Best sounding SS amp you all have encountered?

[Slobrain]

Well,
I'll try to see who all wants to get in on this one.
We all have had SS amps before we went to tube amps but I wanted to ask from anyone wanting to participate in this subject what SS amp they really liked for clean and distortion and any other thing they could bring in to this subject? also the most hated SS amp too?

I had lots of amps since 1979 and for the first ten years were mostly Peavey SS amps. Then I went tube.
The worst was athe mid 80's Peavey SS bandit 1x12 combo as it had horrible buzzy distortion and shared the EQ with the clean channel. All around nasty sounding.

The best was maybe a early 80's Peavey Renown 2x12 that I ran thru an old marshall 4x12 cab in the clubs. This amp at the time fit the hard rock style I was playing, Sabbath, Crue, Ozzy, Priest, Scorpions and many others.

Slobrain

[daz]

Best would be an old 70's amp called the crossmix made by pignose. A 75 watt combo. I bought one years ago after hearing a band in a bar with 2 guitar players both using them and getting an awesome tone, especially for ZZ top. Thickest tone i've ever gotten out of any amp. I remember using it for the first time in a bar we played many times and i had replace a boogie MK3 with it and the bartender remarked on how good it sounded. And i never knew her to ever remark about anything concering the band's tone in any respect. Don't remember why i sold it but i wish i had one know if i only had the room. I like those 80's marshall lead 12's a lot too, but they aren't loud enough to gig with. Worse by a million miles was a peavey practive amp who's name i can't even recall. I think from the 70's. It was so bad it was literally unusable. the second worse was my first amp ever.....a 70's peavey pacer. Not as bad as that last one, but pretty horrible.

By the way, this is based on drive tones. I didn't like the cleans much on any of them.

[Steve Conner]

I don't care what anyone says, the Peavey Bandit combo that Slobrain hates sounded great for metal :rolleyes:

I have a Fender London Reverb combo kicking around too, that gives some nice clean tones. I don't like the drive sounds on it much, though. It's a 100 watt SS amp with graphic EQ and spring reverb. It looks pretty similar to a blackface Deluxe, so I was thinking of gutting it and building a Deluxe clone in the cabinet.

I also had an old Kay SS practice amp that sounded surprisingly good when cranked and abused with a drive pedal. :cool:

The guitarist in our band has one of those Vox AD60VT thingies, and it sounds decent, if a bit dark sometimes. I don't know if they count as solid-state, since they have "A" tube in there somewhere.

I tried to build several SS amps myself, but they all sounded completely like crap. I never got anything I liked till I started using tubes. One day I'd love to try going full circle by building a solid-state or hybrid amp that I can live with. Technically my Toaster project is a hybrid, but it's about 90% tube, so it doesn't really count at all. I like the idea of Albert Kreuzer's JFET bass preamp, where the JFETs are supposed to overdrive in a similar way to tubes, so I think I would start with that concept.

[Enzo]

PV has made about 10 amps with the Bandit name and the current "Transtube" Bandit sounds pretty good to me. But I think my fave SS amp is or was the Fender Princeton Chorus.

The PV transtube approach is simply darlington pairs of small transistors wired up like tubes. No, they don't sound like actual tubes, but they don't sound bad either. A tube guy could look at the schematic and follow it. If you are of a mind to try a JFET preamp, consider trying small signal bipolars in pairs wired darlington as well.

I am not so convinved it is easy to get a great sound out of op amps, but discrete transistors is a different animal.


In my world, having "A" tube does not make you a tube amp. Still firmly in the SS camp for that Vox.

[R.G.]

...
In my world, having "A" tube does not make you a tube amp. Still firmly in the SS camp for that Vox.
Let's hear it for heresy...

I think the Thomas Vox Royal Guardsman and Beatle are actually not bad. They have a low-gain power amp with marginal feedback, driver transformers for the output devices to add transformer mojo, and a secret-sauce limiter ahead of the power amp for verisimilitude.

Yes, you can adjust them to sound terrible, but a well tuned one is about halfway between solid state and tubes.

[drewl]

Definitely the Thomas Vox stuff.
prolly sounds good because of the limiter circuit, but they had MRB (precurser to the wah) plus a great fuzz circuit.
Look at the crazy money the 7120's get (think Revolver and Pepper)
Plus they look so damn cool!

[Steve Conner]

R.G., I read your pages on the Thomas Vox amps and they seem a very interesting design. I always wondered what would happen if you took the output section of a Thomas Vox (or rather a modern clone with high power silicon trannies and maybe even a current limiter :shock: ) and made a new driver transformer with loads more primary turns, so you could drive the transistor output stage off a single 6V6 or whatever? Then you could make the rest of the preamp out of tubes too. I think it would make a fine sounding hybrid. You could probably use two single-ended Champ or table radio OTs, in fact, rather than a custom transformer.

I think the TV output stage will have a rather high output impedance, unlike most SS amps, so I expect it would act like a pentode power amp in terms of speaker damping. That may be good or bad. You could always add feedback from the speaker to the cathode of the driver tube, like in the Fender 300PS.

[Brad1]

I don't know about the best, but Zuzu got a Vox Berkely a few years back that doesn't sound bad. We found it in a pawn shop. I turned on the "E" tuner switch, and then we turned the amp on, and told the guy there was a problem with it, because it had this droning note...and he believed us. I told him I MIGHT be able to fix it, and we would take it if he knocked the price way down. We carried it and the matching cab out for about $150.:)

I can tell you about the absolute WORST SS amp I ever had. A Kustom 200. YIKES that thing sounded bad. Stick some ice picks in my ears, please! I think I was about 19, tried out for a band with my BF Bandmaster, and the guy told me I needed a 100 watt amp to keep up. I believed him and traded it in. OUCH!! I didn't get in the band, and I don't even remember what happened to the Kustom. Maybe Fogarty has it.
BTW, I did find another BF Bandmaster in a pawn shop a few years ago for $125. So, everything is good.

Brad1

[drewl]

Kustom?
John Fogerty got em to sound good with Creedence....maybe the 200 is just too damn clean, but I've worked on several over the years (a 100 2 weeks ago) and they sound alright.

[drlowlow]

Best overdrive on a SS amp I have owned (and this is quite limited list in general because I haven't owned many SS amps) would have to be the Crate GX20R that I was using out here. Being that it was free helps a bit but the overdrive is fine for jamming for practice and the amps clean is pretty decent too.

