aja
So is there any merit these days in getting a 100W tube amp? (no gigs, just having fun at home)
There is a specific one I have my eye on and it only comes in a 100W configuration. Of course an attenuator is a must and all overdrive will probably have to come from pedals, but something inside me wants to buy the thing!
The amp is modern, but vintage plexi style, so no master volume - eek!!!
would you buy a big amp? do you own one? do your neighbours still love you? can you still hear anything?
bottledtone
Valveamps have a sweet spot, and that is normally with the volume pot turned a little up....master or not. Just as long as no-one is telling you to turn down, when you are in that tone zone. That would be the only bummer. 100watt will only be about x2 the volume of a 10watt.
AlanRatcliffe
bottledtone wrote:
100watt will only be about x2 the volume of a 10watt.
All else being equal. ? And most folk don't realise just how loud 10W into an efficient speaker cab really is.
aja wrote:
do you own one? do your neighbours still love you? can you still hear anything?
Yes (80W, 2 X 12), yes (because I rarely use it at home and don't turn it above 2.5 - with attenuator - when I do) and yes. The difference being that a Twin still sounds good at relatively low volumes and has a wide sweet spot (from 2.5 to 5). IMO a Plexi you need to crank a bit more - and therin lies the rub. Plexis should grind a bit when used and, at that point, they are
damn loud.
ezietsman
I don't believe the 'sweet spot' story. But I like 'em cranked to hell and gone.
Aja. Wild guess. You're not thinking of the Artisan 100? Maybe you go and try to make that 100 watt amp give you anything but pristine clean sounds at any reasonable volume then make your decision. Attenuating a 100 watt down to house levels will make it suck. I strongly recommend against this idea.
You are a smart guy. Build yourself a 22watt 6V6 plexi with VVR. It'll likely be cheaper AND you will be able to crank the crap out of it almost anytime you'd like. Which will make it sound better.
@Bottledtone, you cannot crank a 10 watt at your house after hours.(well I cannot), NOBODY can properly use a 100 watt. not even gigging people. You cannot get close to the slight breakup "sweet spot" with a non-master-volume plexi-style 100 watt at comfortable volume.
aja
bottledtone wrote:
Valveamps have a sweet spot, and that is normally with the volume pot turned a little up....master or not. Just as long as no-one is telling you to turn down, when you are in that tone zone. That would be the only bummer. 100watt will only be about x2 the volume of a 10watt.
Good point. This one would be going through a 4x12 cab with celestion V30's though, so quite a large setup.
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
bottledtone wrote:
100watt will only be about x2 the volume of a 10watt.
All else being equal. ? And most folk don't realise just how loud 10W into an efficient speaker cab really is.
aja wrote:
do you own one? do your neighbours still love you? can you still hear anything?
Yes (80W, 2 X 12), yes (because I rarely use it at home and don't turn it above 2.5 - with attenuator - when I do) and yes. The difference being that a Twin still sounds good at relatively low volumes and has a wide sweet spot (from 2.5 to 5). IMO a Plexi you need to crank a bit more - and therin lies the rub. Plexis should grind a bit when used and, at that point, they are
damn loud.
True about the 10 watter being loud! As an aside, does the tube tamer use a dummy speaker load like the weber attenuators? Wait, what attenuator do you actually use? I just assumed you use the tube tamer because of how highly you regarded it.
ez wrote:
I don't believe the 'sweet spot' story. But I like 'em cranked to hell and gone.
Aja. Wild guess. You're not thinking of the Artisan 100? Maybe you go and try to make that 100 watt amp give you anything but pristine clean sounds at any reasonable volume then make your decision. Attenuating a 100 watt down to house levels will make it suck. I strongly recommend against this idea.
You are a smart guy. Build yourself a 22watt 6V6 plexi with VVR. It'll likely be cheaper AND you will be able to crank the crap out of it almost anytime you'd like. Which will make it sound better.
@Bottledtone, you cannot crank a 10 watt at your house after hours.(well I cannot), NOBODY can properly use a 100 watt. not even gigging people. You cannot get close to the slight breakup "sweet spot" with a non-master-volume plexi-style 100 watt at comfortable volume.
