Just for the record, the better player doesn't always get the gig.
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Old School vs. New School Amplification
- Thread starter jazztonebass
- Start date
Enjoy your ignorance!
I happen to like the large output transformers in my Peavey. The OT's in a tube amp act like HPF's. The larger ones allow more low end to pass through.
Yup! The solid player with lead vocals and solid, reliable gear can take the audition from a technically better player.
Enjoy your ignorance!
I happen to like the large output transformers in my Peavey. The OT's in a tube amp act like HPF's. The larger ones allow more low end to pass through.
I thought they put them there to build up your muscles.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,035
- 5
- 220,956
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
You say that you can see at a glance if an amp is a piece of crap, yet you can't see that it takes 12 power tubes to achieve that kind of power level.
You also say that you can see at a glance that a heavy transformer of a particular "materials and construction" will tell you that an amp is a piece of crap, but I can guarantee without ANY hesitation that you could look at 2 identical looking transformers that are wildly different in performance because of a molecular difference in core material, dielectric material, winding style, interwinding capacitance, inductance, etc because all of these are completely invisible to the eye... even the experienced scientific eye. A change in the core material, even something as insignificant sounding as grain orientation or nickle or silicon content of the alloy, or the rolling process or the anealing process can have a large impact on the weight and cross-sectional area a core needs to be to avoid saturation so weight alone is not at all an indicator of performance (except to the snake-oil marketing folks who pray specifically on those without a scientific or engineering background... shame on them).
Gold plated turds are still turds no matter how much you may believe otherwise.
There's great music today. You just won't hear it on the radio, is all.
Leaving aside your (IME) ridiculous logic, I take offence to the fact that if I don't agree with you, then I'm not as smart as you. Some of us (many of us) HAVE tried those amps, many of us have been playing for just as long and many have done just as many gigs. More than that, many of us ARE qualified to explain the technical aspects of amplification. Hell, agedhorse, Bob Lee and others have designed the very amps we're here to talk about.
You the feel the way you feel, I get it. But we can disagree and also be right.
Leaving aside your manners and actually getting to the meat of the issue: Sound is an art and all of our preferences are individual and subjective, that's what makes Talkbass so great and that's why forums like this even exist. Thankfully, electronics is a science. Resistance, capacitance, voltage, temperature, all of these things can be measured and I can assure you that the electrons really don't know how thick the PCB is, or whether it was handmade or not.
There is an argument that generally handwired amps tend to be the more expensive ones and therefore are built using the best components and therefore sound better. But you could use those same components on a PCB to achieve the same results. That's like saying that most far-eastern cars tend to be small hatchbacks, and therefore it would be impossible for Hyundai to make a sports car.
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Since I know that 400 watts is quite achievable with 6X KT88s,
then 12 X 6550s does look like a service burden.
When I'm referring to massive transformers, I generally referring to mil spec Heyboer, or other high quality transformers used in Bad Cat and Matchless.
It doesn't take an engineering background to take a quick look at a chassis, to consider all I learned from watching my father and from playing through all kinds of amps, to know when an amp is going to be a service nightmare.
If the chassis looks more like a computer motherboard, I'm gonna pass.
then 12 X 6550s does look like a service burden.
When I'm referring to massive transformers, I generally referring to mil spec Heyboer, or other high quality transformers used in Bad Cat and Matchless.
It doesn't take an engineering background to take a quick look at a chassis, to consider all I learned from watching my father and from playing through all kinds of amps, to know when an amp is going to be a service nightmare.
If the chassis looks more like a computer motherboard, I'm gonna pass.
I like much of the older stuff already mentioned but I also like the sound of many modern amps as well. I just got a chance a few weeks ago to test run a friends GK micro combo I think it was a twelve with an extension cab(12 as well). That thing was great! Light,Small and plenty of volume.
But back to older stuff the amp pictured was a amp a friend of mine overhauled and played it through a 810 with a Squire Pbass and that thing was sweeeeeet! I want one!