Worst overdrive I have had was the overdrive on a Crate C212 (I think that was the model) It was just plain bad. Clean was pretty good.

The Best clean SS amp I own (or have owned) is a 73 Ampeg G410 that is as loud as I have ever heard. I never had it fully loaded with speakers and usually had to play it through the speakers in my crate 212 but it is very clean at any level before I start going into speaker meltdown zone. The Tone stack allows very wide control with the mid control frequency select and ultra high mode. It was great with an Ibanez slam punk infront if it if you wanted to get really dirty and with mid cut and high and low boost. It did what I needed at the time. I have purchased another one as it was cheap thinking that it would just be cool to have that much of air movement potential but I know I will never need that much volume. Now I'm thinking what a tube overdrive pedel infront of it would do? Of course when I bought it the speakers were blown and the 2nd channel preamp was blown but for 40 bucks and the clean channel still working it was a steal (hell The cabinet I think would be worth that). definately something not to pass up if you are looking for something that is loud clean and usually affordable.

worst clean SS amp I had was a Fender sidekick 30 bass amp. To be fair it probally just didn't have enough power and was a cheap amp at a relatively cheap amp price. It would ovdrive if cranked but not in a good way. Just all around mediocre.

eh thats my mindless ramble for the day.

[R.G.]

I always wondered what would happen if you took the output section of a Thomas Vox (or rather a modern clone with high power silicon trannies and maybe even a current limiter :shock: ) and made a new driver transformer with loads more primary turns, so you could drive the transistor output stage off a single 6V6 or whatever? Then you could make the rest of the preamp out of tubes too. I think it would make a fine sounding hybrid. You could probably use two single-ended Champ or table radio OTs, in fact, rather than a custom transformer.
It's an interesting thought. One problem is that you need two output windings, both about 8 ohms. This is because the output is dual NPN, totem pole style, and has to be that way for the existing output stage. It might be possible to redesign the output for a complementary NPN/PNP stage with some tinkering, but I haven't looked into that. A custom transformer with single primary/dual speaker outs would work OK. Maybe.

Another issue in the transformer-driven solid state stages is that the driver transformers were almost always wound multifilar for the tightest possible coupling from primary to secondary. Much tighter than the primary-secondary coupling usually is in tube OTs. It's only an issue if you try to close the feedback loop, of course, but if the coupling is too loose you can't do that.

I think the TV output stage will have a rather high output impedance, unlike most SS amps, so I expect it would act like a pentode power amp in terms of speaker damping. That may be good or bad. You could always add feedback from the speaker to the cathode of the driver tube, like in the Fender 300PS.
The output impedance before feedback will be that of the output transistor used as an emitter follower. Since the gain is low for these devices, maybe 50-75, then the impedance will be high for a transistor amp, but low compared to a pentode. Feedback is what really lowers the output impedance a lot, so you're right, it's going to be much bigger than an equivalent SS amp with high feedback. But less than a pentode output circuit.

It's an interesting place to start.

I must have spent US$200 on old text books before I pieced together the explanation of how that thing works. There was no single place I could find that had an overview of that output stage that was complete and made sense in modern terms.

[R.G.]

To Drewl:
The fuzz circuit in the TV amps is a minor adaptation of the Vox Distortion Booster, which is a silicon version of the Fuzz Face.

[Don Symes]

The Sunn Beta Lead, I thought, was the best sounding and most flexible SS amp I've used - especially with a stereo guitar (separate output per pickup).

Two identical channels, one set a bit cleaner than the other, one for the neck pickup and one for the bridge. A per-channel FX loop, plus a master loop and remote A/B/Both channel switching. I got my ES345 to sound like an organ for 'Easy Living', and generally pretty darned good for other tunes. 100W output

The Sunn Alpha is a single-channel, 50W version with the same preamp.

Schematics and PCB layouts are available in the repair manual, too (hint, hint).

[Arthur B.]

Triode Electronics make an interstage transformer (http://www.triodeelectronics.com/unintrui.html) with multiple secondaries. You could use a SE like the Thomas Vox did, or use a PP driver as well as an H bridge poweramp.

[Slobrain]

Best would be an old 70's amp called the crossmix made by pignose. A 75 watt combo. I bought one years ago after hearing a band in a bar with 2 guitar players both using them and getting an awesome tone, especially for ZZ top. Thickest tone i've ever gotten out of any amp. I remember using it for the first time in a bar we played many times and i had replace a boogie MK3 with it and the bartender remarked on how good it sounded. And i never knew her to ever remark about anything concering the band's tone in any respect. Don't remember why i sold it but i wish i had one know if i only had the room. I like those 80's marshall lead 12's a lot too, but they aren't loud enough to gig with. Worse by a million miles was a peavey practive amp who's name i can't even recall. I think from the 70's. It was so bad it was literally unusable. the second worse was my first amp ever.....a 70's peavey pacer. Not as bad as that last one, but pretty horrible.

By the way, this is based on drive tones. I didn't like the cleans much on any of them.

Hey Daz,
I have read that either Lee Jackson or Paul Rivera maybe built this amp for Pignose. Lee worked there when the crossmix was put out in maybe 1978.
The crossmix was supposed to have a distortion circuit similar to a rat pedal for the thick sound it had. Yeah, those 70's pacers were pretty aweful sounding, I had one too :eek:

BTW, This thread is turning out nice, many cool posts on old SS maps.


SLO

[Steve Conner]

R.G., I beg to differ about the output impedance. (Maybe we should take this discussion to the new solid-state forum that doesn't exist :cool: )

I think it will basically be the output impedance of the transistor as a common emitter, which tends to infinity. Ie, the output stage is a voltage controlled current source, and the control voltage is what comes out of the driver secondary winding. But the negative feedback through the bias network will lower the output impedance.

As for the requirement for tight coupling, I think that may be because the leakage inductance of the transformer is in the output stage's local feedback loop, betwee the bias network and the base. If it needed multifilar winding, I guess it would be about impossible to use a tube driver like I suggested.

Arthur B, I have an interstage transformer for a Fender 300PS kicking around here. (And an output transformer too, evil cackle.) But the ratio of a tube interstage transformer is totally wrong for a TV output stage.

