Do guitarists still view buying a solid state amp as something best avoided ?

EricTheWeary · February 2017

The BlueTone Pros referred to earlier in this Discussion must have been made in pretty small numbers. Some of the Jazz oriented SS amps are small numbers as well I should imagine, the Ameson (SS) Jazz heads, for example, were made in batches of double figures as I understood it.

Sassafras · February 2017

Valves are only important to the person playing through them.
No-one else gives a shit.

ecc83 · February 2017

"SS power amp for clarity and no power amp compression to the sound." What power amp compression proff?

Yes, a cathode biased OP stage will self limit as you push it past "class A" but an AB stage won't. Then valve OP stages have a quality lacking AFAIK in all SS outputs. They beat, to some extent loudspeaker thermal compression.

This is the fact that as the voice coil heats up its resistance increases and so, for a given Vin, power will drop. SS amps are severely limited in the voltage they can deliver, 50W into 8R= 20volts (rms) and that's all she wrote for a SS amp*. A valve OP stage on the other hand CAN deliver more voltage into a higher net impedance so as VCR rises they can maintain much the same power. SS amps can't. TComp starts to bite at about 1/2 rated power and so having two (or more) speakers will deliver more final volume than one, but of course you might LIKE the TC of a strained speaker!

My earlier discourse mentioned an OP transformer? This gets over the speaker impedance issue where SS amps usually deliver max power into 4Ohms or so but would also make it possible to have a sophisticated "valve like" load characteristic but again, more development cost that is unlikely to ever be recouped!

*This ties in with power claims and the adpuf men. They are going to specify the best figure so, our 50watts/8R is probably totally genuine (but remember, MAINS voltage must always be taken into account. Is that 50W at 230V or 240?) but, if the amp is actually capable of say 70W/8R they will spec the higher figure.

But, power delivery is very hard to specify. Vout into X R at "visible clipping"? That is very imprecise and subjective. The only fair way is Vout (true rms) at XR at say 10% Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). And yes, many porkies have been told about SS power deliveries and mains consumption not tallying with claimed power out but then do we specify a 100W class AB valve amp's consumption at full, total clipping (nearer 200W) ? No, because the things are SO inefficient it would hardly matter!

Dave.

professorben · February 2017

ecc83 said:

"SS power amp for clarity and no power amp compression to the sound." What power amp compression proff?
Yes, a cathode biased OP stage will self limit as you push it past "class A" but an AB stage won't. Then valve OP stages have a quality lacking AFAIK in all SS outputs. They beat, to some extent loudspeaker thermal compression.
This is the fact that as the voice coil heats up its resistance increases and so, for a given Vin, power will drop. SS amps are severely limited in the voltage they can deliver, 50W into 8R= 20volts (rms) and that's all she wrote for a SS amp*. A valve OP stage on the other hand CAN deliver more voltage into a higher net impedance so as VCR rises they can maintain much the same power. SS amps can't. TComp starts to bite at about 1/2 rated power and so having two (or more) speakers will deliver more final volume than one, but of course you might LIKE the TC of a strained speaker!
My earlier discourse mentioned an OP transformer? This gets over the speaker impedance issue where SS amps usually deliver max power into 4Ohms or so but would also make it possible to have a sophisticated "valve like" load characteristic but again, more development cost that is unlikely to ever be recouped!
*This ties in with power claims and the adpuf men. They are going to specify the best figure so, our 50watts/8R is probably totally genuine (but remember, MAINS voltage must always be taken into account. Is that 50W at 230V or 240?) but, if the amp is actually capable of say 70W/8R they will spec the higher figure.
But, power delivery is very hard to specify. Vout into X R at "visible clipping"? That is very imprecise and subjective. The only fair way is Vout (true rms) at XR at say 10% Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). And yes, many porkies have been told about SS power deliveries and mains consumption not tallying with claimed power out but then do we specify a 100W class AB valve amp's consumption at full, total clipping (nearer 200W) ? No, because the things are SO inefficient it would hardly matter!
Dave.

Hi Dave, it's very much my perception of what I think various stages an amplifiers circuit adds to the overall tone soup.

I believe ( rightly or wrong) that small valve power amps are more likely to impart more power amp distortion characteristics to the tone than a similar SS unit.

Take my case for example, I use a large amount of low end in my sound and detune too ( not massively drop C#) I have tried a great deal of smaller valve amps (bassbreakers, juniors,terrors,HT-20 etc) and universally found them far far to quiet, and when pushed decending into fartsville.

