Amps with huge input headroom?

digitalscream

OK, this is more out of curiosity than anything, but...what are the amp heads out there with the most clean headroom on the inputs (not the power stage)?

Thinking back, my problem with the Bogner Ecstasy Red pedal I had was that I didn't have an amp which was capable of properly handling the volume difference from the pedal in its clean (=bypass), heavy rhythm (pedal=on) and solo (pedal=on with volume and gain boost engaged). The Jet City and Martamp Roadstar would do the first two, but just went into preamp clipping when trying to get enough volume for solos. The amps themselves were clearly capable of generating that much volume, they just couldn't get the volume range from the input alone.

57Deluxe

timmysoft

The laney vh100 has insane amounts of clean headroom.

ICBM

Hiwatt 400

digitalscream

I suppose I should clarify - this would be for a relatively lightweight rig (and at the moment is just curiosity). That pretty much rules out combos and the VH100R, and I can't see myself being able to afford a Hiwatt 400 :P

That said...@ICBM - d'you reckon a bass amp might be a good shout here?

guitarfishbay

You could be looking for a high wattage power amp solution like the Matrix rack power amps.  If you're getting all your preamp sounds from a pedal surely that would work ok?  High wattage, low weight, can be stored in a flightcased rack to keep it safe etc.

digitalscream

That's the slight problem - the bypass on the pedal would be a total bypass, so there wouldn't be a preamp in the signal chain between the guitar and the power amp.

ecc83

It is not strictly the first stage that overloads.

The front end ECC83 section usually has a grid bias of a volt or so so it should not start to "bend" until the signal is about 1V peak to peak or about 800mV rms and that is pretty hot from a pickup, tho' of course many humbuckers will kick out 2 or 3 times that.

However, that 0.8V will be boosted up by at least 30times and so the next stage is going to be hit with 24V rms or some 66V pk-pk! THAT will create some dirt!

A very great deal of the "art" of guitar amp design is in getting the interstage levels and response shapings just right and WHAT is right will be at the whim of the builder.

Vive la difference!

Dave.

timmysoft

Does the bother red need tubes to sound good? if not pick up an old Roland jc series amp!

ChrisMusic

Am I right in assuming that the Bogner, and other similar preamp type (if that is the right word) pedals work on voltage multipliers and therefore have good internal headroom.  There can obviously be pretty big transients and if they are not 'crushed' out of existence I would have thought that the pedal / preamp output could easily exceed a normal amplifiers preamp sections headroom, both transients and 'normal' signal.

Do these pedals deliver line level output?

What are the tonal implications of going SS (which I assume the Matrix is? Class D?), vs tube power amp or just into the FX loop return on either?  I assumed you were going the return route with your AMT pedals digital scream?

ICBM

digitalscream said:

I suppose I should clarify - this would be for a relatively lightweight rig (and at the moment is just curiosity). That pretty much rules out combos and the VH100R, and I can't see myself being able to afford a Hiwatt 400 :P

That said...@ICBM - d'you reckon a bass amp might be a good shout here?

A modern bass amp will have high headroom, but might not sound great for guitar even through guitar speakers… they tend not to.

I have an ancient 100W solid state Carlsbro PA head which sounds OK for guitar though, so you could try something like that… lightweight and dirt cheap too, you can have this one for fifty quid if you can't find anything locally .

impmann

What about one of the late 60s to early 70s valve PA heads? I had a Carlsbro plexi front 60w valve PA head that had great headroom but still had character. Plus it was cheap.
Otherwise consider a 100w HiWatt head - DR104 - and with the input gain down below half these heads sound magnificent, with headroom in spades.
Want light, cheap, characterful and clean? HH IC100... These sound way better than you may think and are built to survive a nuclear attack (or rehearsal room teenagers, whichever happens first)

MtB

Sound City 50 Plus (or one of their 100 watt'rs) from the '70s?

digitalscream

That's great stuff, guys - am I to assume that nobody can think of modern guitar amps that could do this (VH100R aside)?

ChrisMusic said:

Am I right in assuming that the Bogner, and other similar preamp type (if that is the right word) pedals work on voltage multipliers and therefore have good internal headroom.  There can obviously be pretty big transients and if they are not 'crushed' out of existence I would have thought that the pedal / preamp output could easily exceed a normal amplifiers preamp sections headroom, both transients and 'normal' signal.