[daz]

Yeah, i heard that too about the pre being modeled after a rat. And actually i can believe it because it has that sound to a degree tho more refined so that it's tighter. I always felt rats are fantastic sounding when used right and when they are tweaked a bit. But they're very tempermental in a few ways including which amp you use and how clean the amps is. The pignose sounded to me like a rat in it's ideal enviornment with a few tweaks. I think i also recall Rivera being involved but memory is kinda foggy. I remember also having a lab series and a boogie MK3 at the same time and setting them side by side and trying to get the boogie and LS to sound as thick as the pig, but nothing i did would let them get close. That was one amazingly thick sounding amp.

Hey Daz,
I have read that either Lee Jackson or Paul Rivera maybe built this amp for Pignose. Lee worked there when the crossmix was put out in maybe 1978.
The crossmix was supposed to have a distortion circuit similar to a rat pedal for the thick sound it had. Yeah, those 70's pacers were pretty aweful sounding, I had one too :eek:

BTW, This thread is turning out nice, many cool posts on old SS maps.


SLO

[TD_Madden]

My Gibson G-55 ('71 I think) has a decent tone......I have a Reverend 1250 in it and it's not TOO SS'y.....not real loud, either. The funky parts (phaser and harmonic-something) I just keep turned off...even the single-spring internal reverb isn't all that cheesy......

[gtrboy]

Ampeg Ss For Shred, Lab L Series For Rock, And A Roland Jc120 For Clean.

[RickyD]

Anybody else play an Acoustic 150? That was a very powerful ss amp, super cleans. And the for bass players among us, I suggest a moment of silent respect for the Acoustic 370, which was the fattest baddest bass amp on the planet until the SVT came along.

Worst SS amp? Late '60's, I think, 1967 Gibson GSS100. Very trick looking with 2 - 2x10's, sounded terrible.

[R.G.]

R.G., I beg to differ about the output impedance. I think it will basically be the output impedance of the transistor as a common emitter, which tends to infinity. Ie, the output stage is a voltage controlled current source, and the control voltage is what comes out of the driver secondary winding. But the negative feedback through the bias network will lower the output impedance.
Differ away. I never thought I had the only possible interpretation of a circuit.

But... the thing is an NPN totem pole with a load between one emitter and one collector and the ground of a split supply. The driver secondaries float with the emitters. The top half has the load tied to the emitter of the upper transistor and a fixed upper voltage supply between the ground end of the speaker load and the collector of the transistor. Even given that the base drive winding floats, I think that makes this section an emitter follower.

The bottom section is more problematic. That might well best be seen as a CE stage.

Probably the reason this amp sounds good is that we're both right about half of the output stage and the differences in output impedance from top to bottom make for asymmetrical drive on the speaker.

As for the requirement for tight coupling, I think that may be because the leakage inductance of the transformer is in the output stage's local feedback loop, betwee the bias network and the base. If it needed multifilar winding, I guess it would be about impossible to use a tube driver like I suggested.
Yep, there is no question that the problem with the tight coupling is that the leakage and self capacitance of the driver transformer is added to the forward response of the amplifier. A couple of references early in the search were pretty emphatic about that.

Actually, I think the driver transformer isn't all that hard to rewind. If I ever get a burned out one, I'll give it a go. All you really have to do is to figure out the number of turns on primary and secondary and make up your multifilar wires out of a number of lengths of magnet wire in parallel, then wind away.

I've experimented with sneaking ten turns of fine magnet wire into an existing Beatle driver transformer and measuring the voltage on it while the primaries and open secondaries were driven. That gives me a reasonable grasp of the turns involved. I'd have to look it up, but as I remember the primary was about 300t, the secondaries about 60t each, making for a penta-filar windng. The way to make a new one would be to make up a hank of wire of five sections of smaller magnet wire and two sections of six-sizes-bigger wire for the secondaries, twist that just enough to keep the wires together, then whip on 60t of the bundle. After that it's just phasing and connecting the primary sections all in series. The window usage will be poor for that style of winding, but it gets it to be multifilar and probably the wires would squash into a rectangular windonw.

Probably.

[Steve Conner]

Even given that the base drive winding floats, I think that makes this section an emitter follower.

Well no, I say that it's the very fact that the base drive winding floats, that makes the top section a common-emitter stage just the same as the bottom one, with the same high output impedance.

The floating winding means that an output stage section only has two terminals for current to go in or out. Therefore, it can only have one impedance between those two terminals: it can't matter which end you look from.

Therefore both the top and bottom sections must have the same impedance, which I say is that of a common-emitter amp with some local feedback.

This also implies that a complementary version with NPN and PNP transistors would behave pretty much the same as the original, so we might as well use all NPN.

I also think the leakage inductance in the _local_ feedback loop between collector and base could be what makes the transformer so critical. Or maybe the transistor driver stage in the TV amps leads to a much higher loop gain than a tube driver, what with transistors having so much more gm than tubes. After all, the Fender 300PS has a feedback loop around two transformers, without much in the way of interleaving, and it's stable.

Anyway, you have me fired up enough to try building this hybrid output stage now! :D

[Slobrain]

Hey Fellas,
cool thread, gets me inspired just reading this stuff :rolleyes:

Well I got the Peavey Renown in today from an Ebay auction and boy I had to clean it up, looks like a rat was living in the back. LOL

well it fired up ok and one problem I found was the scorpion speakers had come unglued from the base of the speaker basket so I'm hoping Enzo can help with ideas of how to glue these back.

I plugged in this 26 year old amp into my 2x12 cab with celestions and tweaked it for a while and bam... It sounded like I remember from the mid 80s club days playing heavy rock. It was considered heavy metal then but I guess it grandad rock now.

Any way I was talking to a buddy that had a GK ML250 from 1985 and he was saying how he really thought that amp was so killer sounding but then it blew up :eek:
I still remember him playing this amp thru a Marshall 4x12 and thinking how damn good it sounded back in the day. he was playing the song (In my dreams) by Dokken and seem to nail the tone.

Anyone remember the GK ML250, little stereo amp?

Slobrain

[R.G.]

Well no, I say that it's the very fact that the base drive winding floats, that makes the top section a common-emitter stage just the same as the bottom one, with the same high output impedance.

The floating winding means that an output stage section only has two terminals for current to go in or out. Therefore, it can only have one impedance between those two terminals: it can't matter which end you look from.

