Tube Amps Vs. Solid State….Why?…

[EZYPIKINS]

I went SS in the 80's, like most did to have less weight. For an electric guitar amp.

Every attempt to lighten the load, always resulted in tone loss. A sort of staleness. Also with digital pedals.

When I started getting serious about recording. The Tubes, and analogue pedals all came back.

[SpruceTop]

Then again, it's kind of simple and everyone should ask themselves, "Why are solid-state amps trying to emulate tube tone?"

[Mbroady]

I could live with some of the SS (modeling) amps that have come out recently. They don’t sound bad. But they do not sound like the amps that they are trying to model. So putting aside the price to manufacturing cost ratios, the purists, like my self, are willing to pay more For the tube sound.

One can take it a bit further. Some folks are willing to pay more for all hand wired as compared to circuit board tube amps.
I’m Ok with the newer tube amps

[rmp]

Originally Posted by EZYPIKINS

I went SS in the 80's, like most did to have less weight. For an electric guitar amp.

Every attempt to lighten the load, always resulted in tone loss. A sort of staleness. Also with digital pedals.

When I started getting serious about recording. The Tubes, and analogue pedals all came back.

amen to all that.

it's why I still have marshalls.

[rokdog49]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

You're getting a bit of misinformation here, so I'd suggest you do just a bit of reading to get good answers to your questions. The simple answers to why many prefer tube amps as well as why tube amps can sound so much louder for the same wattage rating as a solid state amp is really a function of how they amplify and how they distort as the level is increased. (Tube amps clip in a pleasant manner due to producing even order harmonics vs. the odd order harmonics of a solid state amp.)

HERE is a 5 minute read that explains it in a few simple and easy to understand paragraphs.

I think Rudy4 has covered it.
That being said, I own a Vox “Pathfinder R” solid state amp that dates back to the early 2000’s. It is 15 watts, has volume attenuation and will effectively produce various degrees of distortion at low as well as high volume levels if desired.

I doubt anyone could tell the difference between it and say a 15 watt tube amp.

In terms of loudness, I’ve gigged with it many times including in a band scenario.
It will stand up pretty well volume-wise and has a “line out” so I can go to a mixer and a PA if necessary.

[jonfields45]

Even harmonics rapidly become mostly non-musical just like odd. They are not all octaves. And the lower odd harmonics are musical (3rd harmonic is an octave plus fifth, the fifth harmonic is an two octaves plus a major third). Ultimately you get buzzing if you let the higher odd or even harmonics pass.

A Tube Screamer, Klon Centaur, etc. are examples of a bandpass filter followed by hard clipping, and then a tone control (low pass filter) being quite musical.

There are many differences in the frequency response of tube and solid state amps which are all perfectly model-able these days.

The list of tube amp non-linearities are also easy enough to model.

You can find Tone Masters on stage with many aggressive tube fans. BTW, half of a Tone Master's internal compute power is assigned to the spring reverb with the amp model splitting the rest with the mic'ed cabinet IR line output. The tube amp modeling does not appear to even be the hard part.

However, for many users there are two big impediments. First they can see there is not a tube amp in front of them.

Second, the preamps of tube amps use cathode DC biasing with a capacitor strapped across that bias resistor. That makes the amp's behavior dependent on how that capacitor and tube age. When people complain the model distorts at "3" and my amp doesn't distort until to something higher, I am guessing one or more of those bypass capacitors in their reference amp is aging towards dramatically less capacitance (less AC gain as a result).

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Jim Comeaux

O.K., I understand that some/most/many people believe that tube type amps produce much truer audio amplification than solid state amps do. That is not my point here. What I am asking about is the power levels that these two species of amps spit out. It boggles my mind that a 15 watt tube amp will typically cost many hundreds of dollars more than a similarly rated solid state amp. I can accept that the tube amp design may incorporate much, much more expensive components than a solid state device, but what about the power? My bass practice amp is @ solid state 40 watt operation that I paid about $250 for. An equivalently powered tube amp would have cost me well over $1,200, and what would I get for it? What I am asking is why is it that people will pay thousands of dollars for a tube type amp when there are modeling amps and even pedals that will mimic the performance of ANY amp cabinet with equivalent power on the planet for 1/4 the price. Just where is the application for this? Am I missing something? Is there another piece to this puzzle that I am omitting?

Hi Jim…
Analog versus solid-state.

When recording studios were signal-to-tape, a slight bit of distortion from a tube amp (or even on the mixer) made some musical things sound slightly better (we told ourselves that). Overdriving an electric guitar with slight distortion could produce a nice smooth sound.

When solid-state came along, we could still overdrive things, but we lost that 'soft edge' and overdrive became more strident. So did the music.

Fender tube amps specialized on very clean non-distorted sound, and they've had to change their amps over time to include intentional distortion. But they are open back amps, so it affects the bass and the way it interacts with mids and trebles, which makes them difficult to harness for acoustic amplification (voice or acoustic guitars).

With the advent of sealed amps with a woofer/driver and high frequency 'tweeters' (and even 3 way cabs), we reproduce acoustic guitars more accurately. But now we get into which pickups reproduce acoustic tone more accurately.

Some consider a guitar combined with a high end microphone (Ear Trumpet is popular), through a high end multi-speaker-cabinet array better than using a pickup and solid state amp.

For me it came down to what the audience perceives. I've gone all the routes listed. Mics only, mics (internal or external combined with pickups), and only pickups.

These days I use a ToneDexter driven by an internal K&K Pure Mini (a sound board transducer pickup), played through the house system (no amp on stage) and the sound is very natural.

