Best Power Amp for Modelers

I am picking up a used Seymour Duncan Power Stage 700 tonight from a guy on Craigslist. I am excited to try it out. Does anybody have experience with this particular amp?

I have an old Sunn 1-12 cab that I put a Celestion FX12-200 into. It has room for a rack unit where the amp used to be. If the PS700 doesn't work out I may try the Matrix in there. FYI, I tried a Monoprice 300 watt stereo amp in there but man, did it disappoint...

(Off topic: Any thoughts on that FX12-200?)
 
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joelster said:
I am picking up a used Seymour Duncan Power Stage 700 tonight from a guy on Craigslist. I am excited to try it out. Does anybody have experience with this particular amp?

I have an old Sunn 1-12 cab that I put a Celestion FX12-200 into. It has room for a rack unit where the amp used to be. If the PS700 doesn't work out I may try the Matrix in there. FYI, I tried a Monoprice 300 watt stereo amp in there but man, did it disappoint...

(Off topic: Any thoughts on that FX12-200?)
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I had an SD PS700 and it's awesome! I have matrix GT1000FX now, but only because I wanted stereo.
 
Thought i would share my experience on power amps. I have had the Axefx III for just over a year. Super incredible unit. I set up my FOH patches through my DXR 12 and love it. Being old school i wanted to push more air when monitoring live, or even just practicing. I have a Matrix Gt1000fx I run-in stereo to 2 Mesa 2x12s (One is vertical, the other is a compact - all V 30s) - Sounds incredible. Being a old tube guysI just had to experiment. Tried the AxeFX into my TC 100 power amp and wasn't thrilled with the coloration. Picked up a SYN 5050 power amp recently. I find the amp "relatively neutral" for my application / patches. Absolutely love the ability to adjust the presence and depth on the fly. I have used with PA modeling on, off. I have tried it the restive impedance curve, and the mesa 2x12 impedance curve. Played with the power amp levels as well. I find that there is a hard to describe balance in the upper mid i prefer with the SYN5050. More than anything I love the way it feels. I adjust to where it sounds good to me, and attempted to avoid any hyped frequencies. Is it heads and tails better than the Matrix - that is up to the player. There is added weight (SYN 5050 - 24lbs), there is heat, and some fan noise to deal with. When I A/B the two you can get them extremely close - My Matrix isn't going anywhere, once playing out it again may choose for the weight reduction. The SYN 5050 is a great match for the AXEFX as well. Peace
 
ZipGun68 said:
Thought i would share my experience on power amps. I have had the Axefx III for just over a year. Super incredible unit. I set up my FOH patches through my DXR 12 and love it. Being old school i wanted to push more air when monitoring live, or even just practicing. I have a Matrix Gt1000fx I run-in stereo to 2 Mesa 2x12s (One is vertical, the other is a compact - all V 30s) - Sounds incredible. Being a old tube guysI just had to experiment. Tried the AxeFX into my TC 100 power amp and wasn't thrilled with the coloration. Picked up a SYN 5050 power amp recently. I find the amp "relatively neutral" for my application / patches. Absolutely love the ability to adjust the presence and depth on the fly. I have used with PA modeling on, off. I have tried it the restive impedance curve, and the mesa 2x12 impedance curve. Played with the power amp levels as well. I find that there is a hard to describe balance in the upper mid i prefer with the SYN5050. More than anything I love the way it feels. I adjust to where it sounds good to me, and attempted to avoid any hyped frequencies. Is it heads and tails better than the Matrix - that is up to the player. There is added weight (SYN 5050 - 24lbs), there is heat, and some fan noise to deal with. When I A/B the two you can get them extremely close - My Matrix isn't going anywhere, once playing out it again may choose for the weight reduction. The SYN 5050 is a great match for the AXEFX as well. Peace
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So for you synergy 5050 is better than matrix gt1000? Is it more neutral ?
 
kostas Look said:
So for you synergy 5050 is better than matrix gt1000? Is it more neutral ?
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I would not say it is "more neutral", I feels it's coloration is not overpowering - adds some depth and warmth. I actually ran the same patches into the SYN5050 as I do with my Matrix and they were pretty good. I made a few minor tweaks and they work great. I run the power amp around noon and control the volume with the axe. You have to be careful as you turn up the power amp as it pushes hard it can introduce more coloration. Makes sense - you are pushing the power amp harder. It becomes most noticeable past 2oclock.
 
Severed said:
I've used a Behringer EPQ2000 to power a 412 1960B guitar cab in stereo. Gigged that some 50 dates.

I've used a Behringer iNuke6000 to power a pair of 700watt peavey 215s and used those to fill a 2500+ room a few times, always same room.