Therefore both the top and bottom sections must have the same impedance, which I say is that of a common-emitter amp with some local feedback.

This also implies that a complementary version with NPN and PNP transistors would behave pretty much the same as the original, so we might as well use all NPN.
Good point. It's certainly worth looking into.

I think that the originals were all NPN because that's the only cheap, good outputs that they could get. The original is a house-numbered 2N3055. I think that the availability of only NPNs plus familiarity with transformers led to the driver transformer use.

I also think the leakage inductance in the _local_ feedback loop between collector and base could be what makes the transformer so critical. Or maybe the transistor driver stage in the TV amps leads to a much higher loop gain than a tube driver, what with transistors having so much more gm than tubes.
Which local feedback loop is that?

After all, the Fender 300PS has a feedback loop around two transformers, without much in the way of interleaving, and it's stable.
Stability depends on the size of the forward gain as well as the number of poles and phase shift. An equal-TC phase shift oscillator with a gain under 27? , 29? will not oscillate either, even though the amount of phase shift is clearly sufficient. The amount of phase shift limits how much gain you can use, and the amount of gain limits how much phase shift you can have and remain stable.

Anyway, you have me fired up enough to try building this hybrid output stage now! :D
Good! Give it a go. I'd like to see what you come up with.

If I were not so enveloped in other stuff, I'd like to get out the old Beatle head, disable the feedback loop and measure the output impedance.

Here's a thought. The old TV amps sound much better to my ears than they ought to sound by conventional wisdom. I put this down to the limiter ahead of the power amp. What if it's both the limiter and a high output impedance? The high output impedance would give the amp a looser grip on the speaker just like a pentode stage with little feedback.

There is just so darned much to explore and so little time!!

[rocket]

I think it is funny that the old SS amps from the 60ies and 70ies that earned the bad reputation of SS amps, now are said to be the best sounding ones.

It reminds me to the Fender guitars from the 70ies that a few years ago nobody would even have touched and that now start commanding "vintage" (=exorbitant) prices.

[rocket]

How is the Peavey Dweezil Zappa amp?

[dai h.]

the old Roland Cube 60 seemed pretty good esp. with a good external speaker. Made every gtr. sound the same way, but in a good way. The overdrive on the amp sounded like the Toto record on which Steve Lucather used some solid state amp (least that's what my fog-filled memory recalls).

[Earl Norton]

Worst SS amps:

Anything by Univox, The first SS fender bassman (hard to find today thank God)

[TD_Madden]

I like my (horrors!) Crate PowerBlock through one of my old Gibson GG-100 (circa 1965 or so) 2x10 sealed cabinets (8 ohm).

Can't believe it's SS when gain/tone/volume is set right. Loud as hell too.

[Rob Mercure]

For a while there Peavey made several SS models that used an autotransformer to couple the output transisitors to the speakers - the Special Solo Series was one - and these SS amps really sounded nice when used with humbuckers in a rock and roll band. Quite a few local musicians loved these thangs in the 1970s - one even traded in his Marshall (with serious "boot" back with the PV) for one of the SSS's.

A few years ago I was given that same amp chassis and cabinet, with speaker, which had been more-or-less "gutted" by some unknown but still had the autotranny. It's in my "get around to it" pile but someday I intend to reconstruct the basic PV circuit.

Rob

[Slobrain]

Hey Rob,
A buddy of mine has one of those old solo series specials with the auto tranny. Its a 1x12 and actually sounds pretty good too. When he got the amp the speaker was blown so I installed a celestion 80 in the amp and its got a nice rock sound to it. Maybe I should try to snag it from him at a cheap price ;)

BTW, I see those old bandit 65's going fro a pretty good price on Ebay, I guess they are becoming collectors items? I had about 4 or 5 versions of the bandit over the 80's even into the early 90's as they made good practice amps. Seems the distortion on the 65 was real buzzy but I bet some one out there could figure a way to get a better distortion by somehow modding these. Or a good trick would be to gut the B 65 and build a tube amp in it, that would throw allot of musicians in the clubs when hearing that amp huh...

The reviews at harmony central say that the Bandit 65 were favored by the Nashville studio players because they had a great clean sound with reverb and if you wanted to add dirt, just use a pedal. Hhmmmmm...

SLO

[ampcession]

Call me a dinosaur, but I'm not much of fan of ss amps. That said, I once had a Gibson Lab Series L-5. Aside from the typical solid state deficiencies, such as artificial sounding and all the usual complaints, this amp was a useful and versatile tool for making very loud sounds with a band. It came with very poor quality speakers, but I put a pair of JBL E-120s in it and it actually sounded pretty good for clean sounds within the context of a loud band. The distortion was, well, solid state.

[hasserl]

I've got a solid state 2 x 10" combo amp from Mitchell out of Riverside CA, circa '77 - '78, called a Sand Amp 100. I believe the Sand Amp reference was not so much for the silicon used in the amplification, as for the material used in the cabinet. The cab is double walled and the space between the walls is filled with sand. It has a closed back with a large front open port. The amp sounds great, as good as most any tube amp I"ve played, though not real high gain. It was my practice and gig amp for years back in the day, and I still have it out in the garage underneath a stack of more recent finds. I dug it out awhile ago and plugged it in and was reminded of what a good amp it is. I could still use it today. I still have the old Ibanez Tube Screamer I use to use to get more grind out of it when I needed it.

Another real nice SS amp is one of my newer purchases, a Crate Powerblock. If you haven't tried one of these yet do yourself a favor and go try one. I picked mine up cheap, brand new and in the box for about $79.00. This is now my backup amp I take along with me to gigs. It's so small and light it's incredible, but it packs a lot of power and sounds very good.

[MKB]

Hey Fellas,
cool thread, gets me inspired just reading this stuff :rolleyes:

Well I got the Peavey Renown in today from an Ebay auction and boy I had to clean it up, looks like a rat was living in the back. LOL

well it fired up ok and one problem I found was the scorpion speakers had come unglued from the base of the speaker basket so I'm hoping Enzo can help with ideas of how to glue these back.

I plugged in this 26 year old amp into my 2x12 cab with celestions and tweaked it for a while and bam... It sounded like I remember from the mid 80s club days playing heavy rock. It was considered heavy metal then but I guess it grandad rock now.

