Solid State vs. Tube question

[mseriously30]

as good in terms of production or guitar playing as things i had done in the past... i had to go out and get myself a real amp and start recording it mic'd...)

I don't have any hate for modelers either. It's just crap that people are in this thread trying to sling...we're talking about waves and the functionality of an amplifier and what it does to a sound wave.

I've only just begun to record recently with minimal gear and I'd like to figure out how to manipulate my sounds. It'll sure as hell help with what I'm going for because as it is my XXX is not a great recording amp at all, but live, it just works for the thrashy stuff I'm doing with a band right now.

http://www.soundclick.com/kelpbutt

Those are some clips right there. I'll put them up so anyone can bash them, but I know they sound closer to something musical than anything Book_Of_Lies777 has posted.

I'm actually in the amp forum to learn about how amps work.

[rlarino]

lol yeah sorry, that comment of mine was really directed at book of lies... not you

[RyGy]

I am a bit of a tech. I studied electronics engineering, but they didn't cover tubes at all. Damn outdated technology. I believe that the biggest difference is that tube circuits are usually simpler. A tube is quite big for only having two gain stages. That forces the designer to be more careful choosing values for the other componants. If you have too much gain your amp can oscillate, and that would suck!!! not enough gain, and well not enough distortion. One other point is how the amp is voiced. Again choose the parts that work well together you can voice a gain stage warm, dark, gainy, crunchy ext. Also if you take a pure solid state design that is as simple as a tube circuit then you could fit a 50 watt amp in a large stomp box with a big heat sink attached to it.

I also believe that another big factor in the tube amp sound is the power amp, and the fact that you have a couple of hundred volts on the output, and this has to go through a transformer to get to your speakers. The transformer will change the sound. It is more effiecient at different volume levels, will have a different frequency response at different levels, and in general will change the way an amp sounds. A good example of this is a marshall tube amp. Look at the output transformer (on the oposite side of the plug in) it is quite small compared to a mesa, soldano, carvin ext of the same wattage. They overdrive the output transformers to get some extra distortion, and this makes the bass reduce a bit at high volumes.

That is jsut my $0.02. That is the reson why I am switching to a tube preamp, and ss power amp. And a part of it as well is the fact that the ss poweramps need less maintenance, sound better at lower volume, and are a lot lighter.

[HKSblade1]

I am a bit of a tech. I studied electronics engineering, but they didn't cover tubes at all. Damn outdated technology. I believe that the biggest difference is that tube circuits are usually simpler. A tube is quite big for only having two gain stages. That forces the designer to be more careful choosing values for the other componants. If you have too much gain your amp can oscillate, and that would suck!!! not enough gain, and well not enough distortion. One other point is how the amp is voiced. Again choose the parts that work well together you can voice a gain stage warm, dark, gainy, crunchy ext. Also if you take a pure solid state design that is as simple as a tube circuit then you could fit a 50 watt amp in a large stomp box with a big heat sink attached to it. I also believe that another big factor in the tube amp sound is the power amp, and the fact that you have a couple of hundred volts on the output, and this has to go through a transformer to get to your speakers. The transformer will change the sound. It is more effiecient at different volume levels, will have a different frequency response at different levels, and in general will change the way an amp sounds. A good example of this is a marshall tube amp. Look at the output transformer (on the oposite side of the plug in) it is quite small compared to a mesa, soldano, carvin ext of the same wattage. They overdrive the output transformers to get some extra distortion, and this makes the bass reduce a bit at high volumes. That is jsut my $0.02. That is the reson why I am switching to a tube preamp, and ss power amp. And a part of it as well is the fact that the ss poweramps need less maintenance, sound better at lower volume, and are a lot lighter.

Sounds like a Valvestate head

You may also like a Crate G130CXL stereo head

[RyGy]

I am not a fan of the valvestate head. I have one, and it is running the tube at 45 Volts. A good tube circuit shoudl be at around 300V - 400V. I am going for an ENGl E530 preamp, and a carvin DCM150 Power amp.

[Weathered]

FWIW, the tube power amp contributes as much, if not more, to the tone as the preamp does.

[HKSblade1]

Try your rig with the Ear Candy cabs first. Cab change and speaker changes made a HUGE difference in my SB head.

