Power Amps SS Vs Tube

T

Theine

Member
I'm thinking that maybe it's time to revisit this topic. I recently purchased an FM9 and have been running output #1 to FOH and output #3 to effect loop return of my tube amp connected to guitar cab for stage monitoring. I like this setup and I think I'm ready to pull the trigger on a stand alone power amp but debating between SS or tube. I love tubes and always will but I'm thinking that I will get a more consistent tone with SS. Any arguments between the two and units people are using would be appreciated.

Cheers
Tim
 
In my experience the Matrix power amps followed by the Seymour Duncan Powerstage 700 are the closest SS amps compared to the tube amp for sound and feel. The SS amps are extremely steady, consistent in the sound and offer great power for cabs. I used to run my fractal products into the returns of my mess heads for onstage sound, but have replaced them with the matrix. Just my 2 cents.
 
I have Matrix GT1kFX that I use with either 2x112 v30 Mesa closed back cabs or, 2x112 F12M-150 FR cabs. Both configs sound great, but more than once I've gassed for a clean hi headroom stereo tube power amp with minimal coloration in order to try a little of that supposed real power tube special sauce mojo added to my signal. The options I've considered are Fryette LxII and Synergy 5050 (a spinoff of the LxII built by Fryette for Synergy). Just never been dis-satisfied enough with my Matrix to bother pulling the trigger on something else. If it blew up tomorrow I'd probably get a 5050 as it is readily available locally (not sure the LXII is still even available to buy), or I would consider 2 Orange Pedal Baby SS amps which I've heard work great despite a design that's a bit questionable to my mind for FR amplification since I understand they have a preamp in the circuit (I guess the pre is hi-headroom enough not to easily distort which makes PB ok to use as power amp only).
 
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I have an old Atomic Reactor 50/50 Stereo power amp that I picked up to try out power amps & guitar cabs vs FRFR wedges, and it’s a pretty impressive sound. I’ve also used Mesa Boogie and Soldano tube power amps with great results. My CLRs run SS amps and also sound great.

I’ll go back to something I heard from a Fender Custom Shop guy a few days ago: “Everything’s different, nothing’s better.” When it comes to the tone that’ll make you as an individual player happy, either one might be best for you. Or it might not even matter and you be happy with both types.

Tube and solid state amps both do a good job. Any good quality model will produce at least decent results if your starting tone was decent to begin with, so check around a bit if that suits you then jump in.
 
true but your modeler is only as good as its output source, powered cab, FRFR, SS or Tube amp
they will all sound different ,put to you to decide what sounds good to you or does not
 
I use a Seymour Duncan PS170 to drive a Marshall 1960BV cab (8 ohm), when the gig allows. Lots of clean headroom, and I love the onboard 3 band eq. Sounds and feels great to me. Bonus points for its small, lightweight form factor and sturdy build quality.
 
Stop thinking about it. Get an amp, plug in, and if it sounds good, it’s good.

Personally, I still haven’t found anything as practical or useful as a Crate PowerBlock. Sounds just great to me.
 
Dino334 said:
In my experience the Matrix power amps followed by the Seymour Duncan Powerstage 700 are the closest SS amps compared to the tube amp for sound and feel. The SS amps are extremely steady, consistent in the sound and offer great power for cabs. I used to run my fractal products into the returns of my mess heads for onstage sound, but have replaced them with the matrix. Just my 2 cents.
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Thanks,

I've been looking at the Duncan but I'll check out the Matrix. I've been using my Two Rock effect return but to carry out to gig it makes no sense. Its like I'm carrying two rigs to a jam! Again appreciate your two cents.
sprint said:
I have Matrix GT1kFX that I use with either 2x112 v30 Mesa closed back cabs or, 2x112 F12M-150 FR cabs. Both configs sound great, but more than once I've gassed for a clean hi headroom stereo tube power amp with minimal coloration in order to try a little of that supposed real power tube special sauce mojo added to my signal. The options I've considered are Fryette LxII and Synergy 5050 (a spinoff of the LxII built by Fryette for Synergy). Just never been dis-satisfied enough with my Matrix to bother pulling the trigger on something else. If it blew up tomorrow I'd probably get a 5050 as it is readily available
locally (not sure the LXII is still even available to buy), or I would
consider 2 Orange Pedal Baby SS amps which I've heard work great despite a design that's a bit questionable to my mind for FR amplifocation since I understand they have a preamp in the circuit (I guess the pre is hi-headroom enough not to easily distort which makes PB ok to use as power amp only).
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yeah and Steve Fryette makes a great amp. My buddy uses his Fryette PS2 and it sounds great but I’m debating if SS is a more consistent way to go. Plus if you’re using SS then it makes sense to enable power amp models on the FAS.
 
