Tubey Goodness

[tadawson]

Okay, put a tube amp & a solid state amp in a building. Now set off a nuclear warhead about a mile away. See which one survives the EMP.

Dang it! I was just going to mention that . . . . and you beat me to it!

At any rate - it brought to mind a name for a (to me at least) funny concept band. Call it "Nuclear Winter" and they all have to play tube gear . . . . and passive basses . . . .

At any rate, this IS a great example of the severe ruggedness of tubes with regard to surges and electrical problems. A tube will just start glowing cherry red (or more) under severe overload conditions, telling you that it is in trouble. SS just dies instantly with no warning. I learned electronics on tubes, and can honestly say that even with botched circuits, I was NEVER able to cause a tube to fail. Heck, for a long time I tinkered with tubes in preference to SS for just this reason - simpler circuits, and pretty hard to hurt Transistors, on the other hand . . . look at 'em funny and they die . . . . Servicing gear? Slip a probe in a tube amp and you get a really nice spark, and a cheap thrill while you load your drawers, but typically no damage, or a resistor at most. SS? Plan on replacing a lot of semiconductors . . . . but, it is harder to electrocute yourself, in most cases . . .

- Tim

 

[tadawson]

You'll have to ask Ampeg what they meant. Why they bothered to publish this a few times over.

You also imply that saying that "Tubes are made up of a number of fragile mechanical components that are vacuum-sealed in a glass envelope or bubble...." somehow implies that the overall assembly is still fragile as a whole. This statement did not say that - they said that the INTERNAL components are fragile, and you ignore the fact that they are stabilized and protected by the envelope. Plates, grids, etc. are quite fragile, and if you could touch them, would bend easily. But since they are low mass and protected from physical contact by the envelope of the tube, that fragility is not really a factor in the overall view.

Regarding Ampegs statement, I think they were just trying to describe a tube to the "unknowing" or perhaps encouraging guitards to not play games like badminton or tennis with their tubes . . . .

- Tim

 

[WalterBush]

When a tube dies in a power amp, generally the amp will still function, although it may sound odd, and will definately lose power.

A transistor goes in a power amp, and there's a very good chance it'll take down a few of its transistor buddies, and possibly some circuit traces and a handful of innocent-bystander caps and resistors, too.

Most tube amp problems are cured with a new tube, in about 5 minutes time. It took me 1/2 hour just getting all the PCBs out of a friend's Crown to even start troubleshooting. Add this up to a proffesional's bench time, and your blown SS amp may be junk that someone like me dives in your dumpster for, while plenty of people will still pay dough for a busted tube head due to easier repair and thus lower repair cost. YMMV, of course.

 

[Jerrold Tiers]

Apparently you did have an agenda here. Getting on the slam wagon.

Not intended.....

I don't know you, I have no personal beef with you.

I don't happen to agree with your apparent strongly held opinion that tube amps are inherently fragile and/or unreliable.

Tube amps are bigger, hotter, and heavier than typical SS amps. They are also generally simpler.

IMO good ones sound better than, equivalent good SS amps. A lot of that may be because tube amps are what electric music was first made with. So the standard was set.

If you feel that makes them worth lugging to the gig, good. If not, also fine.

I don't think that concerns about reliability are a major issue with them.

BTW....
The FET was invented by a theoretical physicist in France in about 1929, IIRC. But nobody really knew how to actually make them. If they had been developed into a product at that time, we might not be having this discussion.

 

[seamonkey]

When a tube dies in a power amp, generally the amp will still function, although it may sound odd, and will definately lose power.

A transistor goes in a power amp, and there's a very good chance it'll take down a few of its transistor buddies, and possibly some circuit traces and a handful of innocent-bystander caps and resistors, too.