[RyGy]

Yes power amps make a hugh difference, and that is mostly at high volume levels. I do think it is mostly due to the output transformers. The preamp is where the distortion is created so in my opinion it is more important. I will have more first hand exp once my preamp gets here, and I have a chance to plug it into a few different power amps.

I played an ENGL head through my earcandy boa cab with the Green machines in it. I liked the overall sound. My Buzzbomb is going to have the same speakers so in general it will sound the same, only more full due to the bigger cab, and ports. I think that I should be able to find my sound.

I am also working on a preamp design. I am off of work for the next couple of days to play with it a bit. I am just mounting the boards to the chassis right now, all the pots are mounted, and the transformers need to be wired in. I got kits from www.londonpower.com and I made a few changes to the basic preamp circuit from the london power books. There is a lot of info in there. I will try this with all the different power amps. I think that part of the power amp effecting the tone is some tone shaping in the power amp to make it sound best with the same brand preamps. There is a lot of marketing BS that goes into most amps. You will also see a lot of people talking about brand x amps only work with brand x cabs. Part of this is that the amps are designed with those cabs, but I think that a great system should be able to sound good with any cab, it iwill just sound different, and since everyone has a different opinion of what sounds good you should be able to mix whatever brand gear without so much marketing BS in there.

I am going to a rack system due to a shoulder injury, and now I don't want to haul around a 50 lb head. With a ss power amp, and the ENGL preamp even with an effects unit in a small 4u rack case it will be about 30 lbs. Much better. The earcandy cab has corner casters, and proper recessed handles. Much easier to transport than any other 212 cab, and its a no brainer over a 412.

[sufidancer]

Well I am not a tech, but have played a great many amps(both solid state and tube) and owned a great many as have many formites here. My personal experience has been that Tube amps tend to add a level of complexity to the signal. Be it natural compression, or harmonics, overtones etc... Since the signal is being shaped and passed through a non stagnant medium there tends to be a more organic sound. There are so many variables that factor into the amplification of a guitar signal that it is impossible to nail down all the nuances of preamp tubes, power tubes, speakers, etc.. Transistors seem to be more consistant. Tubes more elastic. My non technical opinion.

[blargh]

shaped and passed through a non stagnant medium there tends to be a more organic sound

what :confused:

[RyGy]

Sounds like the result of simple circuitry, imperfect devices, and great design. I am sure that a good tube amp with its simple circuit has as much, or more R & D time then the more complex solid state amps. That is part of the high cost. I just read that Mackie is making a guitar amp that sounds pretty cool. It uses a High voltage MOSFET power amp with a power supply that has built in sag to simulate a tube power amp...I wonder if london power's sag kit can be used to add sag to a solidstate power amp. I might be moding my brand new carvin amp when it gets here.

[sufidancer]

what :confused:

The valve is non stagnant in that it is in various levels of condition.
There are fluctiations in the signal due to each and every tubes make, brand, age. How long it was run, how hot it was run. All these things affect the signal. As with transistors/SS tend to be more consistant in sound quality.

[Nik]

is the higher levels of 2nd order harmonic distortion, common in single-ended designs resulting from the characteristics of the tube interacting with the inductance of the output transformer." "For many decades tube amps usually modulated the audio signal with the power line frequency and 2x this frequency, producing an array of extra frequency components in the sound. This produces a warmer richer sound, with an impression of greater bass content." Etc.

 

 

There's nothing actually wrong there, but it is seriously incomplete. That's the trouble with Wikipedia. It can be written by anyone, of any level of expertise, and frequently conveys the writer's opinion, rather than scientifically verifiable fact.

[Rocket Roll]

Ok as far as Wiki goes - what about other two articles I quoted earlier? Is there an even better article on the net somewhere? Please do not abstain from commenting or linking, I'm here for the facts, not for the opinions or prejudices.

[Nik]

Ok as far as Wiki goes - what about other two articles I quoted earlier? Is there an even better article on the net somewhere? Please do not abstain from commenting or linking, I'm here for the facts, not for the opinions or prejudices.

 

 

No.

Sorry.

I am at a loss.