Rex said:
You already have an excellent tube power-amp modeler — your FM9. All you really need to push your cab is a solid source of power. I think a solid-state power amp will do you well.
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That’s kinda where my head is at. Any thoughts or experiences with stand alone power amp versus powered cab like the Friedman?
 
Theine said:
Thanks,

I've been looking at the Duncan but I'll check out the Matrix. I've been using my Two Rock effect return but to carry out to gig it makes no sense. Its like I'm carrying two rigs to a jam! Again appreciate your two cents.

yeah and Steve Fryette makes a great amp. My buddy uses his Fryette PS2 and it sounds great but I’m debating if SS is a more consistent way to go. Plus if you’re using SS then it makes sense to enable power amp models on the FAS.
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Power amp modelling would still make sense with a clean hi headroom real tube amp like the LXII since that amp will not inject much coloration in lieu of the very pronounced coloration in many Axfx models with power amp modelling turned on (some (ie class A), get a big portion of their character from the power amp side of the model). Out to a traditional amp return (ie to the return of a Marshall, MB or whatever) then it may make sense to turn power amp modelling off since those have their own character, but even then, if playing out to a traditional amp return at low volume the real tube power section may not reveal it's full character. IMO going out to a tractional amp return (ie Marshall 800 - something like that - not a clean power amp) makes no sense if you are using a lot of varying models in Axfx (Fender, Vox, Marshall...) since the tracitional power amp (ie Marshall JCM 800) will just skew everything to sound like Marshall - not ideal - to keep the modelling accurate, it needs to be clean / hi headroom with minimal coloration.
 
sprint said:
Power amp modelling would still make sense with a clean hi headroom real tube amp like the LXII since that amp will not inject much coloration in lieu of the very pronounced coloration in many Axfx models with power amp modelling turned on (some (ie class A), get a big portion of their character from the power amp side of the model). Out to a traditional amp return (ie to the return of a Marshall, MB or whatever) then it may make sense to turn power amp modelling off since those have their own character, but even then, if playing out to a traditional amp return at low volume the real tube power section may not reveal it's full character. IMO going out to a tractional amp return (ie Marshall 800 - something like that - not a clean power amp) makes no sense if you are using a lot of varying models in Axfx (Fender, Vox, Marshall...) since the tracitional power amp (ie Marshall JCM 800) will just skew everything to sound like Marshall - not ideal - to keep the modelling accurate, it needs to be clean / hi headroom with minimal coloration.
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Thats valid. I guess its hard to wrap my head around pushing a modeled EL34 power section through 6L6 rack power amp. Like you mentioned its more about having a power amp that does not color the tone to allow the benefits of the FAS.
 
It’s also about how loud you play. If you have a tube power amp, and you’re not it pushing near its maximum volume, then it’s not providing much power-amp compression and distortion. In that case, it might make sense to leave power amp modeling on.
 
sprint said:
Power amp modelling would still make sense with a clean hi headroom real tube amp like the LXII since that amp will not inject much coloration in lieu of the very pronounced coloration in many Axfx models with power amp modelling turned on (some (ie class A), get a big portion of their character from the power amp side of the model). Out to a traditional amp return (ie to the return of a Marshall, MB or whatever) then it may make sense to turn power amp modelling off since those have their own character, but even then, if playing out to a traditional amp return at low volume the real tube power section may not reveal it's full character. IMO going out to a tractional amp return (ie Marshall 800 - something like that - not a clean power amp) makes no sense if you are using a lot of varying models in Axfx (Fender, Vox, Marshall...) since the tracitional power amp (ie Marshall JCM 800) will just skew everything to sound like Marshall - not ideal - to keep the modelling accurate, it needs to be clean / hi headroom with minimal coloration.
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A clean high-headroom tube amp is still influenced by the actual speaker’s impedance curve; that doesn’t change because of wattage or how clean it is.