So I don't see how a 20w power amp seperate would be any different, the small valve combos and heads I've tried sounded great at low volumes but ran out of steam at anything over 5/6 on the volume, ergo the issue is not the preamp but the power amp.

My Velocity 120 produces 120w @ 8ohm and around 95w @ 16Ohms, overall not a huge amount louder than a 20w valve amp at full chat, but the tone difference is vast to my ears.

thomasw88 · February 2017

rlw said:

Telejester said:

I just looked on Andertons at the price of the blues cube artist which I think sounds lovely in online clips, £789.00 WTF !!!, priced far too close to plenty of tube amps, at that price I wouldn't part with the cash if I'm being honest.

It's a competitor. Why would you expect it to be cheap? It's also as good or better than many valve amps in it's price range, plus you will never need to have it serviced and replace parts, as you would a valve amp.

The new blues cube heads are £1299.. Jeezo thats ridiculous. they come with a 2 year guarantee which for that price I would expect at least 5 years. Plus the claims about reliability cant be proven yet. Just because something is solid state doesn't mean that it won't have issues.

ICBM · February 2017

thomasw88 said:

The new blues cube heads are £1299.. Jeezo thats ridiculous. they come with a 2 year guarantee which for that price I would expect at least 5 years. Plus the claims about reliability cant be proven yet. Just because something is solid state doesn't mean that it won't have issues.

That's very true - I repair as many solid-state amps as valve ones, as I'm sure all the other techs do.

The difference is that *if properly engineered and not just down to a price point* there is no reason for a solid-state amp to fail, whereas with a valve amp, no matter how well-engineered, valves can and will fail.

It's also true that with a properly designed valve amp, nothing other than valves and fuses should fail, so it's possible to get them going again quite easily, even at a gig - but a failed solid-state amp is almost always a bench job.

Danny1969 · February 2017

With a lot of the newer solidstate stuff your paying for the R&D and tooling up .... once the PCB line is set to pick and place direct from tape reels the whole process is incredibly quick and cheap and requires not a lot of human intervention ... some manual soldering of larger thru hole components and that's about it

With valve amps your using components that are made in much smaller quantities and parts that are much harder to fit into a modern automated production line ... you can put as much as you can on the PCB but with HT voltages that's generally not a good idea for long term reliability

So I do expect valve amps to cost more, luckily with modern PA's we no longer need big valve amps with their associated large HT and output transformers and large bottles ... these parts are the biggest cost. Well some of us don't ... playing though a large amp is a different feel to a small amp. Personally having done a few gigs recently with a Fender Twin I found it's huge headroom and complete lack of compression on the clean channel quite unforgiving to my dodgy inconsistent clean playing and I was wishing it was smaller

ICBM · February 2017

Bygone_Tones said:

ICBM said:

Bygone_Tones said:

Out of interest do you know what the power output is on them? Cant find much info on them. Is it 120w? and do you know if the reverb tank is the same as the one found on the standalone 'carlsbro reverb unit'?

I think it's 100W on the old unlabelled ones. I'll measure mine if I can get around to it.

The reverb tank is a little 9" one if I remember rightly, it's years since I looked inside though!
OK thanks for the info. The reverb on the marlin (mine anyway) is a big thing, takes up most of the headbox width.

I've just had a look at mine, and tested it - the reverb tank is definitely a 9" type, and it puts out 150W into 4 ohms. It's a Marlin 1042 if that makes any difference.

vasselmeyer · February 2017

My next amp will be a small solid state head, probably a Quilter 101, and a lightweight cab. Not necessarily because of the sound, most of my sounds come from pedals anyway, but because I've been diagnosed with a back condition and advised not to lift heavy weights. If there's one thing that well built 2x12 combos are known for, it's weighing a huge amount.

ecc83 · February 2017

professorben said:

ecc83 said:

"SS power amp for clarity and no power amp compression to the sound." What power amp compression proff?
Yes, a cathode biased OP stage will self limit as you push it past "class A" but an AB stage won't. Then valve OP stages have a quality lacking AFAIK in all SS outputs. They beat, to some extent loudspeaker thermal compression.
This is the fact that as the voice coil heats up its resistance increases and so, for a given Vin, power will drop. SS amps are severely limited in the voltage they can deliver, 50W into 8R= 20volts (rms) and that's all she wrote for a SS amp*. A valve OP stage on the other hand CAN deliver more voltage into a higher net impedance so as VCR rises they can maintain much the same power. SS amps can't. TComp starts to bite at about 1/2 rated power and so having two (or more) speakers will deliver more final volume than one, but of course you might LIKE the TC of a strained speaker!
My earlier discourse mentioned an OP transformer? This gets over the speaker impedance issue where SS amps usually deliver max power into 4Ohms or so but would also make it possible to have a sophisticated "valve like" load characteristic but again, more development cost that is unlikely to ever be recouped!
*This ties in with power claims and the adpuf men. They are going to specify the best figure so, our 50watts/8R is probably totally genuine (but remember, MAINS voltage must always be taken into account. Is that 50W at 230V or 240?) but, if the amp is actually capable of say 70W/8R they will spec the higher figure.
But, power delivery is very hard to specify. Vout into X R at "visible clipping"? That is very imprecise and subjective. The only fair way is Vout (true rms) at XR at say 10% Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). And yes, many porkies have been told about SS power deliveries and mains consumption not tallying with claimed power out but then do we specify a 100W class AB valve amp's consumption at full, total clipping (nearer 200W) ? No, because the things are SO inefficient it would hardly matter!
Dave.

Hi Dave, it's very much my perception of what I think various stages an amplifiers circuit adds to the overall tone soup.

I believe ( rightly or wrong) that small valve power amps are more likely to impart more power amp distortion characteristics to the tone than a similar SS unit.

Take my case for example, I use a large amount of low end in my sound and detune too ( not massively drop C#) I have tried a great deal of smaller valve amps (bassbreakers, juniors,terrors,HT-20 etc) and universally found them far far to quiet, and when pushed decending into fartsville.

So I don't see how a 20w power amp seperate would be any different, the small valve combos and heads I've tried sounded great at low volumes but ran out of steam at anything over 5/6 on the volume, ergo the issue is not the preamp but the power amp.

My Velocity 120 produces 120w @ 8ohm and around 95w @ 16Ohms, overall not a huge amount louder than a 20w valve amp at full chat, but the tone difference is vast to my ears.

Ah! We are talking about slightly different effects here. By "compression" I understood you to mean a gradual volume decrease (or slower increase IYKWIM!). Yes, a 20W valve GUITAR amp will power limit at LF because they all use pretty small OP transformers (Google the Quad ll and look at that traff and that is only a 12/15W amp!)

Transistorized amps have no such LF limitations. Even the older models with a big OP coupling capacitor could deliver near full power at 40Hz (with a good whiff of 2nd Harmonic!) your Velly 120 is almost certainly a DC coupled OP stage and thus could put ~100W out down to 5Hz!

Dave.

Sessionman · May 2017

the_twin said:

I've ordered a Session BluesBaby to slot in where my Blues Junior used to live before it caught fire. Hopefully this will be a good move.

And how did it work out? Quite a few have been buying them for the very same reason!

Sessionman · May 2017

ecc83 said:

professorben said:

ecc83 said:

"SS power amp for clarity and no power amp compression to the sound." What power amp compression proff?
Yes, a cathode biased OP stage will self limit as you push it past "class A" but an AB stage won't. Then valve OP stages have a quality lacking AFAIK in all SS outputs. They beat, to some extent loudspeaker thermal compression.
This is the fact that as the voice coil heats up its resistance increases and so, for a given Vin, power will drop. SS amps are severely limited in the voltage they can deliver, 50W into 8R= 20volts (rms) and that's all she wrote for a SS amp*. A valve OP stage on the other hand CAN deliver more voltage into a higher net impedance so as VCR rises they can maintain much the same power. SS amps can't. TComp starts to bite at about 1/2 rated power and so having two (or more) speakers will deliver more final volume than one, but of course you might LIKE the TC of a strained speaker!
My earlier discourse mentioned an OP transformer? This gets over the speaker impedance issue where SS amps usually deliver max power into 4Ohms or so but would also make it possible to have a sophisticated "valve like" load characteristic but again, more development cost that is unlikely to ever be recouped!
*This ties in with power claims and the adpuf men. They are going to specify the best figure so, our 50watts/8R is probably totally genuine (but remember, MAINS voltage must always be taken into account. Is that 50W at 230V or 240?) but, if the amp is actually capable of say 70W/8R they will spec the higher figure.
But, power delivery is very hard to specify. Vout into X R at "visible clipping"? That is very imprecise and subjective. The only fair way is Vout (true rms) at XR at say 10% Total Harmonic Distortion (THD). And yes, many porkies have been told about SS power deliveries and mains consumption not tallying with claimed power out but then do we specify a 100W class AB valve amp's consumption at full, total clipping (nearer 200W) ? No, because the things are SO inefficient it would hardly matter!
Dave.

Hi Dave, it's very much my perception of what I think various stages an amplifiers circuit adds to the overall tone soup.