Any way I was talking to a buddy that had a GK ML250 from 1985 and he was saying how he really thought that amp was so killer sounding but then it blew up :eek:
I still remember him playing this amp thru a Marshall 4x12 and thinking how damn good it sounded back in the day. he was playing the song (In my dreams) by Dokken and seem to nail the tone.

Anyone remember the GK ML250, little stereo amp?

Slobrain

Yeh, I remember those, used to have one. I recall hearing it in the music store and how awesome it sounded with a Strat. When I got one it didn't sound as good for some reason. Indeed those G+K's like to blow up...

[Steve Conner]

I've heard a few people raving about how good the Crate Powerblock is. Apparently it has a switching power supply AND a Class-D digital power stage, so according to you guys it should suck :-O I once messed with one and it seems very light for a 150(?) watt amp.

[hasserl]

I've heard a few people raving about how good the Crate Powerblock is. Apparently it has a switching power supply AND a Class-D digital power stage, so according to you guys it should suck :-O I once messed with one and it seems very light for a 150(?) watt amp.

Makes a great backup amp. I used to haul two amps to a gig. Now I just throw the Powerblock in it's carry bag into the back of the car along with the main amp for the night. I haven't had to use it yet, but it's comforting knowing it's there, it's ready to go, and it doesn't sound half bad. It won't be replacing any of my main amps, but I could easily do a gig with it if needed.

[Euthymia]

I think it is funny that the old SS amps from the 60ies and 70ies that earned the bad reputation of SS amps, now are said to be the best sounding ones.

That may be the perception today, but in my observations, time tends to weed out the really nasty stuff.

There was good stuff back then, and bad stuff. The bad stuff wound up in dumpsters.

You don't hear anyone singing the praises of Estey amps, for instance, and stuff like the Baldwins now has weirdo funky chic appeal but is not something most players would choose to gig with (yes, I know about the one Neil Young used to use as a stage monitor).

Acoustic got it right, and so did Sunn. I never mind seeing those come into my repair shop because I know they're serviceable and sound good when I'm done fixing them.

I think one of the big hits on the reputation of SS was when the undisputed industry leader in musical instrument amplification, Fender, issued two botched lines of SS amps. First were the amps that carried the same names as some of the tube line, then the Zodiacs.

One Fender fell on its face, SS would have a hard time gaining acceptance.

Another problem is that (partially as a result of the aforementioned Fender stumble), SS became the territory of low-end amps. Since SS is cheaper to build, it can go into cheaper amps where people are really strapped for money.

So most of our first exposures to SS amps were the best Peavey practice amps we could afford. We weren't exposed to higher-end stuff because when people get some money, they usually head straight to the tube amps.

Anyway, I like the aforementioned early Acoustics and Sunns, as well as some of the Peavey pro stuff like the 400 series (the amps to have for Nashville steelers).

Marshall Valvestates have awful build quality but put out a pretty good distortion tone for going "chunkita-chunkita-chunkita." Fender's version also surprised me with its tone quality.

One personal Hell for me would be to have no amplification to use but a Roland JC-120. I've worked on a few of them and detest the tone. The construction is pretty bad, too, with controls mounted on phenolic PCB's, etc.

My only experience with modeling technology was a Fender Cyber-Twin that someone brought me to fix, and it reminded me of a particularly ugly transvestite.

[Slobrain]

man, so many posts, this is real interesting.

Today after bringing home my daughter from a docs app. I decided to make a quick stop at a local pawn and found a used PV studio pro 110 that wasn't working. Its a 1993-or 94 model, two channels, reverb and a 10" speaker.

I snagged it for $43.00 walk out, and I'm thinking cool, I just got my daughter a nice little practice amp that I can fix. It had a bad input jack. I actually took the jack apart re-straightened the tip connector and resoldered the jack back and amp now works, easy fix. :cool:

Then after listening to the amp, I though my gosh, this is a crappy sounding amp. Yuck, good for a beginner though. not that great of a deal after all. I should have bought the mid 80's Schecter strat hanging on the wall for $99.00
It was butchered on the body and the neck had a hack job done on the locking nut install. too bad. maybe the pickups might be worth something though???

SLO

[Rob Mercure]

Been thinking about this - didn't strain anything as best I know - and I wonder if I just like amps with tranformers. RG favorites use driver trannies - and having recently serviced one I agree with the sound - very "60s" and a bit psychodelic. The autotranny PVs aren't as fun, funky, and individualistic but the have a smooth distortion that lacks that "piece of paper tearing" distortion I associate with transistor amps. Now I've never hears an OTL tube amps -although I've considered building the Stevens circiut a few times - but I wonder if I'd like it or music amplification.

Too bad I'm not into SS R&D cuz it would be interesting to work with some different output topologies using either/or driver/PI trannies and OTs.

Recent Bogen PA offerings have a common SS ouput circuit that is coupled to an line driver tranny to match 70V and 100V lines - I believe that it also has a 16 ohm tap. If anyone has one of these it make for a quick test.

Rob

[DanJ]

I recall an older 2x12 combo that was made by Baldwin. Couldn't say what the model was, but it had this really cool pushbutton switchbank for selecting trem, reverb and channels. Seems like most of the colors of the rainbow were used on it. Looked like it was purchased from the Partridge Family. But it is probably the coolist sounding clean SS amp I've heard. The Polytone mini-brute was pretty nice too.

As for dirty sounds, can't say that it was really good sounding, but the
Fender M-80 pretty much ruled the local scene (for ss players) in my area with it's ultimate 80's cheese tone distortion channel. Pretty much made everyone sound like ... (insert hair band guitarist here).

[Steve Conner]

Well, I went and bought a Class-D digital power amp to experiment with :eek: I got the BP4078 from ColdAmp and the SPS30 switching power supply that goes with it. Both modules together take up less space than the 300W bass output transformer, and weigh a hell of a lot less too.

I'm testing it right now with some classical music and a hi-fi speaker, and it sounds great, just completely clean with no unwanted noise or distortion. It probably has more THD than a linear power amp would, but it's impossible to tell. And at 400W it has enough headroom that you fear the speakers might explode into matchwood on the loud passages.

So I guess my mission is to inject some Motown bass mojo into this perfect and completely soulless amp module :rolleyes: My plan is to build a whole mini tube amp ahead of it, complete with a tiny output transformer and dummy load. If I fail, I can always get another one and use them for my stereo.

