valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

[Fender_Punk]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Combined, tube amps have 91.38% of the votes. I think it's clear which is better.

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

I was gonna say, what battle? It's 54 to 5 in favor of tubes so far.

I had a crate way back when, then back in 99 or 00, I brought home a Line 6 2x10 to try out. It went back to the store the very next day, immediately replaced by a Fender Hotrod.

EDIT: Also, I'm still blown away by the fact that old technology tube amps are watt for watt so much louder than even cutting edge SS. Any 50-watt tube amp will blow a 100-watt SS amp through a wall.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Another place to look for evidence of the total and complete superiority of tube amps versus solid state/modelers is to look in th studio and on the road. There are POD modelers in studios and HD147 heads on the road for sure. But the numbers are completely dwarfed and overwhelmed by the myriad examples of tube amps in both places. I've owned many examples of modelers and tube amps. At home, at low volumes, the modelers rule. That's why I still have three of them at home. But they never leave home, cause it's always a tube amp that goes to gigs with me. There is no comparison and even though people may go through periods where they prefer solid state, they always come back to tubes when their tone quest resumes.

 

[EveryMn]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

I was gonna say, what battle? It's 54 to 5 in favor of tubes so far.

I had a crate way back when, then back in 99 or 00, I brought home a Line 6 2x10 to try out. It went back to the store the very next day, immediately replaced by a Fender Hotrod.

EDIT: Also, I'm still blown away by the fact that old technology tube amps are watt for watt so much louder than even cutting edge SS. Any 50-watt tube amp will blow a 100-watt SS amp through a wall.

My 15-watt combo with a pair of EL84s blows my teacher's 100-watt Line 6 Spider combo through the wall with the master at the same setting...

 

[Philcguitars]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

What I like and what's practical are TWO very different things. I have a 80W SS, and barely crank it past 11 o'clock at home. It also sounds fair at 'midnight' volume too!

If I had tubes I'd barely be driving them in the day me thinks. Of course I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of Hiwatt Full stacks!

 

[ginormous]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Here's some important questions -- two literate, one rhetorical:

Has anyone ever been able to conduct a double-blind A/B comparison (scientifically/statistically controlled and monitored for study and research) of a modelling amp against a Fender, Marshall, fill in the blank, etc., and been able to categorically define one or the other as better? The food industry does things like that all the time... they call it taste testing.

Has anyone been able to tell the difference with their ears, and not fallen sway to marketing, peer pressure, tradition, brand name prestige, or anything but the musical truth?

Considering the passions and emotions of musical artists and their opinions, will anyone ever take such a test, or its' results, seriously?

 

[Luke Duke]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Here's some important questions -- two literate, one rhetorical:

Has anyone ever been able to conduct a double-blind A/B comparison (scientifically/statistically controlled and monitored for study and research) of a modelling amp against a Fender, Marshall, fill in the blank, etc., and been able to categorically define one or the other as better? The food industry does things like that all the time... they call it taste testing.

Has anyone been able to tell the difference with their ears, and not fallen sway to marketing, peer pressure, tradition, brand name prestige, or anything but the musical truth?

Considering the passions and emotions of musical artists and their opinions, will anyone ever take such a test, or its' results, seriously?

It wouldn't be a fair comparison till you had SS and modeling amp whose circuits use good components. SS and modeling amps are made using the cheapest possible consumer grade electronics.

That said there is also the feel matter.

Luke

 

[ginormous]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

It wouldn't be a fair comparison till you had SS and modeling amp whose circuits use good components. SS and modeling amps are made using the cheapest possible consumer grade electronics.

That said there is also the feel matter.

I agree that manufacturing costs are a significant issue for amp makers, SS especially. Most of the mass-market brands use robotic assembly and wave-soldering anyway. However, feel is so very subjective. That's what my last Q? was about. How can a bunch of people who are so opinionated about what music is, agree on what amp is best for making it?

 

[wahwah]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Here's some important questions -- two literate, one rhetorical:

Has anyone ever been able to conduct a double-blind A/B comparison (scientifically/statistically controlled and monitored for study and research) of a modelling amp against a Fender, Marshall, fill in the blank, etc., and been able to categorically define one or the other as better? The food industry does things like that all the time... they call it taste testing.

Has anyone been able to tell the difference with their ears, and not fallen sway to marketing, peer pressure, tradition, brand name prestige, or anything but the musical truth?

Considering the passions and emotions of musical artists and their opinions, will anyone ever take such a test, or its' results, seriously?

I've sat in recording sessions with engineers who were quite determined to use their latest amp modelling plug-in. They would assure me that they could pull fantastic sounds and wouldn't have to bother putting up microphones, getting balances, checking phasing etc. After an hour or so of messing with different virtual amps and cabinets, I would say "Let's just set up the Super Champ with a 57 and a U87 for reference." Once that was done, we could start recording. The hour wasted was obviously about 4 times as long as it took to set up the amp. The difference was instant, obvious and conclusive. Does that count?