I believe ( rightly or wrong) that small valve power amps are more likely to impart more power amp distortion characteristics to the tone than a similar SS unit.

Take my case for example, I use a large amount of low end in my sound and detune too ( not massively drop C#) I have tried a great deal of smaller valve amps (bassbreakers, juniors,terrors,HT-20 etc) and universally found them far far to quiet, and when pushed decending into fartsville.

So I don't see how a 20w power amp seperate would be any different, the small valve combos and heads I've tried sounded great at low volumes but ran out of steam at anything over 5/6 on the volume, ergo the issue is not the preamp but the power amp.

My Velocity 120 produces 120w @ 8ohm and around 95w @ 16Ohms, overall not a huge amount louder than a 20w valve amp at full chat, but the tone difference is vast to my ears.

Ah! We are talking about slightly different effects here. By "compression" I understood you to mean a gradual volume decrease (or slower increase IYKWIM!). Yes, a 20W valve GUITAR amp will power limit at LF because they all use pretty small OP transformers (Google the Quad ll and look at that traff and that is only a 12/15W amp!)
Transistorized amps have no such LF limitations. Even the older models with a big OP coupling capacitor could deliver near full power at 40Hz (with a good whiff of 2nd Harmonic!) your Velly 120 is almost certainly a DC coupled OP stage and thus could put ~100W out down to 5Hz!
Dave

I've not read this anywhere else on the net... it is, in deed, a completely new education for me... and I've been designing guitar amps since 1967 - valve and tranny! Please, do keep it coming chaps!

darthed1981 · May 2017

Telejester said:

bingefeller said:

I avoid valve and go for low watt SS / modelling amps every time. I'm only a bedroom warrior so have no need for expensive and loud valve amps.

You have no idea just how much logic is in your reply

When I was a regular gigger in a hard rock band my amp for the shows was my mk1 Peavey 5150 head through a 4x12 and what a sound it produced, I kept it in the bedroom and the wife and kids despised it , the fact I could only play it below 1 was the final annoyance.

QFT - this is where a lot of us are at, really.

I've been recommended small valve amps in shops and at normal home volumes they just don't sound as good as a decent SS/digital amp like the Boss Katana or many others.

Now if you play big gigs where it gets hot and you can drive the heck out of them.. well good on you, or if you live in the middle of nowhere and have a garage or basement, but those of us in semi-detatched houses with non-guitar playing neighbours arent going to get anything out of valve amps, even little 1 watters.

Boss Katana all the way

57Deluxe · May 2017

I still stand by my Session Rockette 30 - I had a student with his Carvin Belair 2x12 the other day - guess which had the best clean and drive tones??

Here is some a good assessment of organic non-sterile SS tones from it...

Dave_Vader · May 2017

I recently acquired an old 80s Roland Cube as an experiment in this direction.
It sounds just fine thanks.
Bit pickier on what I put through it, the sparkly tanglewood in my Avatar for example sounds weak and nasty, whereas it's inherent weak and nastiness is what makes it sound mighty through a cranked WEM dominator.

Stick anything with P90s into the cube though, and it sounds every bit as huge as you could want. Ironically, it likes a tubescreamer in front of it rather than the built in overdrive. And a RAT, but everything sounds better with a RAT.

digitalscream · May 2017

Interesting that this thread has come back...my rig is now 100% solid state right up to the power section; I've got a solid state AMT F1 preamp on my board with a bunch of pedals in front of it. Run into the power amp of my Jet City JCA22H, it sounds mind-bogglingly good...in fact, not only have I not lost anything by going down this road, I think I've gained quite a bit because it sounds even better than before when I was using the amp's preamp.

I'm still a bit squicky about taking the final step and using a solid state power amp. I really, really want to...but I can't bring myself to dump the cash on such things as an experiment. Particularly since a solid state power section which can replicate that wondrous "boom" I get from my current rig will likely cost significantly more than another 20W Jet City amp.

Sessionman · May 2017

57Deluxe said:

I still stand by my Session Rockette 30 - I had a student with his Carvin Belair 2x12 the other day - guess which had the best clean and drive tones??

Here is some a good assessment of organic non-sterile SS tones from it...

The Rockette:30 is in no way up to the standards we achieve today... although, the technology used is identical! Work that out if you can. That demo does show signs of sounding a little 'flat and a tad lifeless'... she simply had something very important missing fro the power amp! Plug that preamp into the BluesBaby and your jaw would drop!