But back to older stuff the amp pictured was a amp a friend of mine overhauled and played it through a 810 with a Squire Pbass and that thing was sweeeeeet! I want one!
You may feel my logic is ridiculous and I could say farming out an amp build to offshore sweatshop labor is shameful and only greed driven.
What I see from the pounding I'm taking here is people with substandard, mass production, consumer grade electronics attempting to justify their own cheapness and cost cutting methods.
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And I may say that I feel that brown shoes with a black belt is just the height of fashion faux pas. What does any of this have to do with you being able to hear 'handmade'?
It's not twelve 6550s.
Maybe you should actually know more about an amp than how many tubes it has before you decide that it's a piece of crap.
I play an orange tiny terror 500 watt amp. it is class D with a tube preamp. youd have to really dig the orange tone, because that's all you can get out of it, but this amp packs A LOT of punch and is very portable (its called a lunch box design for a reason). it is really surprising how much tube tone comes out of that tiny terror
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,035
- 5
- 220,956
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Perhaps KT-88's don't fit the designer's parameters for a particular approach and the 6L6's do a better job achieving this approach? Are you saying that you like KT-88's more and you don't like 6L6's? How does this translate into an amp being crap because it used 6L6's rather than another tube just because YOU don't like a particular industry standard part? There are plenty of others who may not like the KT-88's (or 6550) , but that doesn't make the KT-88 (or 6550) crap either.
FYI, Mil Spec means nothing without referring to the SPECIFIC specs. There are a wide range of specs that make up any number of parameters that form the basis of a mil spec. There may be 100 different mil specs for a transformer for example, from truely awful to outstanding, depending on the application. For example, is it important that the transformer operate over 10,000 cycles of sea level to 25,000 feet elevation change like some avionics transformers must endure? These same mil spec avionics transformers may be limited to 150Hz on the low end because of their specific application for example.
You really have to know a heck of a lot more about a subject than you do whenever you are presenting as fact something that flies in the face of the real world. You are expressing an opinion as fact that has nothing whasoever to do with factual evidence, your arguments appear to the folks here on the forum that have many years in the professional side of this industry as questionable. The more you say, the more it becomes obvious that...
FYI, Mil Spec means nothing without referring to the SPECIFIC specs. There are a wide range of specs that make up any number of parameters that form the basis of a mil spec. There may be 100 different mil specs for a transformer for example, from truely awful to outstanding, depending on the application. For example, is it important that the transformer operate over 10,000 cycles of sea level to 25,000 feet elevation change like some avionics transformers must endure? These same mil spec avionics transformers may be limited to 150Hz on the low end because of their specific application for example.
You really have to know a heck of a lot more about a subject than you do whenever you are presenting as fact something that flies in the face of the real world. You are expressing an opinion as fact that has nothing whasoever to do with factual evidence, your arguments appear to the folks here on the forum that have many years in the professional side of this industry as questionable. The more you say, the more it becomes obvious that...
I made it quite clear I am not an engineer, but I saw enough of the kinds of amp that were troublesome in my father's shop to know what to stay away from.
I never said the 400+ was crap because it uses 12 power tubes.
I said I would pass, considering 12 power tubes to be a burden to maintain.
If I felt the MESA 400+ was the best amp money can buy, I would own one.
I never said the 400+ was crap because it uses 12 power tubes.
I said I would pass, considering 12 power tubes to be a burden to maintain.
If I felt the MESA 400+ was the best amp money can buy, I would own one.
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Well, I probably haven't toted around as many dinosaur amps as some here, and I'm certainly not an engineering expert, but having played through a Demeter pre in the past, and many other heads and pre/power amp combinations, some solid state, some tube, some a bit of both, I'm pretty confident that the new VTBP-M-800D will have plenty of wump to it, and at ten.something pounds it will be a godsend to my back. That's the great thing about the current state of the industry, there is something to satisfy just about all of us.
