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Why are Poweramps not the standard?

snikroc

snikroc

Guest
Nov 29, 2013
12
13
Lake Mary (Orlando)
#1
Seems many are constantly on a quest for the perfect tone. I constantly see people flipping amps each year when the new ones hit the market. I made the mistake of not researching before I bought and wanted a nice sounding boutique amp. I went with the Aguilar TH350.

Overall I am happy with the purchase. However, I wish the amp had some of the features the new Mesa has. In addition, I wish I would have purchased the TH500. Then I came across someone that used a TH Pedal and a Crown Power amp. That got me thinking about a few questions.

1. Why are rigs with a power amp and preamp pedal not that popular?

2. Why haven't we seen more micro class D power amps like the SWR amplite?

Seems like if a small high quality Class D Power amp existed, one could just buy a few preamp pedals and have a wealth of tonal opportunities. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong.

Am I missing something here?
 
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#6
Why would people want their amp to be multiple parts rather than one?

Why would people want their amp to be a pedal?

With the price of amps and the price of preamps costing more than a integrated unit, why would people want to pay more?

Why would most people want the complexity of trying to match the preamp to the power amp and deal with the extra gain staging and input sensitivity matching instead of a one piece unit that's matched from the start?
 
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#9
Topkat13 said:
Uh...hmmm...why should they be?
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't I want half my amp setup on the floor for people to kick, trip on, spill into or trample...that I have to bend over to mess with and that someone might step on and turn off my preamp mistakenly.

Or maybe perched on top of my rack where it can be pulled off or tumble down and where I can't see the miniature controls rather than my racked preamp with full sized controls at eye-height. ;)
 
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#11
snikroc said:
I guess what I'm asking Mark Bass tried with the Momark.
Click to expand...

People love choices until there are more than a couple, then they don't like them. The Mo'Mark concept seemed great on paper, but people didn't really take to the 'build your own' approach. I prefer a power/pre setup, but I'm not most people and what I want out of an amp setup isn't most people. You should see faces fall when I share my amp as backline...I've gotten comments from touring pros about how they'd rather just see an 'amp head'...One guy took an Eden Nemesis combo over my setup because it was easy and familiar.
 
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#13
I once posed the same question to one of the "micro head" makers. He told me that the preamp guts aren't all that expensive, and a power-amp-only version would end up costing more due to being sold in smaller quantities.

For all of my DIY preamp experimentations, I just plug into the FX return of a regular bass head.
 
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#15
BurningSkies said:
People love choices until there are more than a couple, then they don't like them. The Mo'Mark concept seemed great on paper, but people didn't really take to the 'build your own' approach. I prefer a power/pre setup, but I'm not most people and what I want out of an amp setup isn't most people. You should see faces fall when I share my amp as backline...I've gotten comments from touring pros about how they'd rather just see an 'amp head'...One guy took an Eden Nemesis combo over my setup because it was easy and familiar.
Click to expand...

Not that Mark Bass would ever do it. But what if they had sold the liscense for that concept for other amp companies to use? I could picture owning modules from Aguilar, Mesa, and Ampeg.
 
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#18
A "Head" is a pre-amp plus a power-amp
The Power amp part are simply a commodity these days. All the tone is in the pre-amp.
Oh, yeah you'll see a lot of comments about how one amp will sound different than another, you'll see it, but you won't hear it. :)

With a head you're essentially buying a pre-amp, with all it's signature sound, and by they way it comes with a power-amp for convenience.

There'd be more small power amps if there was a standard form factor and rack case they could fit in. This would mean makers would have to agree on a form factor which will never happen.

Soon all power amps will come with a DSP. It's like all TVs now come with smart apps. It cost nothing really to include them but it makes them so much more useful.
 
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