[fletchyalereverb]

Hi all, love the forum. anyhow I must mention my 1982 Fender Yale Reverb - ss and has a beautiful clean sound, but turn up the gain and it can rock out

[Steve Conner]

Oh, that's cool, I just fixed an old London Reverb 1x12" combo last week. I think it's similar to the Yale Reverb, maybe a tad bigger with more knobs. It sounded pretty good, IMO. Even the dirty channel was pretty good for a solid state amp. If all my tube amps somehow broke, I'd gig with it.

[tubetonez]

In the late 70's Randall had a SS amp called the "Sustainor" that sounded a lot like a cranked stack, that was the only sound it would do but it was a good one.

[PlayItAll]

I have to chime in with a vote for the Peavey Bandit. I had an early one that I loved.

I also owned a Yamaha DG80 that was tolerable...

I currently own and really like the Crate Power Block. Cheap - versatile - portable - and pretty darn good sounding!

Ed

[HTH]

best SS amp I've had was a Randall Titan 300w beast. cleans were great and spankin with as much headroom as you could ever want. the overdrive went from rock to metal with ease. admittedly it was geared towards the 'metal' end of the spectrum, but it had an amazing 'chunk' in the bass end.

:cool:

[beginwhereUR]

the second worse was my first amp ever.....a 70's peavey pacer. Not as bad as that last one, but pretty horrible.

This is funny. I remember my Pacer from about 1977-78 sounding fairly awful too. But about a month ago I saw one at a swapmeet and bought it. Sentimental I guess. It was in decent shape, still had the original speaker, and for $45 (that's a dollar a watt, folks), I couldn't pass it up.

Guess what? It sounds pretty effing good! It's got a very snappy transient response without being overly dry and edgy, probably due to some Ge clipping diodes that are blended with the clean signal. The cabinet has a nicely focused tone and is made of actual plywood, although the baffle is particle board (which doesn't really make any sense). It even projected well in the context of bass and drums in a large garage/studio. The reverb is not too hard to listen to either.

I called Peavey, and not only did they send me a schemo and owner's manual, but the paperwork was original, not copies. Inside the chassis I was surprised to find a medium-sized coupling transformer between the preamp and the power section. Who knows, that might have something to do with the more forgiving sound.

Anyway, the Pacer exceeded my expectations by turning out to be more that just a memento. Maybe inexperience was to blame for how bad I remember it sounding. Now it's another cool sound in my arsenal. . . .

BTW, I was going to suggest a contrasting "Worst Tube Amp" thread, but someone beat me to it. As for that, I have a Mesa SOB that can sound as dry and brittle as any bad SS if not dialed in just right. Any tips for sweetening that thing up welcome. ;)

[Liam]

Best one I heard was Wilko Johnson through an HH 100 watt 2 x 12 combo. Just love that mid 70s interpretation of proper percussive rhythm and lead guitar. Tried to play one once, but just couldn't get it to work for me in the same way.

I'd find it a lot harder to pick the worst, but the Fender Stage 160 DSP is high on the list at the moment. I know Peavey made a few versions of the "Bandit", but I can't rememebr ever playing one of the good sounding ones, if you know what I mean.

I nearly turned this into a new thread, but would anyone like to contribute to "Great tunes played by great guitarists using a transistor amp"?

I could make a start with Dr Feelgood, Wilko Johnson, "She does it right", from the Stupidity album. (In fact anything from that album.)

[Rxtele]

Roland Bc60-310 Blues Cube with three ten inch speakers
all kinds of controls and buttons to dial in the sound to approximate different sounds from the classic tube amps.

Can get some great tones from it, and it is rock solid, but still they haven't figured out how to dial in the warmth of a tube amp

[black_labb]

i have a fender frontman 212 r (100w amp with 2 12" speakers and reverb) not too bad an amp. nice clean sound and reasonable distortion. i hadn't owned a tube amp yet (atleast not a completed one) until last night when i picked up my monster ( http://music-electronics-forum.com/showthread.php?t=4700)

the solidstate amp is more versatile, but the gap may close once i clean the pots on the new amp, its been sitting in someones garage for 20 years so the pots are mighty scratchy, and there are only some spots where they make contact. ive got some cleaner so ill get going on that tonight.

[rf7]

Anyway, the Pacer exceeded my expectations by turning out to be more that just a memento. Maybe inexperience was to blame for how bad I remember it sounding. Now it's another cool sound in my arsenal. . . .



I used to gig with a Pacer with an EV 12L speaker inside and I thought it sounded pretty good. I did a punk rock record with it and people thought I was using a Marshall. It was pretty loud too, with that EV inside.

[shiner555]

Anyone mention SUNN amps?? I've been using the Sunn Coliseum Bass amp for some time, and man oh man, it is by far the best sounding SS head I've ever heard for bass. I even prefer it over my 71V4-B!

Also, Pearce Amps, were some amazing pieces of solid state gear.

[Manic]

A Roland JC comes to mind as a good SS amp.
The backup I carry is a Fender Ultimate Chorus...I pedal in for over drive tones.
The Clean is about as pretty as i gets for a SS amp. :o

[Bassman3]

For Guitar, Crate VTX-200S
For Bass, Ampeg SVT-200TH

[Chuck H]

Another vote for the Peavey Bandit.

Chuck

[olddawg]

Marshall Lead 100 Mosfet. One of the most misunderstood amps out there.

[Chuck H]

You know, I never owned one so I didn't put it through alot of paces, but I once played a GK head at Guitar Center that had the most tube like distortion circuit I ever heard in a SS amp. That was probably around 16 or 17 years ago.

Chuck

[fogonero]

I have a Fender Princeton Chorus, great Amp, at least for me, Maybe I'm not that demanding, but I could use any channel, any time. Using the distortion channel with not too much drive and adding a BOSS superoverdrive before the amp is just fantastic. Plus, It has enough volume to kick with presence in a band situation.

[rexindigo]

Had a roland jazz chorus once , the clean sound was incredible, but the distortion sound was poor, after all it was stolen and i got a musicman hybrid instead.

But for me (just in my commemoration) the best overdriven solid state amp sound i ever had, was my very first (japanese) little guitar amp with 6 watt driven hard by a solid state microphone preamp, sorry i can't remember the name of it.