You have been sneaking around again, haven't you? Haha yes it is the artisan 100. Well actually it is a bit of a two headed question. (see what I did there?) A friend likes the Soldano SLO 100 which is also a beast of an amp...
I want to buy a 100W monster and you call me smart?!?! ?
I do not really like plexi amps generally speaking, but the "fender"-ish settings on the artisan sounds awesome! I wish they made a 30W version of the A100. A friend owns the artisan 30 2x12 and it is amazing as well, but that voicing knobby on the A100 just grabs my attention...
AlanRatcliffe
As an aside, does the tube tamer use a dummy speaker load like the weber attenuators?
No, it's a resistive load like the THD rather than a reactive one like the Weber. I only knock off 9 - 12 dB MAX, so the side-effects are manageable (sometimes even desirable).
Still, the amp up at 3 - 5 on the volume with no attenuation is where the amp really talks and I can only get away with that at an outdoor gig (which I only do on average once a year).
karoo
I have a 100Watt Mesa head. I took out two of the power tubes and now its popping out +- 50Watt. Still cant turn it above 5 at home. Maybe you can take out some power valves as well?
bottledtone
ez wrote:
@Bottledtone, you cannot crank a 10 watt at your house after hours.(well I cannot), NOBODY can properly use a 100 watt. not even gigging people. You cannot get close to the slight breakup "sweet spot" with a non-master-volume plexi-style 100 watt at comfortable volume.
I never said anything about after hours....... The 2watt i produce is flipping loud already. And the point about sweet spot was exactly what you are saying, you just can't crank a 100watt to levels that are workable, unless you have in a padded room, and you're standing outside ?
If you pull all output valves, you can play at midnight if you want ?
aja
karoo wrote:
I have a 100Watt Mesa head. I took out two of the power tubes and now its popping out +- 50Watt. Still cant turn it above 5 at home. Maybe you can take out some power valves as well?
good idea. although, I am under the impression that removing power tubes will reduce clean headroom a bit (power reduction) but the overall volume is still rather high? apparently a good option is replacing some speakers with dummy loads, basically turning them off
ezietsman
aja wrote:
karoo wrote:
I have a 100Watt Mesa head. I took out two of the power tubes and now its popping out +- 50Watt. Still cant turn it above 5 at home. Maybe you can take out some power valves as well?
good idea. although, I am under the impression that removing power tubes will reduce clean headroom a bit (power reduction) but the overall volume is still rather high? apparently a good option is replacing some speakers with dummy loads, basically turning them off
A good idea is to remove the lust of a 100 watt amp from your brain and replace it with the lust for something smaller instead (<20 Watt) ?
That way you can turn the amp's volume knob past 1.5, which is nice.
MikeM
I crank my 35watter into an efficient 212 in my bachelor flat.
Gotta be careful about who you listen to with these kinda things. Experience is almost always more reliable than theorising.
Bottled is right about an amp having a sweet spot. Also, in many cases speakers driven hard also sound REAL good. In most cases, there is no use having a 50 watt 212 and putting 10 watts through it. There is a lot of magic to having a speaker properly driven.
I'd say that 50watts is the upper limit of what people should and can be using nowadays. If you don't need that power for gigs (particularly the clean heardroom) then the 22 watts or so of a Fender Deluxe or that awesome Two rock that Alan has, is great. If you don't gig, then stick to around 5 watts - obviously here you won't get any speaker drive, but you won't bug your neighbours and family ?
Reinhard
I pulled 2 tubes on my 100W plexi. Loud, but not as loud as you would think. Those big amps take pedals really nicely.
aja
Interesting:
Just thought Id share this one with any other 100 head users.
The amp itself is great but damn its loud ! lol. Just tried fitting some
TAD Tonebones to the power stage and wow !!
if your using the amp for your main crunch tone its a must do the effect is reduces the
general output to 30 watts but you can really drive it ( without a power brake was using a thd but
that did take some tone away) the result is a snarling flat out plexi still loud but for your average gig
very usable seemed to have opened the dynamics of the amp up as well and best of all no biasing!
http://www.tubeampdoctor.com/en/shop_TAD_Equipment_TAD_ToneBone/ToneBone_PENTODE_price_per_pair_converter_669
shaunf
I've got 2 amps that fall into this category, and both are fantastically usable even for bedroom playing. The AFD100 has a power scaling feature that gives you power amp distortion at bedroom levels. At home, I usually run the amp between 0.1 watt and around 20 watts, depending on the time of day, and who is home. At 0.1watt, but with volume cranked to 8, or at 1 watt, with the volume around 6, I can practice with my 2 kids sleeping across the passage.
