slash-ed wrote:Hehe... it's funny how we rehash the same opinions over and over...
Wait until you're Rog's age. There's a warm comfort in hearing the same old things come around and around again. You know your answers. There are no more surprises. Nothing like that feeling when all your life you've trotted out the same thing over and over and people stop looking at you as a ranting idiot and started calling you a wise old sage. It's why old people like talking to young people. They haven't heard it all yet.
[quote] a warm comfort in hearing the same old things come around and around again. You know your answers. There are no more surprises. Nothing like that feeling when all your life you've trotted out the same thing over and over [quote]
Roffle!!
That's true- all my family know all my jokes.... you guys are almost family, too.
Of course, when I was younger, I pushed the all-valve amplifier boat too, but I grew up, learned a lot and got wise!!
He hit a chord that rocked the spinet and disappeared into the infinite ...
DarcyPerry wrote:You have to replace the tubes? Bugger.
I haven't replaced mine. I bought the amp new in 1998!
Hell, it still sounds fine to me
Yeah, I reckon this whole reliability thing is bull - everyone knows when you think it might time to re-tube you simply buy another valve amp, therefore diluting the actual playing time of any of your amps and ultimately avoiding the re-tube thing altogther. Aye bg, TMG, me. etc etc....
I can't afford to sell it, because I wouldn't get enough money to buy a new one. I have 3 amps:
Fender Deluxe
SWR Californian Blonde
Pignose (The legendary Pignose 7-100)
They all have their own strengths and weaknesses.
I just love the valve sound. Crank it. They take a while to warm up but they sound so sweet. Fender has the real wet sound too
"It's all a gift... and I have to keep giving it back, or it goes away. If I start believing that it's all my doing, it's gonna be my undoing." - Stevie Ray Vaughan http://www.darcyperry.co.nz
[quote="IkeKrull"]Both valves and transistors (e.g. solid state) are basically used to switch and/or modulate a high current signal based on a smaller, control current.
This is the basic principle behind an amplifier - a low power signal is fed into one side of the amplifier, and a reproduction, or copy of the signal at a much higher power level is produced at the other side.
When we use the term 'gain', this refers to how much more power the output signal has than the input.
When the amplifiers gain is turned up past a certain point, the valve or transistor can no longer accurately reproduce the signal - it has physical limits as to how much power it can produce at it's output (commonly referred to as amplifier wattage).
An audio signal is an oscillating voltage - the voltage 'swings' from positive to negative many thousands of times a second - when the 'peaks' of these oscillations exceed the ability of the amp to switch current, clipping, or distortion occurs.
The typically 'curvy' tops of the sound waves get chopped off, or 'clipped' to the maximum level the amplifier can produce.
Where valves and transistors diverge is in the way they clip - transistors clip very harshly - moving from clean to clipping very abruptly, and producing very 'square' waves, and linearly across the frequency range of the signal, while valves tend to enter clipping 'softly' - producing 'rounded corners' on the clipped signal, and displaying a notable high-frequency attenuation, since they simply can't manage to switch fast enough as their plates become fully saturated.
Transistors are much faster and more accurate switching devices than valves, but they sound characteristically unmusical when distorting - this is a psycho-acoustic effect - it simply seems our brains are wired to appreciate the 'warm' sound a vacuum tube produces when distorting a signal to the 'harsh' sound a transistor does.
So, from a tone point of view, you won't find many guitarists who would argue that solid state overdrive sounds better - the warm roar of an overdriven tube amp sounds markedly different to the buzz of an overdriven solid state amp.
If you are playing clean (with no distortion at all), then there is very little difference between a solid state and a tube amp, but as soon as the transients (e.g. the extra loudness of a heavy pick attack) start to push the amp into overdrive, the difference in tone will become apparent.
Most manufacturers now build amp modelling, tube preamps or 'transtube' type circuits into their solid state guitar amps to simulate many of the harmonic and dynamic characteristics of a tube amp.
