FRENZEL FM guitar pre-amp, in the house (with first impressions)

[Hink]

Yes I saw that on ebay.

Hink, you mean "but even without the power amp", I guess...

both actually, it works as just a pre-amp with or without the 2 watt power amp it can also run in your instrument chain like a guitar pedal would.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

It is the super versatile uses which appeal to me also stanlea, it is a genuine all round useful box and if John says it is good and works alone and also with his Egnator and Boogie (both infront or in the FX Loop) then i will now doubt go for one. You had to mention the demon one though didn't you? The gain craving hoe that i am makes me want to investigate that one :X

Looking forwards to hearing what it brings to the table Hink

Dean

[trimph1]

Got the cash in my paypal now I's be sending it...

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Some feedback from your own experience with one i would like to hear trimph1 man

[Hink]

why do I always think 'sure it says 4-6 weeks but mine will be early' ..2 weeks and counting, but I' sure it will be here soon

[Dean Aka Nekro]

You have been spoilt with great shipping J man and 6 weeks would destroy you after such good times. I think 4 weeks you will cope with

[Hink]

I have plenty to keep me busy and thanx to technology I dont have to be like I was years ago...'I'll wait to record that guitar part until I get XXXXXX'. Thanx to my re-amper and how I record I can just re-amp later if I want to use the Frenzel

[Hink]

my above math was off, it will be six weeks Friday...I'm still okay if it takes a week or two more but I have to admit I am getting a little anxious (I check my email like 20 times a day)

[tapper mike]

If you are into stereo tube pre amp an electribe emx could also be an interesting tool
http://youtu.be/YfIM_4LvuRo

[chokehold]

I can't remember who asked it, and I'm too lazy to read back right now...
The blurbs say "high impedance input" and "low impedance output" - what that means is: you can plug your guitar in and get line level out the other end.

*************

Preamble: I love the theory, but don't get the physics behind it. I'm a guitarist, not a scientist. So if I mix up Watts and Volts and stuff... sorry! Feel free to correct me.
Also, I know this is quite a read, but if you're a guitarist looking for "professional tube sound" and didn't know all of the following already - you should.

*************

I guess the reason why this has stirred so little interest is probably the fact that this is a tube preamp. Not a tube (power) amp.

It appears to be just like all the hyped "tubes" that are in the little fancy mic preamps by Behringer, Presonus, etc.
These mic preamps (mainly) use a parallel circuit, in which the signal is actually 1) amplified by some non-tube circuitry, 2) split in two and 3) one of signals is sent through the probably magically glowing tube, in the end 4) you can probably blend in the amount of "tube" by some poti that does nothing but mix or balance the clean amplified signal against the "dirty" signal that was sent through the tube.

Which isn't responsible for that "tube sound" at all, because they have low voltage running through their tubes: they just add grit and dirt to the signal, but they don't really saturate and distort it.

SPL, I believe, have tube mic preamps that run 50V or 110V (or something like that) through their tubes, that's helluva lot more, enough current to really "drive" the tube, make it saturate and really use their full potential.

Also: don't mix up preamp and power amp!
A preamp takes a REALLY low voltage signal, like coming from a microphone or a guitar pickup, and amplifies this REALLY low voltage signal to a not-so-low voltage signal so that is in a range which is commonly called "line level".

Connecting a line level output to a (passive) speaker (like in guitar cabinets) will result in an EXTREMELY low volume signal, if any sound at all.
So to amplify the line level signal once more, one uses a thing called a "power amp", that thing will wreak havoc and pump the hardly audible line level signal to a voltage high enough so that it can drive a passive speaker.

That's where the Watts comes in: a low-watted power amp won't push the signal as loud as a higher-watted power amp. So if you hook up a 12" 100W speaker to a fitting 2W power amp, you WILL have audible sound, and it won't be really loud - which seems convenient for home/bedroom use. If you, of course, hook that same 100W speaker up to a 100W amp, that'll probably produce enough volume to blow your neighbour's ears off.

BUT!
Again, the tube thing. A tube power amp will only "sound nice" and develop its distinctive character when driven hard enough. It's when the tube is fired up and has a REALLY hot signal running through it, that it starts chopping off the waves' tops (~distortion) and adding some really audible harmonics (~saturation).

So a low-watted power amp will "do the trick" of raising line level to speaker level, but it won't be able to utilize all the tube's potential as it will only put a low amount of power through it.
And there goes the dream of getting studio tube amp sound in the bedroom.

Only the high-(enough)-watted amps, that really drive some fiery signal through their tube(s), that push every little Volt or Watt through it, will develop enough tube distortion and introduce enough tube-generated harmonics to the signal to generate the distinctive "tube sound" we all know.

