Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Non-tube amp discussion to discuss music, girls, life, etc.

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pompeiisneaks
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by pompeiisneaks »

Yes and no, it's a hybrid, and those sometimes even don't run the preamp tubes at much voltage so they don't do a 'great' job of getting real tube tone, they emulate that with digital effects etc. I don't know this amp, but I had a Vox AD100VT or some such that has a single preamp tube. I'll be that 12AX7 is running at like 40V.

The tone was 'meh' but worked for me when it was all I could afford. I got rid of it after I built a few t ube amps. (I still also have my Fender Blues Deluxe I bought in '94 or '96 range).

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martin manning
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by martin manning »

Take this for what it's worth (from Milkman site): "The preamp is based around a single 12AX7 running at high voltage in a discrete Class A circuit." Tim knows tube amps, and pays attention to the smallest details.
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by Ken Moon »

I can take about any SS amp, and with some fiddling, get a decent clean or crunchy sound (using my simple pedal setup of a Way Huge Saucy box stacked into a TS9, a Voodoo Labs tremolo and Mad Professor Silver Spring reverb). Basically, all you need with this setup is a decent clean sound with some headroom.

I've been fiddling with a Roland Blues Cube, a Line 6 and a Kemper, and the're all fun as far as trying the amp models/effects/cab sims/ whatever, but my little old '69 Fender Champ (which I got for free when I bought a MusicMaster when I was 13 yrs old), beats them all for that fendery something-or-other that I can feel emotionally.

Yeah, yeah, maybe it's all a placebo, who knows, but grab any Fender or Ampeg over any modeler or SS amp.

Your soul will thank you. 8)
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by martin manning »

As far as hybrids, there have been several approaches, including Musicman's SS pre and tube power stage, Marshall's Valvestate with its buried voltage amp and cathode follower, and Vox's Valve Reactor push-pull 12AX7 into a SS power amp. None of these has been able to replace the real deal.
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by ChopSauce »

Nobody ever tried outputting a Dumble style pre-amp through an SS power section?
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by pompeiisneaks »

ChopSauce wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:11 pm Nobody ever tried outputting a Dumble style pre-amp through an SS power section?
I'm thinking about something like that in the future. I know that in some amps the tone comes from the preamp, others from both preamp and power amp, and I think usually Dumbles are a bit the latter, mostly. BUT as was previously mentioned by Ken Moon, SS still has it's place and if you can get that tone out of the front end and into a very clean SS output section, it ends up a LOT cheaper, removing all that glass and OT, and having a smaller PT means a lot less cost, for the trade off of some of the mojo of tubes without all of the mojo of the power section. :D.

Glad to hear about the milkman doing the preamp side right.

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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by martin manning »

Dumble amps develop their distortion tone in the preamp, and have a relatively clean power amp. I’ve seen several D-style preamps described (usually rack mount), which I think would get the right result if fed into a clean SS power amp. The hybrids are trying to pick out what they think is the most important source of the tube tone, and the Milkman thinks its the input stage and its interaction with the guitar pickups. I think the whole preamp is needed.
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by Guy77 »

martin manning wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2018 4:39 pm Dumble amps develop their distortion tone in the preamp, and have a relatively clean power amp. I’ve seen several D-style preamps described (usually rack mount), which I think would get the right result if fed into a clean SS power amp. The hybrids are trying to pick out what they think is the most important source of the tube tone, and the Milkman thinks its the input stage and its interaction with the guitar pickups. I think the whole preamp is needed.
Yes needing the whole preamp is true in so many ways. I tried making slight changes to the JM/wonderland preamp and the tone changed dramatically. As an example I removed the 1/2 of the 12ax7 v4 that takes the dry signal and pushes it to the phase inverter and the tone sounded worse with this removed ( This was in my post regarding removing the reverb from JM/Wonderland amp). We have come to love good tone more and more over the last few decades, with the emergence of boutique amps, that we can easily spot changes that rob us of good tone. Its like more and more these days people are becoming addicted ( in a good way) to great tone!

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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by dotfret »

martin manning wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:18 pm As far as hybrids, there have been several approaches, including Musicman's SS pre and tube power stage, Marshall's Valvestate with its buried voltage amp and cathode follower, and Vox's Valve Reactor push-pull 12AX7 into a SS power amp. None of these has been able to replace the real deal.
That depends on what you seek. If what you like is the coloration resulting from overloading the power stage, there were some hybrid amps that actually turned out that sound very well.

About 40 years ago I had a Dan Armstrong Graphic 50W head which I really liked - ss pre-amp into 2 x EL34 . Very few of those have survived because the output valve sockets were under-specified for the voltage used. Users only found out when they went up in flames!

I sold that amp to buy a Musicman Bass head, the hybrid 50W running "fat boy" el34/6CA7 - the sound was not as good when fitted with standard Mullard EL34, and I bought some GE "fat boys" especially for it. That one was stolen, and I did not like the new version, which had 6L6.

I moved over to using a Watkins Westminster - I took a tap off the phase splitter and plugged it into a variety of larger amps when I needed a bigger rig. That way I was able to use the same settings for both practice and stage.

These experiences taught me a lot about my sound. I don't do anything that needs a big rig nowadays, but I do miss the sound of a dimed 50W fitted with fat boys.
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by martin manning »

dotfret wrote: Sat Feb 24, 2018 11:05 am...I took a tap off the phase splitter and plugged it into a variety of larger amps when I needed a bigger rig. That way I was able to use the same settings for both practice and stage.
These days it's common, even at small venues, to mic the amps into the house PA, so it's not necessary to cart a big amp around. Unless of course you really like the sound of the amp...

In the early days of Solid State, the new technology was seen as revolutionary and the solution to all problems, namely the cost, weight, reliability, and poor efficiency of vacuum tube gear. A SS pre and vacuum tube power amp doesn't really go very far in that direction, so I'm not sure exactly what the thinking was there. I don't recall anyone marketing transistor sound as a feature, so it was likely just being able to say that solid state technology had been included, making the product modern and "up to date." Effects are another story, though, where the new technology gave rise to some new sounds, which have since become part of the guitar lexicon.
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Re: Are tube amps living on borrowed time?

Post by dotfret »

martin manning wrote: Sat Feb 24, 2018 1:11 pm I don't recall anyone marketing transistor sound as a feature
It happened in UK. Transistor amps got respectable from about 1972 onwards.

Carlsbro stopped making valve amps and started selling their Marlin and Stingray models.

There was an English company, PA¦CE, that sold gear under several brand names - H¦H were excellent quality transistor amps that had a high reputation. The H¦H speakers were more than excellent. The H¦H Black Widow was just what many rock and heavy metal guiarists wanted.

They also made the Redmere Soloist, which was the first emulator amp - did two Marshall tones, AC30 and Fender - or maybe that was two Fender tones? I don't recall exactly. Very expensive, and never popular because when they went wrong a repair was beyond the average repairman, too many tight tolerance components, had to go back to the factory. Sounded good ...

A brief mention for Session, who counted Eric Clapton among their customers.

There were others - Marshall were making transistor amps that competed well with those above. Yamaha made some nice SS amps. The market changes blew Selmer out. All the transistor amps were good quality stage gear at a price point below the valve amps. Anything cheap did not survive long, and eventually the market turned back to valve amps.

Don't start me talking ...
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