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.
shaunf
ez wrote:
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.
Thanks, I get what you guys are saying, and you're right, it should be obvious, and with multi-channel master volume amps I've owned in the past, I've detected a clear difference in tone between cranking the master volume to full, and controlling overall volume with the gain knob (power tube distortion), versus cranking the preamp volume/gain and controlling overall volume with the master volume control (preamp distortion). Am I on the right track so far?
I guess what I was getting at initially is that with the Plexi and the PPIMV, the difference in tone, except at the lowest PPIMV levels, is not as obvious as I would have expected. In a good way. Nothing like the differences noted above with other amps I've owned, where I had a strong preference for the tone with MV cranked, and a lower volume/gain setting on the preamp.
nick
Having owned a few valve amps ranging from 5w to 100w I can honestly say that while the lower wattage ones sound pretty good, there is just something missing and you will only realise it after playing a bigger amp.
ezietsman
For those who think I'm up to no good talking about 100 watt amps being "too loud", here is the Blackstar Artisan 100 in question. It is being played with a pedal for drive sound which makes me believe they did not have it cranked enough to give real power tube drive.
=
The camera is being knocked out of focus by the sound pressure. Discuss and elaborate please.
Nicholas-L
Do you like the sound? Do you like the way it looks? Does it scream take me home?
If yes ? then get it irrespective of power rating. My SLO100 is crazy loud, but I love it to bits.
guidothepimmp
Yikes! 50 and 100w is crazy loud..
My lil 30watter hasn't seen any action past 4 on the master and 6 on gain.. Its just too loud, I once thought about taking to 5, not to see how loud it was but to strip paint off some walls I needed to repaint, but then my wife pointed out that painting over the existing coat was probably much quieter.
That said, considering my tinnitus, that was prob sound advice..
aja
Nicholas L wrote:
Do you like the sound? Do you like the way it looks? Does it scream take me home?
If yes ? then get it irrespective of power rating. My SLO100 is crazy loud, but I love it to bits.
Hmmm, between these two I know which one you are ? ? 8)
But you make a good point! Buying gear should sometimes be done with the heart and not the head....
MikeM
As my last post in this thread..
Remember, 50 watts is very maginally louder than 30 watts, and 100 watts is not even twice as loud as 30 watts.
Good luck Aja!
Nicholas-L
aja wrote:
Nicholas L wrote:
Do you like the sound? Do you like the way it looks? Does it scream take me home?
If yes ? then get it irrespective of power rating. My SLO100 is crazy loud, but I love it to bits.
Hmmm, between these two I know which one you are ? ? 8)
But you make a good point! Buying gear should sometimes be done with the heart and not the head....
I'm neither ? ? ... Hahahahaha... but I thought I'd throw a spanner in the works.
ezietsman
MikeM wrote:
Good luck Aja!
Yeah, he'll certainly need a good dose of that with that beast...
bottledtone
Replacing speakers with less efficient ones...... That should kill some volume..... If using say vintage30's which are 99-100dB, put in something with say 93db (jensen have the C12R which is 93,8 but 25watts so would only work in a 4x12). Should (in theory) be the volume of a ...AC30 with blues.
Funny about the engls behind the marshall's!. Didn't Gary Moore use soldano behind his marshalls too?
ezietsman
=
So, a 100 watt Marshall through a 4x12 gets you 125dB a few feet in front of the cab. WTF!!??!
Here's some more readings from them:
Slash Head 100watt: 126
Yngwie Head: 125
Mesa Boogie Transatlantic 25watt: 114
Jet City 100 watt : 124
Fender Hotrod Deluxe : 119
Boogie Mk V: 123
Crazy mofos.
So there is an argument that a 100 watt is not much louder than a 50 and not much louder than a 30 etc. The evidence shows us, while that argument is technically correct, in practise this means all amps above 20-30 watt are basically too damn loud to crank. I'm willing to bet very few people here crank (i.e amp volume knob on 7 or above) their 20 watt amps, and nobody does that with a 100 watt. Because it hurts.
nick
ez wrote:
So there is an argument that a 100 watt is not much louder than a 50 and not much louder than a 30 etc. The evidence shows us, while that argument is technically correct, in practise this means all amps above 20-30 watt are basically too damn loud to crank. I'm willing to bet very few people here crank (i.e amp volume knob on 7 or above) their 20 watt amps, and nobody does that with a 100 watt. Because it hurts.
I never turn my JMP50 up past 3.5 in practice, I have dimed it and everyone covered their ears ?