Most tube amp problems are cured with a new tube, in about 5 minutes time. It took me 1/2 hour just getting all the PCBs out of a friend's Crown to even start troubleshooting. Add this up to a proffesional's bench time, and your blown SS amp may be junk that someone like me dives in your dumpster for, while plenty of people will still pay dough for a busted tube head due to easier repair and thus lower repair cost. YMMV, of course.

There's nothing, except cost, that prevents an Solid State amp manufacturer from building in sockets. My PC has plenty of sockets. Zero insertion force with a clip to lock things in. And you can find some old SS amps with power transistors on sockets. It's just not done any more. My guess is the likely that a SS device will fail does not warrant the inclusion of sockets.

 

[seamonkey]

[/B]

Not intended.....

I don't know you, I have no personal beef with you.

I don't happen to agree with your apparent strongly held opinion that tube amps are inherently fragile and/or unreliable.

Tube amps are bigger, hotter, and heavier than typical SS amps. They are also generally simpler.

IMO good ones sound better than, equivalent good SS amps. A lot of that may be because tube amps are what electric music was first made with. So the standard was set.

If you feel that makes them worth lugging to the gig, good. If not, also fine.

I don't think that concerns about reliability are a major issue with them.

BTW....
The FET was invented by a theoretical physicist in France in about 1929, IIRC. But nobody really knew how to actually make them. If they had been developed into a product at that time, we might not be having this discussion.

Fair enough. And honestly, I don't feel they are as fragile as people believe I do. I do believe that they are more fragile than SS.

I'm well verses on Lilienfeld. And I heard from an ol' timer that Lilienfeld worked for a Radio company, and that he was instructed to not pursue his field effect device as it would impact the use of tubes. The patent was put in place to prevent others from patenting and making such a device and thus impact tubes. And in fact Bell labs was initially denied some transistor patents because of this patent. Later Shocttkey got enough uniqueness to patent his field effect device. I have not been able to confirm Lilienfeld/tube conspiracy story, It may not have any truth, but it seems plausible.

 

[bucephylus]

Fair enough. And honestly, I don't feel they are as fragile as people believe I do. I do believe that they are more fragile than SS.

I'm well verses on Lilienfeld. And I heard from an ol' timer that Lilienfeld worked for a Radio company, and that he was instructed to not pursue his field effect device as it would impact the use of tubes. The patent was put in place to prevent others from patenting and making such a device and thus impact tubes. And in fact Bell labs was initially denied some transistor patents because of this patent. Later Shocttkey got enough uniqueness to patent his field effect device. I have not been able to confirm Lilienfeld/tube conspiracy story, It may not have any truth, but it seems plausible.

I had not heard of Lilienfeld's work, which is curious because my straight job is in this area. For those who are interested, here is a link:
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I don't agree with any concern that the idea was close to competing with tubes. That's simply inconsistent with the historical and technical facts. The enabling technology for transistors is the semiconductor technology which requires a level of material purification not available in the 1920's. This technology did not exist until the 1950's.

Tubes vs. transistors in a musical instrument setting is not a technically based decision. It is a personal preference.

 

[tadawson]

Fair enough. And honestly, I don't feel they are as fragile as people believe I do. I do believe that they are more fragile than SS.

I dunno . . . . from what I have seen, a lot of the SS stuff is more fragile. Ever drop a SS device with PCB construction, with all the pots on the PCB as well as bolted to the face plate? The flex of the chassis almost guarantees that at least one pot will suffer a cracked solder joint, if not worse. Tube stuff is point to point wired, and so it just flexes and stays intact. Also, you can't break a PCB you don't have . . . . Tubes are such low mass, that to hit a tube amp hard enough to cause tube damage would most likely have caused sever chassis damage to either a tube or a SS amp, making the tube damage a moot point. Oh, and the socket issue in SS devices is more of an assembly cost and cooling issue. Sockets were typically for TO-3 packages, and the latter day large plastic tab MOSFET and bipolar devices give better cooling surface area. It's not like it takes much more time to pull soldered on plastic tab packages than to pull socketed TO-3 devices.

