Tube amps- am I missing out?

[RussL30]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

There are all sorts of tube amp tones. If you want Wes Montgomery, you don't need to crank it up. If you want Joe Walsh or the Allman Brothers, you are going to need to crank. Neither one of those two guitar tones sounds as good with "Master Volume" preamp distortion as it does with power amp distortion.

This is where the statement I made in my prior post comes into play: amp makers have just gotten their heads around the business of power amp distortion at low lever in the past few years. Let's be honest, a cranked five watt amp blasts me out of a small practice room. As a recording engineer/producer I work with my ears and can't afford to irradiate myself with 90-10odb amp output, which a little five watt amp can do when wound out in a confined space. That is where modern technology is coming through.

The example I discussed before, the Marshall Origin 20 amp, is a twenty-watt amp. It WILL rip your head off in a bedroom... BUT, Marshall has recently come up was a power-scaling system called "Power Stem" that reduces the twenty watts to either three watts or one-half watt with only minimal effect on the sound of the amp. You can be flogging the amp at one-half watt and it just sounds quieter than twenty, no less power amp distortion. It is a classic low-mid gain amp, like the amps from the '60s and early '70s Here's a useful nine-minute demo with two guitars. Pardon the French:

The silly thing costs only $650 MAP. I spent a couple of hours with the head version of this the other day. Mercy.

Bob

Bob, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. The Power Stem feature definitely has my attention and the amp isn't crazy expensive either. Do you know if any other makers have implemented this type of technology?

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by RussL30

Bob, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. The Power Stem feature definitely has my attention and the amp isn't crazy expensive either. Do you know if any other makers have implemented this type of technology?

I was looking at a 20 watt Egnater Rebel with a continuously variable wattage feature right on the front panel for a while but decided it was too high gain and bratty for my uses. Suhr does it and London Power kits do it but are expensive. Mesa has it on some but it isn't cheap. There are a lot of boutique brands that have it if you've excess coin.

By the way, I understand that Kevin O'Connor at London Power invented it.

Bob

[67goat]

Originally Posted by RussL30

Bob, Thanks for bringing this to my attention. The Power Stem feature definitely has my attention and the amp isn't crazy expensive either. Do you know if any other makers have implemented this type of technology?

There are a number of amps with some form of attenuation built in. Different ones use different technologies (some use passive resistance, some use pentode/triode method to reduce wattage, or reducing voltage rails to the power amp - Power StemTM). The various methods have differing success at maintaining tone.

The Monoprice tube combos can be reduced to 1w.
Some of the Blackstar amps can be reduced down to as little as .5w.

That's a couple examples at the lower price range of tube amps.

[Bob Womack]

Yep. My Mesa Boogie Express 5:25 has a Class A/B and Class A switch that offers either five or twenty-five watts. The relative gain doesn't change but the loudness and the character do.

Bob

[printer2]

I have a switch to go from Class AB to Class A Single Ended (two tubes to one). So about 8W to 3W.

[RussL30]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I was looking at a 20 watt Egnater Rebel with a continuously variable wattage feature right on the front panel for a while but decided it was too high gain and bratty for my uses. Suhr does it and London Power kits do it but are expensive. Mesa has it on some but it isn't cheap. There are a lot of boutique brands that have it if you've excess coin.

By the way, I understand that Kevin O'Connor at London Power invented it.

Bob

Thanks. The boutique stuff is probably more than I'd be willing to spend, but it's definitely interesting stuff

Originally Posted by 67goat

There are a number of amps with some form of attenuation built in. Different ones use different technologies (some use passive resistance, some use pentode/triode method to reduce wattage, or reducing voltage rails to the power amp - Power StemTM). The various methods have differing success at maintaining tone.

The Monoprice tube combos can be reduced to 1w.
Some of the Blackstar amps can be reduced down to as little as .5w.

That's a couple examples at the lower price range of tube amps.