I bought a little amp called MARATHON some months ago at ebay and although the speaker is much to small, the overdriven sound is great with a 4x12 cab it sounds really fat: lots of gain with all volumes full up (two gain stages and a mastervolume) i think its called MGA-20 or so

[malbi]

I was using an ampeg svt pro-3 thru an 8x10 cab forever. the other day it crapped out on me. as a back up, i had my dad's old acoustic 150. i had never played bass thru it before and when i plugged it in, i was blown away. no it does not have a hifi sound or is it extremely tweakable but it is LOUD. i am playing it thru my 8x10 cabinet and it is awesome. i haven't even taken my svt pro-3 in for repair because i like this sound so much. it has the perfect growl.

as a side note, my dad also gave me the 6x10 cabinet that he bought with it. i use that for guitar. i am playing a jcm 800 thru it and it sounds incredible. every gig i play, people are amazed by that cabinet. it is pretty rare and it sounds awesome.

i am however, nervous about taking this head and the cab out on the road too much as it would be hard to replace them...

[BackwardsBoB]

I've got a little 15 Watt Crate with a little spring reverb and an 8" speaker I bought new for maybe $80. Sounds great with an acoustic or jazz box, and the overdrive channel doesn't make me laugh. Tone is where you find it.

[zdavid]

Polytone Taurus II - This is somewhere around 100W, super clean sound with great tone quality. The on-board effects suck but that is typical of any amp - I tend to stay from builtin effects. It also has 2 6" speakers on the sides, good for keeping the drummer tuned in. Only problem is that it has NO air circulation to the power amp and tends to overheat - probably an easy fix if I ever get around to it.

[pushpull]

Hi I am new to this forum and love it already.
The best sounding SS amp ever to me - and I am so glad that I managed to get my hands on one in nice condition is the

Electro Harmonicx Mike Matthews Dirt Road Special.

It has a long name for sure, but is extremely low on controls: Vol, Tone, Bite, that's it fellas. Also features a non footswitchable built in EH Small Stone Phaser.

I have gigged this amp at Sessions, use it only for Blues stuff and it knocks the socks off everyone. Have had other guitarists play it on sessions, they all would not believe it is solid state. It is very dynamic, great punch and bottom end and cuts right through the band. Very harmonic when going into saturation. If you find one of these babys, get one. Luod as hell, funny looking, easy to carry and they scare the living shit out of that guy with the Deluxe Reverb Reissue!
He, he

pushpull

[tomd01]

I bought a Bandit 75 1X12 combo back in the early 80's also, and have really enjoyed it's light weight and punchy sounds. I play mostly clean, or with a Boss ME5 multi-effects pedal to get the distortion I need because the overdrive channel does sound a bit like a kazoo, or maybe a piece of waxed paper wrapped around a comb or some such. But it does have killer reverb! And it's loud enough for any room I've ever played in - though sometimes I mic it.

[kurisurokku]

Someone mentioned this earlier, but I'll second the Fender Princeton Chorus for clean sounds. I used to have one before I downsized a bit, and I play jazz and that thing sounded really great. The stereo chorus and reverb were top notch, and it had quite a bit of headroom. I didn't play around much with the distortion channel, but it sounded okay to me. A lot of people online don't seem to like the dirty channel much though.

The guy that bought it from me brought over his lap steel and it sounded just fantastic.

That being said, I'm all tube now ;-)

[Leftymatson]

I had a Rheem Califone amp (Rheem as in air conditioning) that sounded great at the time - 1969 - and I've never seen another. It put out about 15 Watts and broke up nicely. It was very light weight with a single 12.

If we're including bass amps, I really like my Gallien Kruger 800RB. Two amps,300W for lows, 100W for highs with a built-in crossover and a mid--cut feature I didn't think I'd use until I tried it. Sounds good with my Jerry Jones Longhorn bass, a Sunn type cube cabinet with a PV Black Widow 15 and a 2X10 GK cabinet.

I used a Sunn 2000S with a 2X15 folded horn cabinet for years until I had to lug it up some rickety outdoor stairs one time too many. The three piece GK setup is much easier to haul around and fills any room I play.

[Mutato]

I have a 70's era Polytone MiniBrute II, which was my first amp. Velvet covered! I bought it since I needed an amp to go with my first electric. Didn't know anything about amps. But for clean and warm, it still delivers.

One thing I've found is that the EQ (Bass and Treble) have really large sweeps of gain and reduction. Way more than any tube amp. I tend to notice that in SS amps. A lot more EQ range. Any reason why?

The amp is small, yet very powerful. I've kept it for all these years (since 1986) because it's a great second amp. You can plug a bass into it to play at room levels for jamming etc... A little workhorse.

The distortion channel is that usual weird SS distortion, which I NEVER used. But I did use it once recording a song. And you know what? It actually sounded great!

I didn't realize till this year that these Polytones were used by Jazz giants and have a good demand.

[Rick Erickson]

[A lot more EQ range. Any reason why?]

It's because solid state amps often employ active EQ circuits, where the tone controls are in the feedback path of an IC, or transistor gain stage. This gives them an actual boost or cut, often + or - 12db or more. Tube amps usually employ passive EQ circuits which can really only cut frequencies. They give the illusion of boosting highs or lows by cutting everything (insertion loss) and then adding back certain frequency ranges. The overall range of this type of tone circuit (passive) is far less than a circuit which borrows energy from the power supply (active) to provide cut or boost.

RE

[Borg54]

My best SS is an old Peavey BackStage (80-81) 20 watter, came stock with a spring reverb and a ton of mojo!. I've had way to many offers to sell it over the years. Only maintance has been to clean the pots, and beef up the speaker. It's By far the best $10.00 amp I ever scored on for SS. Then there is the pignose ;-}

[billybillybilly]

there was a mid 70s company called 'road electronics' ... i think its what bud ross did after kustom . anyway , all solid state bass amps . the tone is very middle of the road so they also sound good with guitar . i have one , a combo with a 15 , that has no model name or anything identifying (other than 'road' on the front panel and a serial on the back) and i use it for guitar ... and people at the shows are allways asking me about it and saying it sound like tubes , and when i tell em its a 70s all ss bass amp they look at me like im an idiot .
so anyway , im voting for the old 'Road' amps .
i heard that one of their sales tactics was to hold a floor model about chest high , throw it on the ground , then plug it back in to show the customer it still works !
i think their most popular model was the '440 bass' (which i have a schematic for if anyone needs/wants to see it) .
one more thing , if anyone comes across one of those old 'road' amps and doesnt want it , please let me know , im allways on the hunt for the jokers !

