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Tube 300w vs Solid-state 300w?
- Thread starter crguti
- Start date
As is always the case with threads, there's been a lot of discussion about the details of how tube and solid state amps work, for instance what happens when they reach their clipping thesholds.
Except... the one thing lacking is to show that bass amps actually behave the way we surmise. Here's a waveform from a tube amp being driven to symmetrical hard clipping. [0]
On the other hand, of the solid state bass amps that I own, neither can be driven into hard clipping. One of them has a soft clipping behavior (GK Backline 600), the other has a built-in compressor limiter (GK MB200). Coincidentally, both amps have been described in HN threads as sounding louder than expected for their power ratings.
It's all interesting, all good, and I'm glad we have choices. This is a business where nothing goes obsolete. Hell, I still play a bass that was supposed to be obsolete in 1950, to be replaced by a little portable bass that looks like a geetar. Yet I'm still playing the big old beast.
[0] http://www.mcmlv.org/Archive/HiFi/HeathkitW5M.pdf
Except... the one thing lacking is to show that bass amps actually behave the way we surmise. Here's a waveform from a tube amp being driven to symmetrical hard clipping. [0]
On the other hand, of the solid state bass amps that I own, neither can be driven into hard clipping. One of them has a soft clipping behavior (GK Backline 600), the other has a built-in compressor limiter (GK MB200). Coincidentally, both amps have been described in HN threads as sounding louder than expected for their power ratings.
It's all interesting, all good, and I'm glad we have choices. This is a business where nothing goes obsolete. Hell, I still play a bass that was supposed to be obsolete in 1950, to be replaced by a little portable bass that looks like a geetar. Yet I'm still playing the big old beast.
[0] http://www.mcmlv.org/Archive/HiFi/HeathkitW5M.pdf
I've played a cover of Freebird using an Anglo concertina, which is diatonic. Is that close enough to metal?
On the topic of tube versus solid-state amps: here's a letter from the man who designed the California-built Vox solid-state amplifiers in the mid-1960s, when the Thomas Organ company bought the rights to Vox distribution.
I own three versions of Vox amps with his circuitry---a Royal Guardsman 60-watt (RMS) head, a Buckingham 35-watt head plus cabinet (with the so-called "TV stand"), and a Viscount combo. All can get insanely loud, and all begin distorting in a very AC-30-like manner as I turn them up (thanks to the limiter circuit that he mentions in the sixth paragraph). Back in my lead guitar days, guitarists would sometimes compliment me on the tone of what they thought was an AC-30 until they read "Vox Berkeley Super Reverb Solid State" on the nameplate.
The VOX Showroom - The Vox Viscount - Sava Jacobsen Letter
I own three versions of Vox amps with his circuitry---a Royal Guardsman 60-watt (RMS) head, a Buckingham 35-watt head plus cabinet (with the so-called "TV stand"), and a Viscount combo. All can get insanely loud, and all begin distorting in a very AC-30-like manner as I turn them up (thanks to the limiter circuit that he mentions in the sixth paragraph). Back in my lead guitar days, guitarists would sometimes compliment me on the tone of what they thought was an AC-30 until they read "Vox Berkeley Super Reverb Solid State" on the nameplate.
The VOX Showroom - The Vox Viscount - Sava Jacobsen Letter
"Watt's" different (sorry, had to...) is tube and SS is voicing of each format, isn't it?