It also depends on what sort of sound you're after. If you want full blown, fizzy preamp gain, over-saturated guitar carpet, then it probably doesn't matter what you use by the time it's rendered down to the few millivolts of signal required to record it, but if you need harmonically rich, full bodied, warm clean tones, or slightly overdriven or crunch tones, then it makes the world of difference, because this is where good tube amps excel and digital modellers tend to fall down dismally.


Cheers........................wahwah

 

[Luke Duke]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

I've sat in recording sessions with engineers who were quite determined to use their latest amp modelling plug-in. They would assure me that they could pull fantastic sounds and wouldn't have to bother putting up microphones, getting balances, checking phasing etc. After an hour or so of messing with different virtual amps and cabinets, I would say "Let's just set up the Super Champ with a 57 and a U87 for reference." Once that was done, we could start recording. The hour wasted was obviously about 4 times as long as it took to set up the amp. The difference was instant, obvious and conclusive. Does that count?

It also depends on what sort of sound you're after. If you want full blown, fizzy preamp gain, over-saturated guitar carpet, then it probably doesn't matter what you use by the time it's rendered down to the few millivolts of signal required to record it, but if you need harmonically rich, full bodied, warm clean tones, or slightly overdriven or crunch tones, then it makes the world of difference, because this is where good tube amps excel and digital modellers tend to fall down dismally.


Cheers........................wahwah

Hey wahwah, how long have you had your super champ? I'd love to have one, but I can't justify throwing down the coin they are calling for these days.

Luke

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Here's some important questions -- two literate, one rhetorical:

Has anyone ever been able to conduct a double-blind A/B comparison (scientifically/statistically controlled and monitored for study and research) of a modelling amp against a Fender, Marshall, fill in the blank, etc., and been able to categorically define one or the other as better? The food industry does things like that all the time... they call it taste testing.

Has anyone been able to tell the difference with their ears, and not fallen sway to marketing, peer pressure, tradition, brand name prestige, or anything but the musical truth?

Considering the passions and emotions of musical artists and their opinions, will anyone ever take such a test, or its' results, seriously?

The closest I've come is sitting down with a Mesa Blue Angel and a line 6 combo. I spent over an hour trying to cop the Angel's sound, by tweaking and playing an A7sus4 chord over and over. I could get close, but the real issue was what happened over time: the more i listened to the line 6, the more I got fatigued. Whereas I could play the Mesa all day long.

I bought the Mesa.

 

[wahwah]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Hey wahwah, how long have you had your super champ? I'd love to have one, but I can't justify throwing down the coin they are calling for these days.

Luke

Hey Luke, I got my first Super Champ in '93. The band I was in at the time was recording an album and the recording engineer had one and suggested it for a particular solo. As soon as I heard it I said "That's it, that's THE classic Fender tone!" He told me I would have trouble finding one, but I checked the local trading post and there was one about 2 suburbs away. The previous owner had changed the original speaker for a Celestion G10S-50, so it's a bit of a hybrid, but it's just the greatest little amp. I bought another one for backup about three years ago from eBay. It's a US model, so I have to use a transformer for our 240V, but it turned up with the original speaker, tubes and the very rare footswitch.

I use my Super Champ for nearly everything, once it's got a 57 in its face and run up through a good PA, it's a huge tone. For recording, I've never heard anything better. Every engineer who hears it runs it up on the desk and says "What the hell is that little amp, it's golden" or something to that effect. I've got them tricked out with RCA blackplate 12AX7 and 6V6's from the late 1950's...sexual chocolate. The prices are getting pretty stupid these days, but if you find one and you've got the spare cash, they are an investment in pure joy.

Now, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, plastic digital modelling amps....


Cheers....................wahwah

 

[ginormous]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

I have respect for engineers, for my father was & is one of this universe's greatest. Van Morrison "Moondance", The Band "Music From Big Pink", Return To Forever "Light As A Feather" (the 1st one, with Flora Purim on vocals & Joe Farrell on reeds) and countless more, everything from Broadway shows, symphony-orchestra movie soundtracks and TV jingles to 78rpm audio restoration. If I in my 40-something years on this planet haven't encountered it, then he has. We hashed it out, and here's what we've encountered after consulting each other's heads, as well as net and print references.

It comes down to the simple matter of which harmonics are presented by the amplification process. By nature, tube amps can only reproduce certain harmonics, and only up to a certain point, after which they tend to roll off the top end; SS amps present all harmonics equally. Having all harmonics across the entire spectrum isn't something the human ear is used to, and it basically freaks us out on a biological/genetic level.

So, IMHO, it's gonna take at least another 5 or 10 years before the modeler amps have enough resolution in the digital processes, enough muscle in the CPU, and enough detail in the software, to successfully emulate the gentle, sloping freq curves (NTM the mushy-but-pushy attack) of an analog amp reproducing a tone.

Having said that, I still can't afford the SOB's. :headache:

 

[ginormous]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

It wouldn't be a fair comparison till you had SS and modeling amp whose circuits use good components. SS and modeling amps are made using the cheapest possible consumer grade electronics.

Luke, don't forget the source of many amp makers' goods in the 50's & 60's: military surplus. Between WWII and Vietnam, Uncle Sam was still using tubes in most electronic components, and basing designs on those tubes was a great way for manufacturers to keep costs down.