Do these pedals deliver line level output?

What are the tonal implications of going SS (which I assume the Matrix is? Class D?), vs tube power amp or just into the FX loop return on either?  I assumed you were going the return route with your AMT pedals digital scream?

I don't know much about how the Bogner's designed, other than it's loosely based on the Ecstasy preamp. I do know that it sucks ass as a preamp, though, and it doesn't deliver a line level signal.

I did use the effects return with my AMT pedals, and while that worked well...it was a sod of a compromise in terms of cabling on my board (two AMT pedals + the ever-infuriating Boss LS-2) and didn't sound quite as good as I was hoping. Admittedly, it still sounds better than an awful lot of valve rigs I've tried, but not up there with my JCA. If that's going to be the case with my board-only setup, I want it to be a simple rig with a single pedal doing the business (but I don't like the AMT single-pedal preamps).

timmysoft

You can get some pretty high headroom from the laney LH50, thats a nice compact package that you could hook up a k100 loaded 1x12 cab to and get all the volume you'd ever need!

others worth checking out: Laboga Alligator, Randall RT50, Brunetti Star T.

It might be worth looking at going the rack route, Laney IRT Studio has a huge clean channel or you could go the route of something like a Mesa 20/20 power amp with an AMT SS preamp, that would be light compact and pack a hell of a lot of TOANZ.

digitalscream

Hmmm...LH50 sounds like a good 'un.

Not sure how I'd feel about the IRT - seems a little pointless to take a three channel amp, ignore two channels, then put two channels back with a pedal

timmysoft

digitalscream said:

Hmmm...LH50 sounds like a good 'un.

Not sure how I'd feel about the IRT - seems a little pointless to take a three channel amp, ignore two channels, then put two channels back with a pedal

I think most of the compact amps with a big clean channel are going to be channel switchers unless you can stretch to a Fuchs Clean Machine!

ICBM

digitalscream said:

That's great stuff, guys - am I to assume that nobody can think of modern guitar amps that could do this (VH100R aside)?

The clean channels on the new 3-channel Mesa Dual Rectifier and Roadster/Road King and the Soldano SLO have pretty high headroom, although I'm not sure high enough for what you want. Some Rivera models might, too - I can't remember.

I know exactly what you mean, and as Dave said earlier it's to do with optimising the gain structure so that no early preamp stage overdrives before the power amp… but still has enough gain to *nearly* get there. Most guitar amps go for gain rather than headroom nowadays, although it wasn't always so. A Silverface Fender Twin is a good example of an amp that was fairly well optimised for clean headroom. (And also a good illustration of why "pure power amp overdrive", which as myth would have it is always the best, doesn't actually sound all that good usually!)

ChrisMusic

digitalscream said:  Not sure how I'd feel about the IRT - seems a little pointless to take a three channel amp, ignore two channels, then put two channels back with a pedal

Thanks for your reply DS.

On the point of multi-channel, does it really matter?  It is whether the compromise is worth it, is it not?  Just ike so many things in life.  As I see it your compromises are size and weight, cost, and all those shiny knobs staring back saying twiddle me  (yes, I've done a couple of gigs like that too  )  Just ignore the knobs (best policy I find), and at least there is a backup if your pedal or board goes down, or some extra tones available.  If there is nothing much else around then it's a compromise worth making, maybe?

Are the AMT pedals that good to base all your tone off of?  I know the demos seem pretty convincing, but I don't trust YouTube production values, the SLO sounded pretty good tho.  And that Stonehead seems interesting too.

Just thinking out loud, but how do the EVH amps stack up in the clean headroom stakes?

Nerine

What I've found works really well with the Red Bogner pedal, is the Marshall 1987x
I've gigged that setup no end of times.

Those Ecstasy pedals are probably the least pedal sounding pedals I've encountered. Very very nice.

gjonesy

Nerine said:

What I've found works really well with the Red Bogner pedal, is the Marshall 1987x
I've gigged that setup no end of times.

Those Ecstasy pedals are probably the least pedal sounding pedals I've encountered. Very very nice.

in a similar vein I'm running a HT-dual plus a clean boost after into the low input of a Laney AOR protube (100watt)