With my tinnitus, every day is a new day for what sounds good and better. As long as I can tweak it on a given day to sound good to my modified ears from cymbals and excessive volume, I'm good with SS and Tubes all the same. Rock on and just play!
I honestly can't hear a difference between tube and solid state amps.
- Thread starter TheCheapGuitarist
- Start date
This is an excellent, if not tangential point.Try a real good tube amp! No peavey, no h&k, no rack preamp. Try a jcm800 from 1982 with n.o.s. tubes and a straight 4x12 with g12-65 !Really better than transistor amp!
I have a Blues Jr. and a Pro Jr. and while they are very decent tube amps - they're toys compared to my vintage, well maintained Fenders and my stable of boutique beauties. Still, for recording at home, I mostly use amp sims and my 3 uafx amp pedals.
*I don't care if occasionally Bonnie Raitt or Jeff Beck uses/used Pro Jrs. I can guarantee you they are not the same Pjr. that you or I could pick up at Guitar Center.
Googled 'phrase tube amp emulation' and came up empty. Just in case I also tried 'phase tube amp emulation' and still nothing. See below.
So it might be the amp design and not actually the tubes?
Might it be the same for SS amps, some are designed to take in the lessons learned about how tubes work and some not? The biggest leap SS amps did is including current negative feedback to get the same (or at least close) interaction between the output stage of the amps and the speaker.
I'll admit that there's no way my playing nor my ears would justify me buying a tube amp. Nevertheless, there is a real appeal in a quality tube amp, just as a shiny bauble, if nothing else. I have gone down the rabbit hole at Psionic, and obsessively watch his videos that give a peek into the fiery dragon's cave where the golden tone lies.
chris m.
Doctor of Teleocity
This thread is making me think more about selling a couple of tube amps that I rarely use....before the market for them crashes. They are large and inconvenient, so I rarely gig with them, but boy do they sound good. So I hang on to them even though it probably doesn't make sense. I would still have two smaller tube amps that also sound really good....
Mainly to control the volume on the Marshall.Why do you need all those stompboxes then?
I never used pedals with my Marshalls when I played in bands.
I only started using pedals with my tube amps since I’ve been mainly playing at home.
Last edited:
11 Gauge
Doctor of Teleocity
I put a quad of WGS Vet 10s in my late-60's SR around this time last year, and I love how it sounds (finally, with that set of speakers, after trying lots of other combinations), but it's still way too loud at the sweet spot. If I lower the volume, I have other amps that sound better like that, and they sound better with pedals, too.
It would take a really special occasion for me to use the SR out of the house, and I'd probably have to find someone to help me to move it.
I just can't bring myself to unload it, even if I got my asking price (which I'm sure I wouldn't!).
I've got a mostly scratchbuilt 2204 head that is slightly more portable, especially if I can get away with using some kind of compact cab. But again, it needs to be opened up a bit to shine, so 99% of places I might take it would require a stiflingly low volume. And since it's scratchbuilt (even though it's in a Marshall chassis and has Drake trannies), I'm not going to get squat for it. So it's not going anywhere.
I also spent the last 4-5 years reworking an old drip edge AB165 Bassman head (mainly removing the CBS-era garbage), and it's actually just barely portable (again assuming I've got a portable cab option to go with it). Even with 5881s, it's absolutely stupid loud at the sweet spot. It's also a road queen, so I'm not going to get any money for it based on aesthetics, even though it's tip-top under the hood. I've put so much work into this one, and it sounds so good, that I can't bring myself to part with it, even though it rarely gets used.
Anyway, I know the conundrum you speak of, and wish I could just come to my senses.
NoTeleBob
Friend of Leo's
Paul Rivera did a lot of work with the concept of a solid state "current feedback power amplifier" with Yamaha and the Series II / III G 50 & 100 amps to mimic what a tube amp does. He also added a parametric EQ to the amps to allow for mid-scooped, or boosted, etc. Modeled Fender reverb circuit and early Fender speaker characteristics.
Awesome SS amps, capture that clean Twin sound, mostly unknown. They are gathering popularity though and prices are climbing. Here he is talking about the design process and features:
47adelynn47
Tele-Meister
lol...pretty sure the tube amp matket is'nt gonna crash
47adelynn47
Tele-Meister
and i quote "to mimic what a tube amp does"...why mimic one and not just get one?
Blrfl
Friend of Leo's
Fer starters, nobody makes a tube amp the size of a matchbox that I can tuck in with my travel guitar.
47adelynn47
Tele-Meister
i'll buy that reasoning
DocHelliday
TDPRI Member
Sorry not to be dense.
But if you just have boutique amps for home use but don't even use them for recording at home...
What are they for?
jimmyjoe
Tele-Meister
Tube amps really shine when they are cranked up, I haven't found any SS amp that can do this compression, sweet overdrive, sustain etc.
But all this counts if you don't use tens of pedals for sound beautification. If you use them though, then I believe tube or not tube - all sound the same, the sound is determined mainly by the buzzers.
But all this counts if you don't use tens of pedals for sound beautification. If you use them though, then I believe tube or not tube - all sound the same, the sound is determined mainly by the buzzers.
Brent Hutto
Tele-Afflicted
47adelynn47
Tele-Meister
my supro bk10 has reverb and i run a trem pedal...joyo jf 09...and a caline blue sky which i use for boost only
I take them to live gigs and when I record at recording studios and other folk's home studios.
*I do mic up an amp at home occasionally but lately, more often than not, I am totally "in the box".
I'm 60 years old and a few of the now 'vintage' amps I bought new
Last edited:
See the above post.
daperl0000
TDPRI Member
Don't do it. Make wall art until they're called upon.
Similar threads