At low volume that won’t be as apparent because our ability to hear the full sound range is affected and the speakers and amp are barely working. At stage volume the influence of the components will be greater because the speakers and transformer and tubes will be working a lot harder and our ears are more aware of the affected frequency response.

The modeler’s power amp and speaker impedance curve influence the sound, which then gets passed to the tube power amp which is then influenced by the impedance curve of the speakers attached to it. That’s why the Fractal recommends turning off power amp modeling, because it’s adding an additional layer causing the accuracy to suffer. Of course people can do whatever pleases their ears.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
A clean high-headroom tube amp is still influenced by the actual speaker’s impedance curve; that doesn’t change because of wattage or how clean it is.

At low volume that won’t be as apparent because our ability to hear the full sound range is affected and the speakers and amp are barely working. At stage volume the influence of the components will be greater because the speakers and transformer and tubes will be working a lot harder and our ears are more aware of the affected frequency response.

The modeler’s power amp and speaker impedance curve influence the sound, which then gets passed to the tube power amp which is then influenced by the impedance curve of the speakers attached to it. That’s why the Fractal recommends turning off power amp modeling, because it’s adding an additional layer causing the accuracy to suffer. Of course people can do whatever pleases their ears.
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With any real tube power amp I always set the IC to flat if keeping p.a. modelling on, since, as you explain, a real tube amp + cab will lock on to IC automatically, but, I'm not sure Fractal's recommendation would necessarily be to always turn p.a. modelling off with clean (ish) hi headroom tube amps like LxII (as opposed to the more traditional lower headroom fx return'd power amps with hi coloration). As an example, lets take a Vox Model with IC set flat out to a Fryette LxII + FR Cab: Turning power amp modelling OFF on the Vox model will have a significant tonal impact, which a cleanish hi headroom / minimally colored tube power amp like LxII will not be able to compensate for or "add back in" at any volume. In this case, imo, you'd want p.a. modelling ON to get the most accurate Vox representation possible with an LxII. Overall though, I think Fractal's been clear that a clean SS p..a. (ie Matrix) is the best logical choice for model accuracy. This makes sense to me since real p.a. tubes (even in hi headroom amps with lo coloration) will overlay themselves on a virtual power amp always skewing it to some extent. But many peeps swear by that mysterious real tube special sauce as we often read here, so, if one must have those real p.a. tubes in their modelling soup, LxII or similar seems like a good choice since it'll still allow for p.a modelling to shine thru with modelled IC off, and provides a little real tube special sauce but not so much as to totally clobber your p.a. modelling character along with it's "just make louder" role in a modelling signal chain.
 
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Rex said:
It’s also about how loud you play. If you have a tube power amp, and you’re not it pushing near its maximum volume, then it’s not providing much power-amp compression and distortion. In that case, it might make sense to leave power amp modeling on.
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Good point. So I could leave power amp modeling on at lower volumes and bypass when playing louder but then I might run into tone consistency which is my ultimate goal.
 
I use a Seymour Duncan Powerstage 200 for convenience of being able to mount it on a pedalboard alongside my FM9.

Seems to be pretty stable to me, and the additional EQ controls can help fine tune things if needed.
 
A word of caution regarding any description of power amps would be that any opinion, comment, or marketing info that states an amp has a "clean" response has never meant that the tonal response is flat... and your AFIII/FM9/FM3 is expecting a flat response in a separate power amp.

So, if we are looking for simplicity of operation and/or authentic tones, I see no reason why, when we have the best amp modeler on the market to then go use a tube power amp for monitoring. You may like the tone, or prefer it to SS, but it will not be tonally authentic, nor a direct relation to the tone you send to FOH... so why add confusion?

There are a number of well known SS amps that have been used for years (such as the Matrix et al) however, designs and technology have moved on, and frankly with the $$/W that a class D design offers, it is todays most logical choice for solid state power amps.

With ruler flat frequency response, low cost, large power outputs, small size, lightweight and high efficiencies there is nothing to dislike.

There are any number of options from a straight power amp, or amp amp with some Eq, but you can also use a number of class D bass head via FX return or aux in, or you can even build your own for low $$ if you have basic soldering skills.
 
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