Just saying, a clean power amp with lots of headroom can be had without paying the exuberant prices for a boutique offering. Don't be fooled that you need a power amp "designed for modeling."
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are you satisfied with behringer as a power amp for your axe fx ? i think i saw in an all that remains show that jason has one as a emergency power amp!!
 
Yup, completely satisfied.

However a lot has changed in the last 5 years, tons more options out there at reasonable prices today.

Just try for yourself.
 
ZipGun68 said:
I would not say it is "more neutral", I feels it's coloration is not overpowering - adds some depth and warmth. I actually ran the same patches into the SYN5050 as I do with my Matrix and they were pretty good. I made a few minor tweaks and they work great. I run the power amp around noon and control the volume with the axe. You have to be careful as you turn up the power amp as it pushes hard it can introduce more coloration. Makes sense - you are pushing the power amp harder. It becomes most noticeable past 2oclock.
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which would you pick ? matrix or synergy? im between those power amps
 
kostas Look said:
which would you pick ? matrix or synergy? im between those power amp i
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For the feelsand warmth - Syn 5050. Making a lightweight rig - Matrix. I have been super impressed with the MATRIX, I find it works awesome with the AXE. The SYN 5050 is hard to put the feel factor into words. Maybe the fact that I played through tube amps most of my life, makes me biased - but it feels like an old friend. I would not hesitate to gig with the Matrix, using for stage monitoring while the AXE is sent FOH for main sound. Who knows maybe I wouldn't be able to tell the difference in that environment. If you are on the fence you can't go wrong with either imho. Do take into effect the increased weight / heat / maintenance of the tube amp. As a "tube guy" i will say that the MATRIX is an impressive amp its own right. Hope this all makes sense.
 
I have the SD 170 and Fryette PS2. In terms of sound, feel, string separation the Fryette turns my FM3 as close as it can be to a real amp, in this case 200 amps or so.. I compared with my real Friedman and the only difference were the dynamics, I would say that it was 95% there so.. The SD170 sounds good and it’s really transparent but it’s a totally different experience in both feel and sound.
However, the Fryette compresses a bit the overall sound which you may like it or not. For gigs, I’m using the SD170 because of portability and is more than good enough.
 
André Rodrigues said:
I have the SD 170 and Fryette PS2. In terms of sound, feel, string separation the Fryette turns my FM3 as close as it can be to a real amp, in this case 200 amps or so.. I compared with my real Friedman and the only difference were the dynamics, I would say that it was 95% there so.. The SD170 sounds good and it’s really transparent but it’s a totally different experience in both feel and sound.
However, the Fryette compresses a bit the overall sound which you may like it or not. For gigs, I’m using the SD170 because of portability and is more than good enough.
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Do you turn down/off speaker resonances when going through PS?
 
kostas Look said:
which would you pick ? matrix or synergy? im between those power amps
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I use the SYN 5050 and it sounds great with my AX3, FM3, XL+, Triaxis, and JMP-1.

It is a nice alternative to my modded Marshall EL34 50/50 since it weighs a hell of a lot less than the Marshall and it only takes up one space in the rack :)
 
Griff_NZ said:
Do you turn down/off speaker resonances when going through PS?
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Yep, it’s turned off, it helped a little, still, the PS2 adds a little bit of compression. I tried everything, I’m one of those tweak nerds..lol but im pretty sure that will be fine for the majority, I’m a mixing engineer and so I have this curse of noticing pretty much everything or almost everything (not bragging) Still, I prefer the PS2 over the SD170 every day of the week.
 
André Rodrigues said:
Yep, it’s turned off, it helped a little, still, the PS2 adds a little bit of compression. I tried everything, I’m one of those tweak nerds..lol but im pretty sure that will be fine for the majority, I’m a mixing engineer and so I have this curse of noticing pretty much everything or almost everything (not bragging) Still, I prefer the PS2 over the SD170 every day of the week.
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Cool. Yeah I love the Power Station with my Fm3. If I turn HF and LF resonance right down though, it can sound a bit flat.I tend to only turn them down a little bit. Depends on the amp I guess.
 
Griff_NZ said:
Cool. Yeah I love the Power Station with my Fm3. If I turn HF and LF resonance right down though, it can sound a bit flat.I tend to only turn them down a little bit. Depends on the amp I guess.
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Yeah, I turn off the cab resonance, you know that knob right below the graphic. But let’s not discard the hypothesis that it can be me just hearing things..lol Tbh, sometimes I just forget about it and play the damn thing because, no matter what, it just sounds damn good😁🤘
 
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