Tube Guy Wanting to Convert to Solid State

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Early 70’s i was playing pretty regularly and really don’t recall seeing much if any SS till later mid 70’s.

Kustom, baby! I got my 2x10 150 in 1970 or ‘71 - they were all over the place by then, although not in jazz. The leader I worked for didn’t like the sound of my 175 through my Ampeg B15N for rock and pop, so I caved because the job was one of the best in the region - 2 or 3 high paying gigs almost every week at or above scale, and some of the best sidemen in the business. Ninety+% of the weddings were “continuous”, and I got paid for doubling on piano plus cartage for my amp and my Wurly &/or Farfisa if I brought either or both.

Kustoms were noisy (mostly just hiss) but otherwise decent general purpose amps.

[wzpgsr]

Disregarding things like maintenance considerations, truth is, for traditional clean jazz sounds, you can get by with almost any amp if you have headroom, a good ear, a good speaker and cab, and really understand how to take advantage of each amp’s particular EQ interaction, gain staging, etc. I often record myself several times a week, and unless I label my recordings, I have a hard time distinguishing which amp I used, and often even which guitar I used.

I’ve owned several quality and often recommended (for jazz) solid state amps: two Yamaha G50/100 mk2, L5 and L3 Lab Series, Pearce G2R, Polytone, Henriksen, and several Quilters, most recently and currently Superblock US (which is a stupid great jazz amp). My favorites were the Lab Series L5, Yamaha G50, and Quilter Superblock US.

The surprise pisser of all the amps above was the Polytone Baby Taurus (or whatever it’s called). Couldn’t make that little thing sound like anything other than a midrangey nasal box. Quilter Superblock US through a Toob Metro 6.5” sounds way better to my ear.

And having said all that, and to get even further into cork-sniffing territory, all but one of the above solid state amps have moved on. In my experience, the “best”, most inspirational, most balanced “in the room” jazz sounds are coming from clean or slightly pushed tube amps through large cabs loaded with 15” speakers. Cab and speaker should be a part of the conversation regardless of whether an amp is tube, solid state, or modeling. In the end, it’s a bit of fun and a bit of obsession.

[jazzkritter]

I liked carrying my SR into wedding gigs. Intense feeling of superiority.

[Woody Sound]

I just played my first gig with the Quilter Mach 3 after years of Mach 2 as my main amp for everything (mostly straight ahead jazz and a few pop gigs as well). The Mach 3 sounded great (so many setting though so I had to experiment a bit to find a sound I was looking for). Really clear and live sounding without being harsh or brittle at all. Open back feels quite different than the closed back of the Mach 2. I think I can definitely get used to it. Also only 21 lbs! I'm a happy camper

With the Mach 2, in my big band, the bass player and drummer behind me say I sound muddy to them, but in front it's bright and clear. I even had the bass player play my guitar in my seat and he couldn't believe the difference, how great it sounded in front. I am considering taking the back off, but I don't know if that would screw everything up.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

With the Mach 2, in my big band, the bass player and drummer behind me say I sound muddy to them, but in front it's bright and clear. I even had the bass player play my guitar in my seat and he couldn't believe the difference, how great it sounded in front. I am considering taking the back off, but I don't know if that would screw everything up.

There's a simple explanation for that. Low frequencies (below about 100 Hz (although older audio engineering texts say 200) are omnidirectional and disperse throughout the room with no acoustic evidence of the physical location of the source. Highs are quite directional and get around the room by reflection from surfaces. So the highs in your signal are attenuated by position behind the amp but the lows are not. Standing behind your closed back cab is effectively creating a mechanical low pass filter - the lows get aroud it but the highs are beaming forward.

Opening up the back of your cab will solve this problem but create others. We've discussed Thiele-Small parameters and cabinet design many times on JGO over the last year - they're still the general basis for design of guitar cabs, This summary from Premier Guitar (identical to many others easily found on the web) sums it up:

"A Qts of 0.4 or below indicates a speaker well-suited to a vented enclosure. A Qts between 0.4 and 0.7 indicates suitability for a sealed enclosure. A Qts of 0.7 or above indicates suitability for free-air, semiopen back or infinite baffle applications. However, there are certainly exceptions and you should consider all the parameters."

