Re: Re: Re: Tubes in Pre-amps: your expertise and honest opinion.

[Nik <fluke@gotadsl.co.uk>]

I guess Bluetone folded. That proves my point. They had it, and they had a 
number of high profile guitarists happy to say that Bluetone had it. But 
the market wasn't interested because there are no valves in it.

I don't want to tell you what the pedal was for purely selfish reasons. 
It's got a circuit configuartion in it that I might want to market some 
time. Actual
ly I did try to market it about four years ago, but the company I set up 
collapsed partly for personal reasons. The device I made was designed to 
go in the FX loop of a SS amp to emulate valve power amp distortion. 

The pedal itself, when I was back at college was blind tested against a 
Rat, a Rockman Sustainer and a MkIII Boogie. The Rat fooled no-one. The 
Sustainer was indestinguishable from the Boogie when listening to playback 
off tape, but not when playing live. The unnamed peda, plugged into the 
Boogie FX return,l fooled about two dozen guitar players into thinking it 
was the Boogie's own preamp.

As for power amps with the response of a guitar valve power amp - I don't 
know of any. I would not do it that way. I would emulate the 
characteristics required in the preamp section and use the power section 
for clean, linear power delivery. This Enables the amp to get those 
characteristics independant of volume. It's what most of the Marshall 
Valvestate amps try to do with thier preamp valve and it's what the Vox 
Valvetronix range does as well. In the HiFi world there are many power 
amps that are coloured enough to be indestingishable from valve.

As for your final paragraph, we all like to think we are open minded. But 
your preconceptions are probably just as set as mine. Hearing is the most 
subjective of all the senses. We all refuse to hear what we don't want to 
hear.  



________________ Reply Header ________________
Subject:        Re: Re: Tubes in Pre-amps: your expertise and honest 
opinion.
Author: Douglas Baldwin <coyotelk@optonline.net>
Date:            Sat,  6 Jan 2007 03:16:51 +0000

Nik wrote (re SS amps that respond like tubes/valves):


> There are none in production that I know of. There's no point. It's like 
>puting a hotel in the middle of the Sahara: everyone assumes it's a 
>mirage (joke).

Not true, in my experience. I review amps professionally, and I try about 
four new solid state amps every year, including some moderately pricey 
ones that take their marketing seriously. If it was *possible* to make a 
SS amp with tube-like qualities *at almost any price point* I believe it 
would be done.

> Thje Bluetone gets there in a guitar amp.

I tried accessing the web site - couldn't get on it.

> And back in the 80s there was an overdrive pedal that fooled 100% in 
>blind tests. But it's been off the market for many years.

What pedal would that be? Who did the test?

> There are simple circuit techniques around to reproduce all the 
>desirable characteristics of valve amps, but peole still won't buy the 
>stuff.

There are still lots of SS amps being sold, and some are very highly 
regarded. Yamaha makes one (can't remember the model offhand), Roland's 
Jazz Chorus 120 has surely proven the test of time, Marshall's Mode Four 
is quite amazing, jazz players love the Polytone Brutes, and the Vox 
Valvetronix modeling amps are very, very good. But none of these respond 
like a tube amp. They are great for other things: loud, clean tone, 
especially; light weight; and approximations of a wide range of tube amp 
tones. But they are not tube amps. I've played them all, side by side with 
my tube amps. I like them, sometimes, for certain jobs.
>
> Ironic, when so much effort goes into making modern valve amps sound 
>like SS.

I don't know of anyone who is trying to make a valve/tube amp sound like a 
SS amp. Can you give me some names? Again, to quote my earlier post: 
Please, please, please (to quote the late great Godfather of Soul) tell me 
where I will find a SS power amp of any wattage that will respond like the 
power sections in [my favorite tube amps], or where there is a SS preamp 
that will massage my tone like any of these?

 I play without blindfolds, but with an open mind, open ears, and open 
heart.

Douglas Baldwin, coyote-at-large
www.thecoyote.org
coyotelk@optonline.net

"Life! Life!
Clouds and clowns!
You don't have to come down!"
- Sly and the Family Stone