Trust my experience: my old Ampeg VT-22 had 7027A's in the power stage, and I ran my azz off all over NYC looking for those whenever I needed them. Those were mil-spec tubes, and Magnavox just threw them in the box 'cos they were available. (Ampeg was a Magnavox division when that amp was made, in 1974.)

 

[wahwah]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Even order harmonic distortion....yum. Present in tube technology and saturated magnetic tape. Entirely absent in digital systems unless artificially produced as a simulation. We can either wait until digital systems can emulate tube amps, or, use tube amps. Once the massive breakthrough has been made, and digital systems can accurately reproduce the psych-acoustic primal response to even order harmonic distortion, I'm still going to use tube amps.

You must be very proud of your father ginormous, he would have a wealth of knowledge and some great stories to tell. I have a lot of respect for engineers too, and I pick their brains at every opportunity. They are a breed unto themselves, and the good ones, like your father, are worthy of every musician's respect.


Cheers.......................wahwah

 

[wahwah]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Luke, don't forget the source of many amp makers' goods in the 50's & 60's: military surplus. Between WWII and Vietnam, Uncle Sam was still using tubes in most electronic components, and basing designs on those tubes was a great way for manufacturers to keep costs down.

Trust my experience: my old Ampeg VT-22 had 7027A's in the power stage, and I ran my azz off all over NYC looking for those whenever I needed them. Those were mil-spec tubes, and Magnavox just threw them in the box 'cos they were available. (Ampeg was a Magnavox division when that amp was made, in 1974.)

It's certainly true that nearly everything ran on tubes throughout the Golden Era, but I know in the case of 1950's RCA's that the JAN tubes are sonically inferior to the domestic blackplates, because they were designed primarily for ruggedness as opposed to tone. They tend to be harsher than domestic tubes, although they will be more likely to survive incoming salvos under battle conditions!


Cheers........................wahwah

 

[ginormous]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

Even order harmonic distortion....yum. Present in tube technology and saturated magnetic tape. Entirely absent in digital systems unless artificially produced as a simulation.

You mean like the Aphex? A test of this 70's rack unit revealed that it added even order harmonic distortion, thereby adding what the manufacturer claimed as "airiness" and "focused clarity". A significant section of the circuit board was sealed in red resin, preventing any analysis of the inner workings.

Once the massive breakthrough has been made, and digital systems can accurately reproduce the psych-acoustic primal response to even order harmonic distortion, I'm still going to use tube amps.

I'm not sure how much longer quality tubes will be on the market. Russia and the former Warsaw Pact nations are still turning some out, but under significant duress from organized crime.

 

[Luke Duke]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

You mean like the Aphex? A test of this 70's rack unit revealed that it added even order harmonic distortion, thereby adding what the manufacturer claimed as "airiness" and "focused clarity". A significant section of the circuit board was sealed in red resin, preventing any analysis of the inner workings.

Aphex? If it's from the 70s I somehow doubt it is digital

I'm not sure how much longer quality tubes will be on the market. Russia and the former Warsaw Pact nations are still turning some out, but under significant duress from organized crime.

As long as there is a market there will be a manufacturer. There's something to be said about using something that it doesn't take a EE to fix if it breaks down.

Duress from organized crime?

All your posts seem to point toward the assumption that the quicker tubes are gone the happier you'll be. Were you shocked by tubes often as a child? :9:

Luke

 

[wahwah]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

You mean like the Aphex? A test of this 70's rack unit revealed that it added even order harmonic distortion, thereby adding what the manufacturer claimed as "airiness" and "focused clarity". A significant section of the circuit board was sealed in red resin, preventing any analysis of the inner workings.

I presume you're talking about the Aphex Aural Exciter, but you need go no further than tubes and tape saturation to find wonderful and classic examples of even order harmonic distortion.

I'm not sure how much longer quality tubes will be on the market. Russia and the former Warsaw Pact nations are still turning some out, but under significant duress from organized crime.

I don't consider any current production tubes to be quality tubes. The closest we would get would be the EL34's coming out of the St Petersburgh factory under the SED brand, once known as Svetlana before New Sensor stole the name for rebranded Sovteks. To find quality tubes, we need to go back to the 1950's US brands like RCA, GE, Sylvania and Tung Sol, and the European giants of the early 60's, Mullard, Telefunken, Siemens/Philips and Valvo. Considering this, several years ago I bought up enough stock of late 50's blackplate RCA 12AX7's and 6V6's, and early 60's Mullard ECC83's to last a lifetime, which is why I confidently state that I'll be using tube amps for the rest of my life. The only current production tubes I have are a set of EH 6V6's that I carry bubble wrapped in my combo for spares in an emergency.


Cheers.......................wahwah

 

[Pierre]

Re: valve/tube vs. solid state -- the battle continues

For my clean sound, valve amp

For OD/Blues/Rock stuff, valve amp + boost pedal (usually SS)

For high gain Uber metal, I find that an amp compresses so much in the first place, a pedal does the job just as well, and it makes me not need a multi amp setup or an Uber expensive 2 or 3 channels amp.