[voxrules!]

Well, I recently added an "AC30SS" ( a mid '70s design proposed by Vox as a solid state version of the AC30 ) to my collection, and, though it doesn't sound like my 1964 TB ( neither I expected it to do so ) I have been pleasantly surprised by its warmth ( if compared to other SS designs ) and dynamics.

I also opened it to inspect it and do some maintenance ( pots cleaning ), and I found it to be well built. The schematic is printed in black on the amp's chassis.

This model has not been successful, ( it was a game lost from the start, as it's opponent was the "real" AC30 ) but I think this was by no means due to the way it sounded, but rather due by a "strategic" marketing error, because they proposed it as an AC30 while in fact it was not, maybe it could have been more successful under another name.....who knows?

All I can say is it's a very sweet sounding amp, you would not say it's SS, most SS amps sound excessively clean, "dry" or even "harsh", but not this one.

Best regards

Bob

[Steve Conner]

Hello Voxrules,

Any driver or output transformers in there?

[voxrules!]

Hi Steve,
nope, no driver or output trannies, the output stage features two 2N3055
driven by a complementary couple of BD537/538, the trem circuit sports a couple of FETs ( 2N3819 ), the preamp uses two RC4136, the schematic can be found here :

http://www.voxamps.com/downloads/circuits/ac30ss.jpg

As you will see it' s not a good scan; if you need a better image I' ll open mine again, take the chassis off and lay it directly on my scanner to get a decent quality scan.

Best regards

Bob

[Steve Conner]

No, it's OK, I've already seen the op-amps and run a mile :eek:

[voxrules!]

Well, I didn't know op-amps could scare you so much, Steve! Is this because of the way they sound or because they look like little spiders? :D

I wouldn't be too hard on op-amps, even if we all LOVE tube amps sometimes we stumble upon some good sounding piece of Silicon.....this is one of these times IMHO ( after all, this is what this thread is all about ).

Best regards

Bob

[Brian H.]

there was a mid 70s company called 'road electronics' ... i think its what bud ross did after kustom . anyway , all solid state bass amps . the tone is very middle of the road so they also sound good with guitar . i have one , a combo with a 15 , that has no model name or anything identifying (other than 'road' on the front panel and a serial on the back) and i use it for guitar ... and people at the shows are allways asking me about it and saying it sound like tubes , and when i tell em its a 70s all ss bass amp they look at me like im an idiot .
so anyway , im voting for the old 'Road' amps .
i heard that one of their sales tactics was to hold a floor model about chest high , throw it on the ground , then plug it back in to show the customer it still works !
i think their most popular model was the '440 bass' (which i have a schematic for if anyone needs/wants to see it) .
one more thing , if anyone comes across one of those old 'road' amps and doesnt want it , please let me know , im allways on the hunt for the jokers !
I just bought a Road 440 Bass, and found this thread in my search for info.

On the back, it shows its origin as LA, not Kansas. It's working fine, is pretty light for the size and power, and seems that it will sound good on bass.

Billy, I'd really appreciate a scan of the manual, schematics, whatever.

[billybillybilly]

I just bought a Road 440 Bass, and found this thread in my search for info.

On the back, it shows its origin as LA, not Kansas. It's working fine, is pretty light for the size and power, and seems that it will sound good on bass.

Billy, I'd really appreciate a scan of the manual, schematics, whatever.


hey Brian ,

have you opened yours up yet ? it might still have the schematic inside like mine did ! does yours have the wooden sides ? geez i wish i had the manual . id like to see how they describe the 'effects' knob ... it seems to act as a compressor of sorts .

anyway , shoot me a PM with your email and ill shoot ya the schematic and some pics . i suppose i should just post em somewhere since it seems to be the only one available .

but , as far as the Kansas/LA thing , i believe they started in Kansas and ended up in the big city later on before finally being sold off to rickenbacker in the early 80's and then discontinued .

[Albert Kreuzer]

Hi Billy & Brian,

back in the days I had a Road 220 bass amp. It failed at the first gig (blown output transistor, turned out to be a BD183 instead of the RCA 2N6259). It was still under warranty, so no problem. The catch was that I was the tech who did the warranty repairs for that particular shop :D
Still got the service manual, including all schematics and layouts. If you need something, let me know.
Sold the amp to a student last year, still sounds great. Never had a failure since that blown transistor.

Cheers,
Albert

[Brian H.]

Thanks for jumping in, Albert!

I pulled my 440 bass chassis out of the case to spray the pots. Talk about your wide open spaces! There's lots of room in that huge box. It's nice and clean still, and the only evidence of prior failure is an obviously changed bridge rectifier. It has a square package now, and there is an extra tapped mounting hole and sink grease residue from a TO case sort of device.

Now, the big mystery- What are they doing with the effect control? It's a push-pull pot that I assumed was a FX return level control. Upon investigation, it became apparent that the input marked "effect" gets you into the 2nd channel of the amp (lead channel). Billy thought that the effect control might give compression. I did notice an increase in level with the knob turned clockwise. Pulling the knob out changes something as well. There isn't anything like an EFX loop provision for that knob to control.

Also, why have a separate 5-band graphic EQ, available only to the 2nd channel? Each input already has separate 3-band tone controls. Maybe the line out is pre-graphic EQ?

Sorry for pestering,
Brian

[Albert Kreuzer]

Hi Brian,

the "effects" circuit is an adjustable diode clipper, so the output level decreases when you turn it up. The pull switch adds a coil for some kind of midrange boost.
The line out is "post-everything", just a voltage divider from the speaker output.
The EQ was an add-on, some models didn't have it.

The complete manual is a 1.74MB zip file, Billy already has it ;)

Cheers,
Albert

[Brian H.]

Thanks again!
I was going to waste huge time on the function of that knob (I did NOT just say that!).
I printed the second channel preamp/effects schematics for my studying pleasure.

Thanks again
Brian

[billybillybilly]

... the "effects" circuit is an adjustable diode clipper, so the output level decreases when you turn it up. The pull switch adds a coil for some kind of midrange boost ...



yup , that makes sense , squish and clip .

by the way , the info that .zip file is awesome !