Fryette vs Tube head as power amp

[TheRedDevil]

Some minutes before I made a A:B test:

A - Left side:
Harley Benton Tube 15 Watt EL84, Effects Loop Return connected to
AXEFXIII: Power Amp Off, Speaker: FRFR, Cab Block used
Speaker: Harley Benton 2x12" cab loaded with Celestion F12M-150 + Celestion F12-X200 FRLR speakers

B - Right side:
Harley Benton GPA-400 SS-Amp
AXEFXIII: Power Amp On, EL84JJ tubes, Speaker: FRFR, Cab Block used
Speaker: Harley Benton 2x12" cab loaded with Celestion F12M-150 + Celestion F12-X200 FRLR speakers

Result: No real difference is audible; at most, the bass of the HB Tube15 is slightly stronger, but this could easily be corrected with the HB-GPA-400 (Ressonance +0,5) or AXEFXIII. The HB Tube15 is certainly not neutral. Well, forget about tube amp usage at home for hard rock music or use the cheap HB Tube15 amp if you need the weight and tubes.

 

[DLC86]

I think these are probably Cliff’s quotes you were referring to:

Sorry, a bit late to the party... But wanted to chime in on this.

First quote is valid for the old version of icepower modules (even though I'd argue high frequencies are not that critical for a guitar cab), but not for the new version based on the ICC5 chip (already available for 50asx2 and 125asx2 modules) which has much lower output impedance thus better damping factor.

Old


New

Second quote I guess is valid only if you need 100W of power. If you use efficient speakers like the Fane Medusa 150 (which I own) having a sensitivity of 103 dB/W, you can produce the same sound pressure level of a Celestion V30 with half the power, or that of a creamback with 1/4 of the power, thus you'd only need 50W or 25W to get to the same volume and, in that case, even that cheap class D power amp might have enough headroom/energy reserve to correctly reproduce transients.

In short, it depends on what it's used for.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

If you use efficient speakers like the Fane Medusa 150 (which I own) you can produce the same sound pressure level of a Celestion V30 or creamback with 1/4 of the power, thus you'd only need 25W and in that case even that cheap class D power amp might have enough headroom/energy reserve to correctly reproduce transients.

That's impressive. I'd still want something with more wattage than 25W. When they distort it's not pretty so I'd rather avoid it entirely.

 

[DLC86]

That's impressive. I'd still want something with more wattage than 25W. When they distort it's not pretty so I'd rather avoid it entirely.

Yep sure, that was just an example to say that 25W with those speakers would be roughly the equivalent of 100W with those other speakers .
I use a 2x12 with those Fane Medusa with a 125asx2 (2x150W at 8 ohms) and I can easily bury most tube combos and probably compete with a 100W half stack