Stupid Questions About Amps Time.....

chris77

Because somebody has to ask them...and I can't find the answers anywhere else. :-[ ?

1. Right - Hybrid amps with tubes in the power section and a solid sate/modelling pre-amp. When the amp is set to an overdriven or crunch or lead setting, is the sound we hear actually the tubes being driven or a simulation created by the SS/digital circuitry?

2. Overdrive Pedals. When we use a tube amp at low volume and use an overdrive pedal to get a heavier crunch/lead tone, is that then really the pedal driving the tubes and adding a bit of flavour to the amps tone as per it's design, or is it the pedal's own tone being amplified by the amp without the tubes really being driven?

3. Headphones Outputs. A lot of them double as "emulated outputs" for recording etc. Does that mean the sound through the headphones is a fair reproduction of the amp's tone at those settings (but only at a lower volume to prevent aural damage) - or does the “emulation” part refer to something a bit more techy and less pure?

4. Tube amps without headphone outs. (about 99.9999999% of them. ?) Is there any way to use headphone with these without resorting to a major mod or an expensive attenuator? Can’t you maybe run the signal through a mixer and PA with a headphone output or something?

AlanRatcliffe

chris77 wrote 1. Right - Hybrid amps with tubes in the power section and a solid sate/modelling pre-amp. When the amp is set to an overdriven or crunch or lead setting, is the sound we hear actually the tubes being driven or a simulation created by the SS/digital circuitry?

A simulation. Usually the power amps are designed to run very clean, even at high volume. There are exceptions (some of the line 6 amps that rearrange power amp topography on the fly, etc). But the simple truth is if you're not cranking the power amp section (i.e. turned up loud), it's not adding much to the tone.

2. Overdrive Pedals. When we use a tube amp at low volume and use an overdrive pedal to get a heavier crunch/lead tone, is that then really the pedal driving the tubes and adding a bit of flavour to the amps tone as per it's design, or is it the pedal's own tone being amplified by the amp without the tubes really being driven?

Depends on the setup - if you have pedal drive down and output up, it will drive the amp harder too. If the pedal drive is up and it's output volume set low, the pedal will be doing the extra drive.

3. Headphones Outputs. A lot of them double as "emulated outputs" for recording etc. Does that mean the sound through the headphones is a fair reproduction of the amp's tone at those settings (but only at a lower volume to prevent aural damage) - or does the “emulation” part refer to something a bit more techy and less pure?

It's an emulation adding the "speaker" tone, so it's faking it. How good it is, depends on the quality of the tech (not usually very good).

4. Tube amps without headphone outs. (about 99.9999999% of them. ?) Is there any way to use headphone with these without resorting to a major mod or an expensive attenuator? Can’t you maybe run the signal through a mixer and PA with a headphone output or something?

Nope. Closest would be using a loadbox to keep the amp happy and an emulator to run to the PA or headphone amp. Take a look at the Torpedo Live (loadbox and convolution based speaker modelling in one box) if you're serious about your tone. A lot of guys are also using valve preamps into the smaller Torpedo CAB (power amp and speaker simulation) pedal and DIing for both live and practice.

Simplest solution for most is to have a decent modeller for headphone practice/fun and a real amp for playing loud/gigging.

chris77

Aaah, O.K. Thanks Alan. Thing is I have a decent modeling amp (Fender G-DEC3) which covers all the bases really and is just about the perfect little practice amp.

But...

There is a little part of me that dies everytime I hear a proper tube amp doing it's thing. Small tube combos are probably the answer, but even then you still have to crank them to get the goodness out and that's just not an option for me. A possible answer seems to be to to get one with a headphone output like the Class 5 and a small pedalboard to go with it (Overdrive, Chorus, Delay and maybe a Reverb pedal) What complicates things even more though is that as nice as these smaller amps are there really isn't anything that comes close to the awesome look of a Vox Ac30, Fender Twin and Fender Bassman in my opinion, so everything else seems like settling a bit for a distant second or third prize instead.

AlanRatcliffe

Yeah, I get you.

Then again, if you really want serious tone you can always save up for a while and invest in a Kemper or an AxeFX. Not the real thing, no, but close as dammit and very flexible and usable from headphone practice to arena rock.

Then again, NAMM is almost upon us and It'll be interesting to see if any of the big modelling manufacturers (Roland, Line 6, Digitech) are going to try close the gap between their current products and the high end competition. So it's at least worth waiting to see what pops up.

In coming years it'll be interesting to see where Yamaha takes Line 6 too...

Jayhell

The Class 5 is a cute little amp, but the headphones out sucks big time as it is basically just a lower wattage output with no emulation of the speaker so it is really harsh on the ears. It's also made to drive. Don't think of it as an amp with one clean channel, think of it as an amp with one dirty channel. It's a one trick pony, but it's one hell of a trick. I love mine but it tends to be to dirty when loud or live, but I don't care as my sound is basically, dirty, dirtier and very dirty.