The 50w Plexi has just been tamed using the Lar/Mar PPIMV, which I'm very pleased with. I can now happily run it with the volume maxed out. On PPIMV settings below 3, it sounds a little bit thin, but once you hit 3, it fattens up and sounds really good. Between 3 and 5 you're well within sane volume levels at home. With the PPIMV cranked to 10, it's effectively out the circuit.
Bottom line, there are ways and means to tame these beasts. Don't write off the big boys. I can't see myself owning a small amp any time soon other then for the novelty factor.
ezietsman
To give you an idea:
My amp is being used for gigging weekly (dozens of gigs has been done with it). Its 18 watts of clean power with the VVR on 10. At gigs we use it with the VVR at half. It goes through a 2x12 with G12H30s which is very efficient at 100dB per watt each. Volume set to 7. This is the setting for small umic'd clubs as well as for larger clubs where the amp is mic'd. Hellfire's drummer hits the drums hard so it needs to be that level else you can't hear the amp over the drums when you're on the stage. At this level the amp drives a good bit. Think bluesbreakers, cream, zz top. This level is basically the max level I'd use in my room to because my ears starts hurting after a few minutes which means I'm damaging them. Hence I don't do it often because they don't magically undamage themselves ☹
You CAN crank your 100 watt (tube-pulled to 50 watt) in your room. But you will need to wear earplugs in order to not go deaf soon. Even so, that half power is not half the volume so it will still be really effing loud and even with plugs it may be uncomfortable. In the end you will do what all others with large valve amps do and get a bunch of pedals to make it sound like a cranked amp. You'd be as well-off getting the much smaller and cheaper Artisan 15 and playing pedals through that one. I have played and cranked that one too, the guys in the Mellville shop was NOT impressed (It has a Vintage 30, 100dB per watt) but hey, I wanted to see what it sounds like. The answer is GREAT! but alas, not even for gigging can you use that amp on 10, maybe outdoors, sometimes.
The days of cranking 100 watt Plexis is over. The proliferation of modellers, profiling amps and the 100s of small valve amps is a testament to that. I had a 50 watt amp too and that amp caused me to buy your HT5 and it wasn't because the Valveking was crap, it was just too damn loud for my house.
MikeM
Shaun I need to chime in here..
The power scaling on your AFD is the magic, it's more of a wattage control than a traditional master vol. Even Ez has rambled about how his VVR is so amazing. I like PPIMV, but I do hear the change in tone.. I personally prefer a bit more drive in the output section than clipping in the preamp section, and that is not attainable when the signal is attenuated before it hits the output tubes. Most of the distortion you're getting on the Plexi is from the PI, in fact even on a Fender or Vox standard, there's a bit of distortion on the PI.
I'm not disputing that big amps can be used at home. I've had quite an assortment of tube amps at home, and can also actually vouch first hand about this. People just need to remember that 50watts isn't even twice as loud as 10 watts.
shaunf
Hi Mike,
You're you're a lot more knowledgeable than I am with these sorts of things, and I don't have much to go by except my own limited experience, particularly on the electronics side of things. I'm interested when you say you could hear the change in tone. Can you tell me what the most noticeable change was? Also, as far as I am aware, there are a number of different PPIMV-type mods out there. Which ones have you tried?
If I recount my own before/after experiences when I rebuilt my plexi, I first built the amp with no PPIMV fitted, because I wanted to be sure the amp was working properly before introducing any additional complexity. Unfortunately I never really got to dime it during testing before fitting the PPIMV, but did a fair bit of testing on the cleaner side of things. One of the things that struck me when I then fitted the PPIMV and retested, again on the cleaner side of the spectrum, was that the amp still sounded like it did pre-PPIMV. It's character is still there. I never got that feeling like now all of a sudden something was missing, which is a feeling I've had when playing many master volume amps over time. They sound strangled to me. The only way I can describe it, is that the plexi sounds "open", even with the PPIMV in place, and above a certain level. Below this level, it doesn't have the same sparkle, but it's back the moment you go over this level, which is still not very loud at all. I don't have a comparison for the "dimed" sound vs dimed with PPIMV, which is how I've tended to play it the last week or so, but hell, what can I say, it's got a really sweet overdrive sound, it's got rich harmonics, it's got guts and at the same time the dynamics are all there, particularly with regard to picking attack as well as guitar volume/tone inputs. I don't really know what more I could ask for. Well except for that feeling of one's ribcage compressing when standing in front of a dimed big amp! ?