Thanks for the great info. I'll add this to my research. The monoprice looks interesting but I worry about it holding up. I'm not familiar with Blacistar but I'll look into it.

[printer2]

Originally Posted by RussL30

Thanks. The boutique stuff is probably more than I'd be willing to spend, but it's definitely interesting stuff



Thanks for the great info. I'll add this to my research. The monoprice looks interesting but I worry about it holding up. I'm not familiar with Blacistar but I'll look into it.

Boy if I would have known about Monoprice a while back it could have saved me a lot of time and money (but who said an education is cheap?). I would not worry about them for home use.

[67goat]

Originally Posted by RussL30

Thanks for the great info. I'll add this to my research. The monoprice looks interesting but I worry about it holding up. I'm not familiar with Blacistar but I'll look into it.

I have several Monoprice amps. So far they have held up well. The combos are actually Laney clones (in fact some have reported that some of the older amps actually had Laney branded circuit boards). They are also the same amps as the Thomann house brand in Germany. If you watch for sales on SlickDeals, the 15w combo can be had for about $200 on a fairly regular basis.

Blackstar has a decent reputation and was formed by ex-Marshall employees. One of the things you sacrifice for price on Blackstar is reparability. They use a lot of SMD construction. They aren't impossible to work on, but very difficult and many repair shops will not touch them.

In either case, there is no reason to think they will malfunction for years, unless you are using them heavily every day. That being said, you also wouldn't expect them to be heirloom amps that will get handed down for generations.

But they are inexpensive amps with power scaling and sound good that can let you put your toe in the water of tubes without breaking the bank. There are some low power (5-15w) amps in the Blackstar price range without power scaling that you might like more (Vox, Supro). But really, most things near the bottom end of pricing are going to be dubious in terms of long term functionality.

There is a very significant step up in price to get to the amps that will be easy to have repaired and last forever through that repair process. Most stuff from the big manufacturers is wave soldered PCB if not full SMD. Hand-wired amps (except the Gibson amps that say hand wired but aren't) cost more, but those will be the easiest to have worked on if needed.

[abn556]

There are some good sounding low power tube amps with built in attenuation that can go from bedroom to gig volumes.

[RoyBoy]

Originally Posted by RussL30

Long post alert.

I've been playing electric a lot more lately and have really been digging into some online lessons to get better at it. I have a 90s Tex-Mex Strat, Player series Telecaster and an older MIK Sheraton with SD Antiquities. I've been playing on a Vox VT15 modeling amp for the last 13 years.

I've really liked the tones on my Vox amp, and it is probably going to need replacing at some point as some things are starting to wear out a little bit and it's a cheap amp. It was a big improvement over the cheap crappy sounding Crate amp I started out with.

I'm a bedroom player with no aspirations of playing out or with a drummer. I can crank my amp every now and then but I'm scared of it getting too loud with an elderly neighbor on one side of my house and another young family on the other.

I know that even small tube amps can get really loud, but would it be worth getting a small tube amp like an AC10, Class 5 or Blues Jr or would it just be a waste not getting to crank those tubes? I play a good bit clean,but I spend a lot of time in that edge of break up tone to moderate gain. Every now and then I like to crank up some gain for some AC/DC, ZZ Top, Leslie West type rock.

So would a small tube amp be worth it or should I buy another modeling amp when mine goes out? Is there anything I'm missing by never playing a tube amp even at lower volume?

You have some REALLY nice electric guitars. I would say yes, you are missing something. The edge of breakup tone on a tube amp is heavenly IMO. I would test drive one of the new Fender Tonemaster series amps. They have gotten a lot of rave reviews and many long term tubes-only guys have been converted. They model the blackface Fender sound to the T and have built in attenuators scaled down to 1/2 watt. It won't have a Vox voice but I'm sure there are pedals that will get you there. You're going to be using pedals for overdrive anyway. A 15 watt tube amp turned up to 6 to break up is going to hurt your ears and piss off all the neighbors. Enjoy the search, with your guitars, taste testing tube amps is going to be a treat.