I've been making my living by designing electronics for the audio industry for nearly 20 years. I don't know of any article or book that sums up the subtleties of distortion and equalisation in solid state amplifiers as I understand them. And I am not going to write one because most of the time I have worked with people who understand it better than I do.

 

As for valves: I'm not stupid enough to get any further into it on HC. Not again, anyway.

[sufidancer]

Ok ....I'm here for the facts, not for the opinions or prejudices.

Bahahhaawahhaa

[Nik]

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_2/chpt_10/7.html

 

 

OK.

But in SS audio circuits, the relative amplitudes are immense. The human ear's ability to distinguish a tiny harmonic signal in the presence of an overpowering fundamental signal. Ratios of 1,000,000:1 are involved.

 

And it says nothing about frequency response / EQ.

[RyGy]

LOL I hear you there. Musicians have a lot of info from manufacturers that are obviously promoting their own gear. I like to try a lot of different things to see what works. That is why I am building my own tube amp. If you want some good info about tubes London power is a great place. Also Garnet Gilles from Garnet amps (he designed the Herzog that got Randy Bachmann's sig tone) has just wrote a book on tube amp design. Kevin at London Power knows his stuff for tube, and solid state. That is where I try to get my info from. I am still learning.

[RyGy]

I believe that the higher distortion levels, and non linearities due to far less than perfect tubes is a large part of the tube sound.

[Nik]

http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2005/october/text/content2.html

 

 

Good as far as it goes.

Reads like the first couple of pages of a much longer and more technical article. It begins to explain what is going on, then leaves the rest to your imagination.

[Nik]

I believe that the higher distortion levels, and non linearities due to far less than perfect tubes is a large part of the tube sound.

 

 

Believe?

 

This is the problem: when tone becomes a matter of faith, not science.

[RyGy]

That is why I will never say it is a fact. I could be completely wrong. The tone differences could be all due to the aditional time that goes into the circuit. I am not saying that there are no solid state amps that have great designs, but since almost all guitarists are willing to pay more for tubes than solid state more R & D might go into the amps, or the companies might intentionally make their solid state amps not sound as good so that they can sell their higher end amps with higher profit margins.

[tommythelurker]

I don't think anyone fully understands with technical precision exactly why tube amps sound different than transistors. If they did, modeling amps would sound exactly like the real thing.

 

There are certain obvious observable differences (some of which have already been mentioned like soft clipping), and probably more that so far we haven't been able to observe and analyze directly.

 

The fundamental problem of science and engineering is to measure what we can observe in order to derive equations and models that can be used to predict behavior. In electronics there are certain things that have fairly simple models and certain things that are very complex.

 

When we analyze the behavior of transistors and tubes, we divide their operation into a few different regions - linear, cutoff, and saturation. Within any one of these regions the behavior can be described by fairly simple equations. The transitions between these regions however become much more complicated to model, but for most purposes, focusing on one or more of these simple regions is sufficient.

 

For the purpose of an ordinary audio amplifier, a designer is mostly only concerned with the linear region of operation and designs his circuit around that equation. If the tube or transistor goes outside of that region, it's either operating outside of spec (in which case the behavior is simply ignored) or in such a way that the non-linear effects cancel each other out (with things like "complimentary" designs that mirror themselves, like push-pull amps).

 

However, what is often considered "normal" for guitar amps is not normal for most other audio amps. We routinely push guitar amps outside of that linear region and still expect them to perform a certain way. Without accurate equations or models telling us how they will react when transitioning between the linear region and the other regions it's impossible to predict exactly how a new design will sound. Not only that, but there's no objective definition of how it should sound, unlike ordinary audio amps which you typically want to be as transparent as possible.

 

This is why I consider guitar amp design to be more art than engineering. Obviously there is engineering involved for certain aspects but a great deal of it is trial and error or "black magic" from years of experience. Guitar amp designers gain a "feel" for how circuits will react without relying on a complete set of equations and models to predict every aspect of the circuit.

[RyGy]

I like the fact that we are getting some responses from tinkerers. I am building my first amp right now. I just have a few wires left for the power supply, then test out the pre amp, then connect the power amp, and see what it does.

:thu:

[Honky-Tonk]

This thread kicks ass!!