Have you tried the LAR/MAR PPIMV? When I was doing some research into various options, I came across at least 3 different PPIMV options. One of the things that many who have tried this particular version comment on is it's transparency, whilst a number of others are confirmed tone suckers, and which I therefore avoided, but therefore ultimately cannot compare to what I have in place now.
Sorry for rambling, but I love the discussion around these sorts of topics! ?
MikeM
Shaun there's a reason I chose my words carefully there..
that is not attainable when the signal is attenuated before it hits the output tubes
A standard PPIMV or lar/mar both attenuate the signal going into the powertubes.. Where a VVR/Powerscaling reduces the "headroom" of the powertubes. As you knock down the voltage on the output tubes, the point at which signal will cause clipping is lowered. We must actually organise a get together.. This stuff is WAY easier to explain with diagrams. But yes, a VVR is used hand in hand with a PPIMV. As you turn the voltage down, you get more output tube drive, one then counteracts this by turning down their ppimv.
A easy way to test this, if you turn your ppimv down to 3 or so, then turn the gain/volume up as much as you can while staying clean, and then open up the PPIMV, the amp should still produce drive. This will be output tube drive and has a significantly (ok we're quite anal about tone, so I can say significantly ?) different character to preamp distortion. Between different current draw and the different way that pentodes work to triodes, there is a difference.
ezietsman
I think what Mike is referring to is the fact that with a PPIMV dialed lower, you get less overdrive from the power tubes. A PPIMV sits between the phase inverter (12ax7 in your plexi I think) and the power tubes. So, without the PPIMV and diming the volume knob, you get some PI overdrive and some power tube overdrive and the the more you turn the volume up the more of both you get. However, as you experienced, the amp is loud at this setting, so hence you installed the volume control. Now, when you dial the PPIMV down, you still get the PI drive but the signal is begin reduced after that. That means the power tubes are getting a smaller signal which will not push them hard and hence you lose out on the overdrive effect they would have given you. You win by getting some overdrive at lower volume but you lose because you sit with less overdrive than you would have had. I'm not surprised he can hear a difference. It should be obvious.
shaunf
MikeM wrote:
Shaun there's a reason I chose my words carefully there..
that is not attainable when the signal is attenuated before it hits the output tubes
A standard PPIMV or lar/mar both attenuate the signal going into the powertubes.. Where a VVR/Powerscaling reduces the "headroom" of the powertubes. As you knock down the voltage on the output tubes, the point at which signal will cause clipping is lowered. We must actually organise a get together.. This stuff is WAY easier to explain with diagrams. But yes, a VVR is used hand in hand with a PPIMV. As you turn the voltage down, you get more output tube drive, one then counteracts this by turning down their ppimv.
A easy way to test this, if you turn your ppimv down to 3 or so, then turn the gain/volume up as much as you can while staying clean, and then open up the PPIMV, the amp should still produce drive. This will be output tube drive and has a significantly (ok we're quite anal about tone, so I can say significantly ?) different character to preamp distortion. Between different current draw and the different way that pentodes work to triodes, there is a difference.
Gotcha! I'll give that procedure a try over the weekend.
What I do notice though, is that with the PPIMV in a fixed position, the amp has the same drive characteristics at certain levels on the volume control as what it does with no PPIMV. It doesn't seem to drive less with the PPIMV and different positions. ie: it's still clean till about 4, then starts to breakup, 5-6 is a bluesy type of drive, 6-7 = AC/DC type crunch, 7-8 Led Zepp type drives, 8-10 = singing lead tones, all of which it did before I installed the PPIMV. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention, but I'll do some further testing this weekend.