So if your driver has a Qts of about 0.7, you may get away with opening up the back - but you may also find that it sounds worse. The most serious danger of msimatching driver Q with enclosure design is that at high volume levels you can trigger a resonance in the driver that results in oscillation and damage to the speaker itself. It's rare, but it happens.

[st.bede]

With the Mach 2, in my big band, the bass player and drummer behind me say I sound muddy to them, but in front it's bright and clear. I even had the bass player play my guitar in my seat and he couldn't believe the difference, how great it sounded in front. I am considering taking the back off, but I don't know if that would screw everything up.

Here is an idea for a possible solution: ToneShield - Protect the Tone

I have not tried them. They claim to disperse the sound. If you end up trying them please let me know how well they work.

I have some thoughts about these issue that I have brought up in a separate thread.

Amp beaming and sound diffusors

[Lucy]

I've been really enjoying the Tonemaster Deluxe Reverb sold my ac10c1, Origin 20 n a few other amps when I got it been perfect for my home playing I think the video of Kirk Fletcher really shows it off well on YouTube on the Fender channel.

Didn't Wes end up playing solid state and BB king did as well from memory there's a few ep boost pedals that can be added to the Tonemaster to warm it up as well.

Hope this helps I stuck loads of clips of my beginner noodling at home volume on my instagram and there's some older clips of the ac10c1 an Marshall origin at the same volume. Lucyplaythatbluesguitar
The watt setting on the back has been super handy for being able to wind the volume up to simulate it on full tilt for some of the Peter green Danny kirwan fleetwood mac era stuff. I'd love one of the twin ones one day but heard they are a bit to loud compared to the Deluxe TM.

[rpjazzguitar]

Over the years I've owned several tube amps.

My 64 Reverberocket, purchased new. Probably my favorite. But, nowadays, it distorts chords a little bit in a way I don't like. Maybe it's the speaker, but more likely, the replacement tubes don't sound like the originals. Or, I don't remember things accurately, which is cerainly possible.

A Twin Reverb with JBLs. Might as well have weighed two tons. Very unpleasant to move. Also, very bright sounding pick attack, because of those JBLs I think.

Mesa Boogie Mark III. Dialed in properly, it sounded like a chorus of angels. But, if you needed a smidge more treble or something, be prepared to move every dial on the amp. Couldn't even use it in rehearsal because my bassist complained about the fan noise. And the fan was working like new. I had head and cab, because the combo unit felt like it was cabled to the center of the earth. Unpleasant to move.

Nowadays I've been both rehearsing and gigging with two amps, both SS. The Little Jazz and an original Roland Jazz Chorus 55. The JC55 is a little icy sounding, but not too bad. My main guitar (Comins GCS-1) is a little on the dark side, so maybe it's a good fit.

One of the best guitar sounds I ever heard was a Fender D'aquisto archtop into a Twin. But, another one of the greatest sounds I ever heard was an AER Compact 60 supported by some additional gear that I don't remember specifically.

[jazzkritter]

This is a guess, but based on what i knew from Tal back then when travel to the gig was involved the guys would have in their contracts ‘the club shall provide a TR (whatev) or equivalent yada yada’ so i think up to easy portable days they relied on the back line. Wes did Magnatone ads IIRC? So they may have drop shipped?
However i bet Mr King had a couple of road apes tugging that Lab 5 around for him! Endorsement + use = $$$
?

[Woody Sound]

Here is an idea for a possible solution: ToneShield - Protect the Tone

Looks very interesting.

[jorgemg1984]

Comparing, say, a Polytone to a Twin Reverb and saying tubes sound better doesn't make much sense. The biggest difference between any "jazz amp" and a tube Fender amp is not topology (tubes vs ss) but tone stack (scooped fender vs flat baxandall) and cab (bass speaker in a small ported closed cab vs guitar speakers in a big open back cab).

I once plugged a Fender Jazzmaster Ultralight head (solid stat circuit that "mimics" a Fender scooped tone stack) trough a big 2x12 Dr Z cab with Jensen Speakers and was surprised how close it sounded to a Twin. Played trough a Barber Barb EQ (solid state pedal that can recriate a Fender preamp in blackface mode with the mids at 0) with an IR of a Twin Reverb trough a PA many times, and, again, hard to tell the difference to a miced Twin. It's there, but small.

Haven't tried the new Fender Tone Master but i bet they sound very close to the originals. Again, same tone stack and same cab, only topology changes (solid state digital vs tubes). I bet the same is true for same of the new Quilters with a Fender "voice" and an open-back cab with a Jensen Tornado.

