The Amp Garage

LeftyStrat · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 2372 Location: Seattle, WA

xtian · Joined: 19 Apr 2010 Posts: 1568 Location: NorCal

Solid state…what? I don't get it.

Laughing

Gibsonman63 · Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 836 Location: Texas

I was expecting two sections, actually. One half devoted to the Peavey Bandit and the other half for the Roland JC120.

Are there any other solid state amps?

LeftyStrat · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 2372 Location: Seattle, WA

Gibsonman63 · Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 836 Location: Texas

My JC120 is a $169 pawn shop special I picked up years ago. Very reliable and it is does a nice job on swirly cleans.

amplifiednation · Joined: 26 Dec 2010 Posts: 1301 Location: Boston

Hahahaha! That just made my night

Teleguy61 · Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 397 Location: Eastern Mass USA

Wow.
At least now we know how the other half lives.
Hmm. Wonder why you never see a tube amp claiming to sound
"just like one of those great vintage Fender solid-state amps"?

ampmike · Joined: 05 May 2009 Posts: 838 Location: Bangor Pa

I know certain solid states with heavy amounts of Dust on them sound awesome.Those are the Holy Grail SS"s Very Happy

Mikey

Colossal · Joined: 20 Oct 2007 Posts: 2170

To be fair and open-minded, there have been some pretty great sounding SS amps over the years. Ty Tabor of King's X fame used a Lab Series 5 amp as his secret weapon for many years and as legend has it, even hid the amp in a Marshall cab to keep its identity hidden from the tone-copping masses. Allan Holdsworth also used Pierce amps with amazing results.

The Fractal Audio Axe FXII is pushing the DSP envelope. Lots of great examples of its remarkable abilities on YouTube. May not be everyone's cup of tea, but you can't argue with the processing power, versatility, etc. These boxes can act as audio interfaces for direct recording, go straight to the board, etc. Tone is tone and if it sounds good, it is regardless of whether the clipping is coming from a vacuum or silicon or germanium. To the unwashed masses, an original Dumble ODS-100 or a Fractal are just boxes with knobs and lights. I will further posit and that if Van Halen or Robben Ford played a Fractal tweaked with their own patches, that you might be hard pressed to tell the difference between tube and solid state, especially if recorded or live where virtually everything these days is mic'd and/or goes direct (where it is re-amped by SS power amps).

I read a post on the Fractal Audio forum where a comparison clip between a tube amp and the AxeFX II was put up. The OP stated that the first amp was the tube amp and the second the Fractal. An audio engineer replied that the tube amp sounded better of course and provided the reasons why. The OP then replied that he had intentionally lied about the clip to reveal the psychoacoustic effect; the amps were in reverse on the recording.

Also, we use solid state diodes for rectification and pedals for tone coloration so the lines are blurred.

Just some thoughts...

NickC · Joined: 14 May 2010 Posts: 870 Location: Upstate New York

Tech21 Trademark 60 is a fine, versatile, light-weight and road-worthy amp. I carry it as a back-up amp to every gig. For larger venues I have run it in tandem with the main rig. Has never let me down for about a decade now. Good value for money.

John_P_WI · Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 698 Location: Wisconsin

For many years, 30 now? I have used a polytone mini brute V with 2 x 10" speakers. It was a great practice amp until a year ago when something went poof. It is a true rats nest of wires / boards etc and I have been under motivated to suss it out.... Truly, when it was working the tone was excellent.

Teleguy61 · Joined: 07 Mar 2010 Posts: 397 Location: Eastern Mass USA

Alright, alright, I'll fess up too, to moderate the sharpness of my slur.
I have played SS amps also, many Peaveys, which are good working amps, and I had a Polytone when I was playing swing/jazz material, and it worked also.
As John said, the Polytones can have reliability issues, and they are not
really road worthy, but they can sound real good.
Just a cheap shot. Sorry, all you transistors and ICs out there.
No harm intended.

M Fowler · Joined: 16 Jan 2008 Posts: 8699 Location: MN

I used solid state Peavey's and Fender's for years gigging. No tube rattle or finding the tube in the bottom of the amp Smile

But then I reverted back to only tube amps recently.

Mark

rdjones · Joined: 31 Aug 2010 Posts: 738 Location: Music City, TN

My "go-to" amps since the '80s have been MusicMan.
RD100 for quite a while and more recently RD50 112 and head.
Granted, yes, the 50 watt has tube output stage, and a 12AX7 in the distortion channel.
But the rest of the signal path is sand.
These amps break almost every rule of 'tone'.
Chips in the preamps, starved plates on the 12AX7, Class B bias on the 6L6s, 585V on the output plates, 290V on the screens, cathode drive on the 6L6s with bipolar transistors, fairly small output transformer.
Yet I have no problem finding my sound with these amps, without pedals.

So when I point out to guys who ask about guitar tone that it starts with a tube amp, I have to temper my statements with "Do as I say, not as I do".
Please note however that I do have a collection of all tube Fender amps.

reddog

LeftyStrat · Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Posts: 2372 Location: Seattle, WA

In all fairness, I used to have a rig that was:

Marshall JMP1 -> Digitech TSR24 -> Stereo SS amp -> PA Speakers

And I've often thought about a low watt tube amp into a reactive load and then fx send, stereo return, into a class D stereo amp.

I just had to laugh when I came across the site, thinking about the members trying to get a schematic for that holy grail Dumble amp, the 'Solid State Singer.'