It's down to the design and the fact that our modern amps employ 'current drive' in the power amp. The lack of current drive is the very reason the older SS amps sound sterile. This is why 'hybrid' amps, tranny front ends and valve power amps, came on the scene. They knew that SS power amp were not right, but not how to cure it! Valve amps create current drive naturally and that's due to the output transformer... NOTHING to do with the valves at all.

If you put an output transformer on to a transistor output stage, it will achieve the same result. In fact, the very early transistor amps that did have output transformers sounded great... they were just not right for guitar use yet in other ways, or reliable.

We use an extra feedback path in addition to the normal negative feedback - yes, transistor amps have negative feedback too, or they simply would not work! This makes them tonally respond just like a valve amp.

SESSION was the first company to have the audacity to create a solid state version of a well known big selling valve combo... the BJr and we called it BluesBaby. The Guitar & Bass review of last year cemented it as, well, extremely good and doing everything you'd expect a valve amp to do. We now even do a 45 Watt version. http://www.guitar-bass.net/gear/award-session-bluesbaby-22-review/

A lot of people think we pay the magazine to publish reviews, when in fact we don't and never know what they are going to say until it's actually published... the same time as you guys get to see it. This is the same for all instrument manufacturers.

Sessionman · May 2017

digitalscream said:

"I'm still a bit squicky about taking the final step and using a solid state power amp. I really, really want to...but I can't bring myself to dump the cash on such things as an experiment. Particularly since a solid state power section which can replicate that wondrous "boom" I get from my current rig will likely cost significantly more than another 20W Jet City amp."

Read my last reply above... now you can understand your own nervous behaviour! You won't find a suitable power amp with current drive is my prediction. Plug you rig into a BluesBaby 'AUX IN' and those worries will completely disappear! Promise! It really is the missing link!

The bottom end will be more 'boomy' just as you'd like; and the treble nice a sparkly/chimey. Plug in a Tele set to the middle PU selection and you're in rhythm heaven. Just like that guitar on the Direct Line advert (I love that tone.)

Where do you live... maybe I should pop along with one for a blast using your rig to drive it?????

digitalscream · May 2017

Sessionman said:

digitalscream said:

"I'm still a bit squicky about taking the final step and using a solid state power amp. I really, really want to...but I can't bring myself to dump the cash on such things as an experiment. Particularly since a solid state power section which can replicate that wondrous "boom" I get from my current rig will likely cost significantly more than another 20W Jet City amp."

Read my last reply above... now you can understand your own nervous behaviour! You won't find a suitable power amp with current drive is my prediction. Plug you rig into a BluesBaby 'AUX IN' and those worries will completely disappear! Promise! It really is the missing link!

The bottom end will be more 'boomy' just as you'd like; and the treble nice a sparkly/chimey. Plug in a Tele set to the middle PU selection and you're in rhythm heaven. Just like that guitar on the Direct Line advert (I love that tone.)

Where do you live... maybe I should pop along with one for a blast using your rig to drive it?????

I'm game, but I'm near Peterborough - a long way from Basingstoke

The only problem I see with the BB amps is that they're combos, and I only use amp heads (my Matrix NL212 cab is exactly the sound I want from a speaker).

Bridgehouse · May 2017

digitalscream said:

Sessionman said:

digitalscream said:

"I'm still a bit squicky about taking the final step and using a solid state power amp. I really, really want to...but I can't bring myself to dump the cash on such things as an experiment. Particularly since a solid state power section which can replicate that wondrous "boom" I get from my current rig will likely cost significantly more than another 20W Jet City amp."

Read my last reply above... now you can understand your own nervous behaviour! You won't find a suitable power amp with current drive is my prediction. Plug you rig into a BluesBaby 'AUX IN' and those worries will completely disappear! Promise! It really is the missing link!

The bottom end will be more 'boomy' just as you'd like; and the treble nice a sparkly/chimey. Plug in a Tele set to the middle PU selection and you're in rhythm heaven. Just like that guitar on the Direct Line advert (I love that tone.)

Where do you live... maybe I should pop along with one for a blast using your rig to drive it?????

I'm game, but I'm near Peterborough - a long way from Basingstoke The only problem I see with the BB amps is that they're combos, and I only use amp heads (my Matrix NL212 cab is exactly the sound I want from a speaker).

Want to try it through my EICH T1000 bass amp? Power Amp section is 1000w - 2x500w amps in one box. All the bass stuff is preamp - the poweramp is effectively FRFR - I've run Helix into it and then on to a 2x10 with tweeter and guitar sounds immense........

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Do guitarists still view buying a solid state amp as something best avoided ?

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