Full disclosure: I play a Fender Princeton Reverb Reissue and have no intention of crossing over to modeling amps.

[Jeff Scott]

Tube amps- am I missing out?

Not necessarily, but check these out.

http://swartamps.com/amplifiers.htm

I used to have a STR-Tremolo in the Tuxedo "outfit". When I sold off all my electric guitar gear a friend bought it from me, so it's still "in the family" so to speak.

[joeappel]

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

Not necessarily, but check these out.

http://swartamps.com/amplifiers.htm

I used to have a STR-Tremolo in the Tuxedo "outfit". When I sold off all my electric guitar gear a friend bought it from me, so it's still "in the family" so to speak.

I've got a Swart Antares with the optional master volume. Swart build quality is superb and it sounds fantastic.

The STR-Tremolo is a great choice for a smaller amp that can still get loud if you want. They can be found used at a reasonable price -- especially the non-tremolo version. Here's a good video with a discussion of the build quality and sound.

[Jeff Scott]

Great video.

[joeappel]

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

Great video.

I've learned a lot from Lyle's videos. There's a lot of great info so much of which goes over my head. But mostly I put them on when I'm trying to fall asleep because his voice is so soothing

[RussL30]

Originally Posted by printer2

Boy if I would have known about Monoprice a while back it could have saved me a lot of time and money (but who said an education is cheap?). I would not worry about them for home use.

Originally Posted by 67goat

I have several Monoprice amps. So far they have held up well. The combos are actually Laney clones (in fact some have reported that some of the older amps actually had Laney branded circuit boards). They are also the same amps as the Thomann house brand in Germany. If you watch for sales on SlickDeals, the 15w combo can be had for about $200 on a fairly regular basis.

Blackstar has a decent reputation and was formed by ex-Marshall employees. One of the things you sacrifice for price on Blackstar is reparability. They use a lot of SMD construction. They aren't impossible to work on, but very difficult and many repair shops will not touch them.

In either case, there is no reason to think they will malfunction for years, unless you are using them heavily every day. That being said, you also wouldn't expect them to be heirloom amps that will get handed down for generations.

But they are inexpensive amps with power scaling and sound good that can let you put your toe in the water of tubes without breaking the bank. There are some low power (5-15w) amps in the Blackstar price range without power scaling that you might like more (Vox, Supro). But really, most things near the bottom end of pricing are going to be dubious in terms of long term functionality.

There is a very significant step up in price to get to the amps that will be easy to have repaired and last forever through that repair process. Most stuff from the big manufacturers is wave soldered PCB if not full SMD. Hand-wired amps (except the Gibson amps that say hand wired but aren't) cost more, but those will be the easiest to have worked on if needed.

Thanks to both of you for the advice on the Monoprice. I'm not expecting a lifetime amp, but definitely looks like a good entry into the tube world. I'd probably like to get something more entry to mid level and see if tubes are right for me instead of jumping into that next high end level. The stage right 15 looks like a good buy. Thanks for the heads up about the Blackstar amps too.

Originally Posted by RoyBoy

You have some REALLY nice electric guitars. I would say yes, you are missing something. The edge of breakup tone on a tube amp is heavenly IMO. I would test drive one of the new Fender Tonemaster series amps. They have gotten a lot of rave reviews and many long term tubes-only guys have been converted. They model the blackface Fender sound to the T and have built in attenuators scaled down to 1/2 watt. It won't have a Vox voice but I'm sure there are pedals that will get you there. You're going to be using pedals for overdrive anyway. A 15 watt tube amp turned up to 6 to break up is going to hurt your ears and piss off all the neighbors. Enjoy the search, with your guitars, taste testing tube amps is going to be a treat.

Full disclosure: I play a Fender Princeton Reverb Reissue and have no intention of crossing over to modeling amps.

Thanks! The tonasters definitely look interesting. My only problem is they're the same price range as a lot of higher level of tube amps are. It may be that the technology is that good that it warrants that.