. Nothing beats hot bottles glowing with power. Stand in front of a Marshall or Mesa Boogie at full throttle and you'll hear it and feel it! Those Line6 copycats will never nail it no matter how hard they try.


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Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 9:24 am
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I have an original G-dec and gotta say it is a ton of fun and gets most of the play time when I am at home, its just fun to mess around with.

And I have tried out other SS amps as well some with and some without any effects.

when I get down to business I wouldnt think of using any of them, they just cannot get the sound I want to hear.

if all you need is loud and color your sound with an array of effects then SS or tube hardly matters.

notice if you will, how as players mature they tend to gravitate towards guitar plus amp and nothing else??? well, as you will probably guess its not SS amps they are plugging into.


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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:05 am
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This is seriously true. I used to have a ton of effects that I bought in the 70's. Now I have a bunch of money because I ebay'd them as vintage. It's amazing what people will pay for a Mutron III. I also have a GDEC and turn most of the effects off and use the amp models and backing tracks. It is fun but it's not one of my tube amps.

Tube amps are just incredible. A Deluxe 5e3 clone and a cord is more fun than you should be allowed to have.


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Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 5:55 pm
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Hello all!

In regard to the tonal aspects of SS vs. Tube amps, a good keyboardist friend of mine who is also an electrical engineer, told me a long time ago that the differences lie in the characteristics of tubes and transistors. Tubes, being voltage controlled devices (Like Field Effect Transistors, or FETs) produce even order harmonics when overdriven into distortion due to an in-phase input and output (voltage to voltage). Bipolar Junction Transistors or BJTs, being current controlled devices, produce odd order harmonics when distorted due to the 90 degree phase difference between current (input) and voltage (output).

Most SS power amp final stages (hooked to your speaker(s) ) are BJTs, but could also be power FETs. AFAIK, most tube distortion comes from the signal level in the preamp, before it gets to the power amp (unless you are overdriving the output stage which can happen as you crank the amp up). A good example would be listening to your favorite tube powered guitar solo on your home or car stereo. There's a very good chance that your song is going through a Solid State amp into the speakers (the same for PA monitors and mains).

As for digital modeled effects sounding "fake" I suspect that may be from "aliasing" which refers to the distortion or artifact that results when a signal is sampled and reconstructed as an alias of the original signal. Which is precisely what happens when your analog pup output gets processed by a digital fx box or modeling amp. Another possibility has to do with the filtering that must be done coming out of the DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) to remove digital noise before it goes into your amp.

I have a preamp from my friend that came from a Moog Lab Series L5 guitar amp, similar to what BB King uses, and its all SS, but has a special analog chip that produces the even harmonics. We built it into a head unit with a 60W monolithic SS power amp and it sounds fine to me. I'd love to get hands on an L5! Hopefully this info didn't bore anyone too much, and gives you all an idea about the "nuts and bolts' about the debate.


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Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:04 am
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Tube vs. SS? This is pretty subjective, given the level of modeling technology and the fact that it seems to be getting better.

There's also the factor of playing style which has to be considered. For example, I suspect that many of the Twin Reverb fans are not power-shredders.

I owned a silver-face Twin and would actually get eye-rolls from other players when I told them what I was using - until they heard it. I'd yanked the reverb tank completely and plugged in an Ice Cube sustain coupler. It made the reverb circuit a foot-switchable gain boost and I used that as my rhythm sound for metal. To offset the open-back 12"s, I used a closed 4x10" cabinet. The other guitarist was using a Marshall 50w half-stack.

I've also owned two half-stacks, myself - a Dean Markley Signature Series 60(all-tube) and a Fender FM100H(SS). The Fender is an outstanding workhorse half-stack and I defy any rocker to find fault with it. It is also so brutally loud and bulky that I found a 65w combo in Fender's FM line that would both satisfy my ears and leave some money in my wallet - the FM65DSP!

This loud, punchy little amp is hands-down the best-sounding amp I've ever had! It inspired me to start playing Who songs the first time I set the model switch to the vintage Bristish stack setting. The modern British setting sounds like Judas Priest. The Metal setting is pure Zakk Wylde!

The cabinet design makes it Fender's only acoustic-suspension combo. The closed-back 1-12" performs like a stack that I can lift with one hand.

Although I find them too tame for my taste, the Blackface, Hot Rod and Tweed models are all authentic and tubey. I know - I've played on blackfaces and tweeds.

As for the effects, I find that they are, for the most part, tweaked to the ideal settings for the given effect. Any effect has an infinite number of bad sounding settings. The Fender's DSP effects don't. The ones that I use the most - chorus, delay or reverb - are right where I'd set them, myself.


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Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 5:23 pm
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You have that right, black51!

I've found the whole argument subjective. I normally play through an Aviom headset monitor system every week using a Digitech RP-200 multi effects box. and I get some really cool sounds out of it in both the 'phones and the main house system. I primarily use a champ 30 for practice, though I've gigged with it a few times in small rooms. Aside from it being a bit noisy, it works well with the RP. I am editing and downloading tones on a Line6 PODXT live, but there's a steep learning curve, and there are so many options and virtual boxes, it's kind of intimidating. The USB interface and computer software make it a little easier. I just enjoy playing with the stuff!


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Post subject: SS amps can rock!
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:51 pm
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Having owned a killer collection of amps I can tell you there are some very fine SS amps. My favorite is the old JMI Vox Defiant. It's the same amp that the Beatles used on Revolver and Sgt Peppers albums with fine class A circuitry. The frequency response of a good SS amp actually is much greater than that of a tube amp. The problem is they are very noisy even on low volumes due to the gain structure of the power amp stages. Marshall made some fine ss amps back in the 80's also.

That said, I am a huge fan of tube amps. Especially well designed tube amps like the Fender RI 65 Deluxe Reverb, the '62 Ampeg Super Echo Twin and the JMI Vox AC30. Can't forget to mention Marshall Plexis and Fender Twins as well. Life is short - play lots of guitars and amps!


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Post subject: Tube Vs. Solid State
Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 8:42 am
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Thanks to blondeguitarman, telecaster1987, and black51 for more open-minded viewpoints and noting that most of the comments and opinions are very subjective and genre oriented, and that they've found good sounds with both.

The one objective "blind taste test" that I refered to back on 24 Jan 2008 22:56 ( http://www.epinions.com/content_3726614660 ) stated all that you have suggested: 1)No difference could be differentiated in clean sounds; 2)No difference could be differentiated in heavily distorted sounds; and 3) While most of the listeners properly ID'd the tube amps for 'soft clipping' sounds commonly associated with Blues, over 10% of them did not.

I'd really like to see anyone out there post additional references to some other highly objective 'taste tests'. Anybody have any?

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The quintessential sound of 60/70's R&R:
Fender Tube Amps
Gibson Guitars


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Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:04 pm
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18 People really proves nothing, especially when only 11 were musicians. Most non musicians today don't even know what a tube is let alone how a tube amp sounds. I'm not sayings SS amps are bad. I just don't care for them or modeling amps. To my ears they are just missing something. I would love to have a Tweed, Blackface and SF all in one amp. I've used them all and owned many so I do have a point of reference. I just wish it was closer.


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