The main problem for solid state amps is still speakers - you need an high power amp for solid sate to sound good and most good guitar speakers for cleans don't handle high watts, because tube amps are usually not very powerful. I guess these new Jensen neo speakers handle more than their rated 100w and they sound much better than the typical Eminence Beta.

[Bebop Tom]

[QUOTE=jorgemg1984;1215017]Comparing, say, a Polytone to a Twin Reverb and saying tubes sound better doesn't make much sense. The biggest difference between any "jazz amp" and a tube Fender amp is not topology (tubes vs ss) but tone stack (scooped fender vs flat baxandall) and cab (bass speaker in a small ported closed cab vs guitar speakers in a big open back cab).

As an owner of an original 1965 Twin Reverb, an Ampeg Gemini II, and a Polytone Mini Brute IV, I completely disagree with this. The tube amps are richer and respond differently. I do not recall any tube amp manufacturer marketing their amps as "sounds just like solid state." The Polytone is lightweight, so I used it as a backup to throw in my car for gigs.

[Jazz_175]

@Bebop Tom: I don't think he meant to say that there is no difference between the two types of amps, just that the difference comes from the "tone stack" (maybe a simple explanation of what it means might be necessary) and the type of cab used.

[JWMandy]

If you're still after the tone of a tube in a light weight package, maybe something like this would work:

Chumpola Combo Amp | Luxe-Tone Amplifiers

Package is supposed to weigh in at 6 pounds. At $800, it's not cheap but custom. Sound is anyone's guess. I look at it every now and then and wonder "what if?"

[jorgemg1984]

Exactly. You're comparing things that can't be compared. There are much bigger differences betwen your polytone and your fender than "tubes vs ss", which is a simplification of the question. Your Ampeg, on the other hand, shares a similiar tone stack with the Polytone - but, still, completelty different cabs.

I'm not saying tubes and solid state sound the same, I'm saying most of the times people are comparing things that can't be compared. The fair way to do the comparison would be getting a Fender preamp pedal, (like the Barb Eq, but there are others), a good spring reverb pedal, a neutral "jazz amp" head and a big 2x12 cab with Jensens. Then play it side by side with a Twin. They would sound different still, I guess, but much less than people expect.

[st.bede]

I think the difference between tube and ss, are mostly heard in the edge of breakup sound. Not so much in the cleans or heavy distortion. I think in the cleans, and heavy distortion, the other factors make the differences.

I can not remember how much the tonemaster gets the edge of breakup sound nailed, except that it works well enough for me. When doing that with a twin (or deluxe) it is a pretty loud sound. In that way, even if the TM is not perfect, it is better because, how often am I really able to use an amp at its’ glorious sound... not too often.

[Woody Sound]

Remember these badass Acoustic amps? Both bass and guitar. And dig the white platform shoes.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Package is supposed to weigh in at 6 pounds.

A CS Champ weighs 15 pounds. I wonder where the 9 pounds went. The cab’s slightly smaller, but it’s the same pine (presumably) and it’s not that much smaller. An unloaded Champ cab weighs 7+ pounds, and I can’t imagine more than half a pound of wood was eliminated unless the Luxe-Tone cab is not wood (which is unlikely, since they make their own). The Weber weighs 2 lb 4 oz - so the rest of it weighs 3 lb 12 oz ??

Most of the weight other than the cabinet is metal - transformers, speaker, chassis and hardware. Only the transformers weigh enough to save much, and iron is power and tone in a tube amp. So how could it weigh 6 pounds?

[JWMandy]

So how could it weigh 6 pounds?

Excellent question. I know nothing about these folks other than what Mr. Google found and the little they post on their website.

[vintagelove]

There is no doubt my bfsr sounds better than my Polytone, but if you use an eq pedal with a poly, you can get a very familiar fender’y sound, as well as a huge volume boost if you want it.

[JWMandy]

BTW, I relayed your question to Luxe-Tone. Maybe we'll hear back?

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

BTW, I relayed your question to Luxe-Tone. Maybe we'll hear back?

Cool! I was going to call them yesterday, but I couldn’t find a contact number. I figured that a message probably wouldn’t elicit much info on components, construction etc, but I could be wrong. Thanks for trying - I (probably along with everyone else here) hope an informative answer is forthcoming.