Valve amps, solid-state amps, tone and technical issues.

ezietsman

Hi All,

I've been pondering my next amp purchase and started giving a vintage style non-master-volume amp a good look (Blackstar Artisan 15 combo to be exact). It got me thinking about what happens when that amp starts overdriving versus a Master volume amp (most amps nowadays). There's a couple of things I 'know' to be common knowledge but they don't make sense to me. Maybe some gurus here can enlighten me somewhat. I'm talking about electric guitar sounds here.

1. Cranked valve amps are more equal than non-cranked ones.
2. Most of us like the 'valve tone'. In the world of electric guitardom, there's 2 kinds of tone. Clean and Overdrive (distortion being just lots of OD).

I'm not going to consider the OD tones because they 'are' different to solid state driven tones because of the way valves behave when you use them outside their linear regime.

Now, when a valve amp gives a clean (as in squeaky) sound, it means the input signal is amplified and then played through the speaker without changing the waveform's shape. This is what amplifiers are for. Take a signal and make it bigger.

When a signal gets compressed/clipped/both by the preamp or power amp for whatever reason, we hear this as an overdriven sound. OK so all is good up to this point. Here comes my issue

Why will a squeaky clean valve amplifier sound better with pedals than a solid state amplifier?* After all, the two amps are both operating within their linear regimes and all that's happening is the waveform is being amplified without modification?

*Alan made this point in a older thread. It is 'common knowledge' that this is true but I'd like to know why this is. I've read things like this all over the internet but nobody really says why this is true.

TomCat

For me the biggest differences between SS and Tube is:

1. Tube is not actually fully linear....There is always harmonic distortion in a tube amp. It is the nature of this harmonic distortion that make the tube amp so musical. A SS amp will probably be more linear, but not necessarily more musical.

2. The average to peak power in a tube amp is much higher than in a SS amp, allowing a much fuller range of dynamics to come through. often picking dynamics on a tube amp is far greater than with a SS amp. Many will say that playing through a tube amp is more difficult after using a SS amp for a long time.

I see the guitar amplifier as being part of the music creation experience and a tube amp for me adds more to that experience than a SS amp.

SS amps (as in HiFi and PA) are great for RE-Creating an experience as they are more accurate and linear. (I hope that makes sense)

ezietsman

I assumed something like that to be true, however, tests have been done before and guitarists could not reliably distinguish between the two i.e. http://www.guitar-list.com/guitar-science/tube-versus-solid-state-amplifiers describes the double blind test. Is this maybe because guitar amplifiers are designed to be slightly non-linear? Or is there no way to get linear amplification out of a valve amp stage?

matta

Blind test are hard because again the music is recreated for a listening audience, NOT for the player. So you, as the player, WILL play differently into a Tube of SS amp, and that journey is part of ones 'tone', a feeling and vibe you get from playing through your rig, so if you feel comfortable playing a stompbox into an SS amp, all power to you, but if you prefer the feel of playing into a valve amp, then your answer lies there.

Cheers

Matt

ryanguit

yep read that link. Other than frequency response and apparent volume. the fact that they had to play the valve amp at low volume. Use an equalizer on the transistor amp? I have a 31band EQ that i have used on a transistor amp. Its amazing at lower to medium volumes how close you can get the two amps to sound. BUT I STILL SOLD THE TRANSISTER AMP because the frequency response isnt static at higher volumes on the valve amp. So for cleans and light OD: no doubt for me tube power amp. For metal palm muting: solidstate handles it better doesnt mush it together as much but for everything else its all opinion.

I have set up sounds for buds for their pedals and amps to sound like my valve amp and they still turn the knobs back to their old sounds and moan that mine sounds better... Not cos it does. But because if its glowing it must be better. Rubbish. At the volumes most people play it doesnt make a huge difference. But the response live is what tells us if its great or crap. We test amps in shops so there is the 1st problem. We set our pedals in our bedrooms at hifi level. So you can make most 60watt+ amps work for you fine with a little tweakage. I still believe 25 watt valve is the lowest you can go for clean headroom with drummer. But to each his own. Good luck on your quest for truth vs hype