- Tim

 

[joe skinner]

Thank you Jerrold Tiers. What you say makes perfect sense. Since I am having a major vintage GAS attack I would like to ask your advice. I have an unreasonable and emotional attraction to old Kustom stuff. Were I presented the choice between an old Sunn, Bassman and a Kustom, would you say that the old tubers are preferable to the ss Kustoms? I am certainly going to listen to anything you say, that's for sure. My non-scientific sense of the matter is that the tube amps are better, since as you say, they are simpler and thus, more robust. Plus, they are just plain cool. I will be taking whatever I acquire out on intimate upright gigs. I played through plenty of tubes in the 60's, including Ampegs, and I just remember everyone getting so happy when ss started coming out. But I imagine that was the marketing of the times. Believe me I have no agenda myself, I am just an old bassist. I guess when I look at those solid modern power amps, Crests, and Crowns et.al., they just look like they won't fail. But, again, I know nothing of the science.

 

[seamonkey]

I dunno . . . . from what I have seen, a lot of the SS stuff is more fragile. Ever drop a SS device with PCB construction, with all the pots on the PCB as well as bolted to the face plate? The flex of the chassis almost guarantees that at least one pot will suffer a cracked solder joint, if not worse. Tube stuff is point to point wired, and so it just flexes and stays intact. Also, you can't break a PCB you don't have . . . . Tubes are such low mass, that to hit a tube amp hard enough to cause tube damage would most likely have caused sever chassis damage to either a tube or a SS amp, making the tube damage a moot point. Oh, and the socket issue in SS devices is more of an assembly cost and cooling issue. Sockets were typically for TO-3 packages, and the latter day large plastic tab MOSFET and bipolar devices give better cooling surface area. It's not like it takes much more time to pull soldered on plastic tab packages than to pull socketed TO-3 devices.

- Tim

For any amp you buy (SS or Tube) If you're paying big bucks, I do recommend that you look under the hood. Imagine trying to fix something on amp.

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There's good and bad for any kind of amp.

 

[NecroticImbecil]

For any amp you buy (SS or Tube) If you're paying big bucks, I do recommend that you look under the hood. Imagine trying to fix something on amp.

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There's good and bad for any kind of amp.

Actuallky agree with this. I try to avoid PCB based amps unless it's a steal, I find hand wired amps are much cheaper to have worked on, and I can do some basic stuff (changing a switch or pot) myself and save even more.

 

[tadawson]

For any amp you buy (SS or Tube) If you're paying big bucks, I do recommend that you look under the hood. Imagine trying to fix something on amp.

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There's good and bad for any kind of amp.

I have absolutely nothing that I won't work on - it does not really matter - they are all serviceable. The bigger problem is generally getting the mfg. to release documentation.

And for what it's worth, the amp in your photos looks pretty trivial - it looks like pretty much any repair there would be only a tiny bit more difficult than farting . . . . surface mount stuff is when it gets to be a real pain in the ass at times, but still doable with some patience.

Point to point can either be easier, or worse - depending on what you need to do, and whether you have docs or not. Tracing point to point with a deep layer of wiring is a major pain, as is getting out components that have their leads held down by other leads - requiring you to disconnect a lot more that you are working on. On a PCB, with a good vacuum solder remover, taking out the typical transistor is a 15 to 30 second operation, and other parts with a lower lead count simpler yet. In your example, the only multi pin parts are tube sockets, and unless someone actually breaks a socket, those are generally not touched.

If you want to see the really problematic stuff, look at some of the Japanese stereo equipment . . . . one PCB and no labels. Short of power amp problems, you are pretty much screwed . . . all custom ICs. And of all the stuff I own, the "music" device that I have the least desire to work on is my daughters 2005 Fender Cyber Champ guitar amp . . . . totally SS . . . . .