The fact they are trying to 'copy the real thing' leads to a perception that solid state circuits are poor imitations, but once some of the more unappealing aspects of a transistor amp's 'raw sound' are eliminated through clever circuitry, they are capable of producing great tone, especially if you favour the type of harsh distortion used in some modern metal styles (Pantera, as mentioned by others, springs to mind).
Solid state amps are cheap, stable, lightweight and reliable. Tube amps are expensive, require retubing due to fatigue, heavy and can be finicky due to their construction and thermal stress.
There are other aspects, such as transformer speaker coupling (i won't bother covering this) and power amp compression in tube amps - this occurs when not only the preamp stage is overdriven, but also the main amplifier stage (power amp). A solid state power amp pushed to overdrive will clip horribly, while a tube power amp will produce a dense, warm roar that is the real 'magical' part of tube tone. This effect is only acheived at high volume in most configurations, and this can be problematic - turning your marshall stack past 6 on the dial is going to hurt your, and your neighbours ears.
If you cant run a tube amp at high level (though 'high level' for a 2W tube amp is quieter than for a 100W tube amp) you may want to consider a smaller amp, or a solid state/hybrid amp, as these will consistently provide the tone you have dialled in, mostly regardless of volume
finally someone answered the question instead of just arguing!
"Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible god and destroys a visible nature. Unaware that this nature he's destroying is this god he's worshipping." - Hubert Reeves
Well I was in Go West in the weekend. tried out two amps.
Peavey Valveking 50w 1x12 (all tube)
and
Vox AD50VT (tube preamp i think)
Really liked both of them. Vox was cool with modelling and effects. huge range of sound out of it and quite loud. Brent from Go West (8 foot sativas ex bassist) had a full shred session on it. sounded fantastic.
Peavey. I may have just found my next amp. Thing had balls. I had it on maximum of 2 volume. I'd hate to think how loud it was past halfway. It is a little more expensive. Quite toneful.
guitars used: jackson with EMGs, Epi Lp, Epi SG and Ibanez RG.
I'm going to play both again before I buy, which will most likely be sometime after christmas. and I am leaning towards not haveing something laden with effects. I don't want fancy stuff distracting me from learning properly.
Reminds me of that joke - heard about the new 16 valve Lada? Yeah, it's got 8 in the radio....
"Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible god and destroys a visible nature. Unaware that this nature he's destroying is this god he's worshipping." - Hubert Reeves
darkness wrote:I'm going to play both again before I buy, which will most likely be sometime after christmas. and I am leaning towards not haveing something laden with effects. I don't want fancy stuff distracting me from learning properly.
Proud of you son...
That sounds great. I think a common progression is to move away from everything on board and into specialised components. So an amp that is just an amp is a great start. A seperate Multi effects board is a very good way to figure out what you are actually likely to use before assembling a select collection of good quality pedals.
When you get old enough you'll probably mature into a Solid State combo amp with multi effects on board but there's a long way to go yet. You'll probably grow to like the colour purple too.
Actually, my post got me thinking how we couldn't wait to dump our old valve radios in our cars and fit nice shiney new ss ones.
I wonder if there's gonna be a resurgence on vintage radios..
Probably not in today's instant gratification society. The valve radios took about 5 mins to warm up. I'd be at work by then, plus that inverter noise would drive me crazy (er).
He hit a chord that rocked the spinet and disappeared into the infinite ...
No-one GROWS to like the colour purple. Its inate. You either have it or are disadvataged in birthright. Thos of us with imperial bloodlines know wot i speak of.
Last edited by Rog on Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
He hit a chord that rocked the spinet and disappeared into the infinite ...
Rog wrote:Actually, my post got me thinking how we couldn't wait to dump our old valve radios in our cars and fit nice shiney new ss ones.
I wonder if there's gonna be a resurgence on vintage radios..
Probably not in today's instant gratification society. The valve radios took about 5 mins to warm up. I'd be at work by then, plus that inverter noise would drive me crazy (er).
They take a while to warm up but they sound so sweet. Fender has the real wet sound too 