By the way, I play my 1993 American Strat Plus through a $350 multi-processor (no other pedals), directly into the house system with no stage monitor.

Back to audiences. They are there to hear/experience the music, not my instrument. My choice of pickups and amps is for ME not them. The only time I use a small amp is in small venues (coffee house with 5-6 tables for instance).

When I'm happy with the sound, I play better and more relaxed. Most audiences don't really care.

[PineMarten]

I'm not sure if comparing the value of different amps by watt rating alone is that useful. Most 15 watt solid state combos are intended as low budget home practice amps, and will have a cheap, small magnet 8“ speaker in a particle board cabinet with an amp section built with cost cutting in mind, while typical 15 watt valve combos have a much higher quality 10" or 12“ and are usually pitched as pro/semi pro amps for club gig or recording situations.
Increasing the amp power output is relatively inexpensive to do with solid state amps, so there isn't an obvious place in the market for a high quality 15 watt solid state amp when you can do 50 watts at the desired price point. If you compare a good quality solid state 1x12“ combo like a Quilter to some of the similar sized valve combo amps, the price points get a lot closer.

[Peter Z]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

Then again, it's kind of simple and everyone should ask themselves, "Why are solid-state amps trying to emulate tube tone?"

Almost! There is the Roland Jazz Chorus and there are some good Solid State jazz amps. All have their own sound.

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by Peter Z

Almost! There is the Roland Jazz Chorus and there are some good Solid State jazz amps. All have their own sound.

Yes, the Roland Jazz Chorus is a wonderful amp! I should have added in my comment that there must be something nice about tube tone that encourages manufacturers to try to emulate in some of their solid-state amps whatever it is that tubes render to tone.

[nostatic]

Road worthiness depends on the quality of design, components, and construction. Tubes don’t magically make an amp roadworthy, and solid state or modeling doe not doom an amp to fragility.

Fwiw I’ve gigged all variants for both bass and guitar. I’ve had tube amps fail on a gig, I’ve had solid state emit magic smoke as well. One difference is that some (not all) tubes amps are fairly repairable where as some (not all) solid state amps are disposable. I will say that solid state amps have typically been more tonally consistent on gigs. Tubes can be a bit cantankerous, but ymmv.

Modeling has come a long way - I get the impression that some who dismiss it haven’t tried some of the current stuff like Fractal played through a good frfr cab. I really didn’t like modeling (except some good software plugins) up until recently. I was ready to buy a boutique tube amp but decided to go modeling and am quite happy. Way lighter load in/out, no worry about crappy Chinese tubes failing, and I have most amp model available at my fingertips. It is a different way of working to get your sound and you have to plan ahead and learn the gear. But there is an upside if you do, and now I’m not slower tweaking a “pedal” on the fly with the Fractal than I am with my analog board.

At the end of the day, play what you love. But there is a lot of dogma and tradition amongst gear heads, and almost everyone hears with their eyes to some degree.

[Peter Z]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

Yes, the Roland Jazz Chorus is a wonderful amp! I should have added in my comment that there must be something nice about tube tone that encourages manufacturers to try to emulate in some of their solid-state amps whatever it is that tubes render to tone.

Tube amps are, or better can sound absolutely wonderful. But there’s also Jimmy Page who recorded Black Dog (and maybe other songs) ampless into two Urei 1176 in series to get his distorted sound, Nile Rogers loved to record direct into a mixing desk and BB King played his Lab Series L5 transistor amp for decades.
Those guy have been self confident enough to not follow the main road. And most listeners wouldn’t have an idea that no tubes were involved in their recordings.

That said, you are right, 99% of players ask for a tube amp and therefore 99% of digital amps try to reproduce that sound.

[HogsNRoses]

Back to the loudness question - do manufacturers measure power differently- e.g. RMS versus peak?

For example, I had a 100w SS bass amp. The label said it drew about 30W from the wall. Powerful bass amps are the same. A 1000w bass amp might draw 100-200W. A perpetual motion machine!

My 50W tube amp draws about 150W, IIRC.

A more important factor is speaker efficiency. Eminence used to make a line of acoustic speakers with an efficiency of about 92dB/W. Their electric guitar speakers for an open back tube cabinet run about 98dB/W. It takes four times the power to make up that 6dB, so a 25W RMS tube amp = a 100W RMS acoustic amp. That’s assuming the sealed or ported cabinet in an acoustic amp doesn’t steal even more efficiency.

You might hear someone say the first watt is what matters, and speaker efficiency reveals why.

[dnf777]

Let me add this angle- in my situation, I cant dial up mu tube amps to really hit their sweet spots in terms of tube clipping/distortion….but with my ToneMaster I easily model the exact sound and feel I want, at a much more reasonable volume level.

For acoustic amplification, its Fishman or Genz-Benz all day. Cant understand why anyone makes an acoustic tube amp nowadays.

[HogsNRoses]

Sorry to conflate speakers and tubes, but they usually go together. For instance, I have a 2W stereo amp - it’s “Hi-Fi” in quotes. The perfect companion to it would be high efficiency full range speakers like this:

https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...344?quantity=1

They produce almost 95dB/W, enough to bring the house down. Many/most speakers designed for SS Hi-Fi have an efficiency below 90dB/W. For bookshelf speakers, I’ve seen a lot at about 85dB/W, so you need eight times the RMS power.

Imagine putting one of these in your Loudbox mini. It would turn your amp into a LOUDbox mini!