- Tim

 

[Passinwind]

And for what it's worth, the amp in your photos looks pretty trivial - it looks like pretty much any repair there would be only a tiny bit more difficult than farting

I worked at Fender around when those came out. We groused a lot, and they let us top-solder X number of parts when we were doing rework. All that disassembly and reassembly takes ~20 minutes once you've done a bunch of 'em, assuming you have all the right tools at hand. Getting the chassis out of the case and back in adds some time on top of that though. Other than that, the amp is quite simple to work on.

As you mentioned, a so-called P-to-P amp (most aren't really) with a buried power supply wire or hidden solder blob can easily take a lot longer to deal with. Just getting the wire dress right is some pretty serious kung fu on some of those amps too. I almost never need a schematic for tag board amps though, although it's certainly better to have one.

 

[BurningSkies]

Thank you Jerrold Tiers. What you say makes perfect sense. Since I am having a major vintage GAS attack I would like to ask your advice. I have an unreasonable and emotional attraction to old Kustom stuff. Were I presented the choice between an old Sunn, Bassman and a Kustom, would you say that the old tubers are preferable to the ss Kustoms? I am certainly going to listen to anything you say, that's for sure. My non-scientific sense of the matter is that the tube amps are better, since as you say, they are simpler and thus, more robust. Plus, they are just plain cool. I will be taking whatever I acquire out on intimate upright gigs. I played through plenty of tubes in the 60's, including Ampegs, and I just remember everyone getting so happy when ss started coming out. But I imagine that was the marketing of the times. Believe me I have no agenda myself, I am just an old bassist. I guess when I look at those solid modern power amps, Crests, and Crowns et.al., they just look like they won't fail. But, again, I know nothing of the science.

Joe, I had an old Kustom 200 head and it was almost unuseable tonally. It benched clean to 38 watts and after that sounded like a landing DC-10. While it looked cool, it wasn't clean enough loud enough for time on the road.

 

[Passinwind]

Joe, I had an old Kustom 200 head and it was almost unuseable tonally. It benched clean to 38 watts and after that sounded like a landing DC-10. While it looked cool, it wasn't clean enough loud enough for time on the road.

+1

I had one for a few years myself. I had a little better feeling about it than you, but I definitely wouldn't pay more than $100 tops, for one.

 

[jgsbass]

Joe, I had an old Kustom 200 head and it was almost unuseable tonally. It benched clean to 38 watts and after that sounded like a landing DC-10. While it looked cool, it wasn't clean enough loud enough for time on the road.

If you still want the tuck and role vibe, look for Plush. Tubey good and a Fender Bassman circuit clone. 4 6L6's have to push more than 38 clean watts

 

[Plain Old Me]

Okay, put a tube amp & a solid state amp in a building. Now set off a nuclear warhead about a mile away. See which one survives the EMP.

Sorry, but usually I have nukes exploding at my gigs, not a mile away. It really adds to our vibe

 

[Plain Old Me]

Oh also adressing some other issues:
Ampeg says tubes are fragile to save money. They can get away with a shorter warranty on their tube heads if they say that tubes are fragile, and they can void warranties easier with tube heads if they state that tubes are fragile.
Also, what volumes did they have the tubes on in these so-called "Double blind tests"? And through what cabinet? Its not like people who use tubes came to use em because they liked the sound of SS better ya know...

 

[Theonestarchild]

You guys have GOT to grow up. Shrimpy, if you hate tubes, don't go anywhere with "tube" in the title. Shark. Let the tubes do the talking. They do it quite well. To all the little baby fishies in the tank, TRY IT OUT BEFORE YOU BUY IT. Don't go for SS or tubes because someone told you to. Just try it. If it's not your tone, then don't buy it. If it is, Yippee, write the check.

I was trying to be subtle here. Perhaps it didn't work.

 

[svtscruggs]

svt 2 pro...save up, buy one...last head you will ever need...if you cant get the sound you are looking for out of this head you have other problems...GET IT!!!