Think about the case of the oh-so-legendary Ibanez Tube Screamer.
Why d'you think it's called that? Because there's tubes in there? Hell no!

Quote from Wikipedia:

The circuit uses transistor buffers at both the input and the output. The overdrive is produced using a variable gain op-amp circuit with matched diodes in the feedback circuit to produce soft, symmetrical clipping of the input waveform. The overdrive stage is followed by a simple low-pass filter and active tone control circuit and volume control.

In other words: NO TUBES IN THERE. ALL FET/SOLID STATE.

It's just a fancy self-clipping gain pedal, sort-of a "distortion channel in a box".
A pedal that distorts a guitar's signal BEFORE it runs through the preamp and BEFORE the power amp.
A Tube Screamer is played through the CLEAN channel of the preamp, as there's no need to distort the guitar's signal any more in the preamp stage, it's already been distorted in the pedal. With no tube distortion.
That then, driving the hell out of the tube power amp, results in instant guitarist heaven.

Knowing that, read the part about low-voltage tubes at the beginning of this text again, and go figure how much a low-voltage distortion stage will "tubify" your sound.
It won't at all. It'll just add hiss and dirt.

Another aspect most people ignore, but which plays an important role in "professional" sound, is membrane movement.
That is: how much does the speaker's membrane move back and forth when "making sound".
A slightly moving membrane will do exactly what it was designed for: produce a clean signal. It's only a membrane that is driven with such high volume levels, that it runs out of "air" to move back and forth and starts, in its own distinctive way, to distort the signal even more.

Some may find this membrane distortion pleasant, some may not.
Either way: a 2W bedroom power amp will NOT have enough force to move the usual 12" speaker enough to make it distort.

Thanks for reading.
You may skip the rest of this post.

[Hink]

caleb82, you are aware that a 50 watt amp is twice as loud as a 5 watt amp right? It's not 10x as loud, the difference between a 50 watt amp and 100 watt is barely noticeable. You cannot compare 2 watts solidstate to two watts from a tube amp. You're right, you need to drive power tubes to get the best sound from them, often a 50 watt amp or even a 20 watt amp at full volume is going to be wat to loud. This is the appeal of the new lower wattage tubes amp that are out there now (like the 5 watt blackstar) you do not need to drive the neighbors out of town to maximize your tone. Typically speaking you will have a hard time saturating power tubes in a 50 or 100 watt head unless you can turn it to ungodly volume levels.

As for the theory that it wont push a 12" speaker, well that's mistaken as well. I have Egnater Reber amp, 3 key features of this amp is

1. 1-20 watt tube power amp
2. it utilizes both el34 power tubes and 6v6 power tubes and you can blend between the two or have just one or the other
3. it has an fx loop which sits between the pre-amp and power amp. Using the fx return sends the signal directly to the power amp.

In this case of the Frenzel, yes it's a pre-amp. It's a handwired pre-amp without any circuit boards what so ever (in no way can this be compared to a presonus or other tube pres you mention...please read the difference quoted below and fwiw I have a presonus bluetube as well so I understand exactly what you are saying). It utilizes a coomon guitar amp tone stack. It is not a pedal nor can it be compared to one. This can be run into the fx return of the Rebel which conviently has the power section of both Marshall and Fender as well. It can be run into a guitar amp input similar to a pedal but it can behave more like adding a second gain stage that many amps have. Though rarely will I use the added two watt power amp tube let me assure you that my Egnater set to a 1 watt output is more that enough to drive my 4x12 (loaded with vintage G35 Celestions in it) to the point where the neighbors in my apartment building will be complaining especially as I turn up the gain. I run my Eganter through a Ted Weber power attenuator which uses a speaker motor (with no cone) inside to maximize how the amp reacts (you can hear it slightly and feel it vibrate). I need to do this so I can crank up the amp enough to get the best tone from the power tubes without being too loud and that's with it set to about 12 o'clock on the power control*.

The preamp uses two 12AX7's with DC on the filaments for low noise. The first 12AX7 is wired as a dual input preamp…one Type F input for the vintage smooth warm "F" tones and one Type M input for the classic vintage "M" high mid rock tones. Each input has separate gain controls for each preamp section. The second 12AX7 is a common voltage amplifier with a cathode follower to drive the tone stack. The three band tone stack was designed by the "tube amp God" so no improvements there….but we did add a Master volume. With this tone stack and Gain and Master control combination you can get just about any sound you want.....including great clean tones…or the classic tube preamp distortion that the vintage tube amps are famous for. Also, for you Bass and hollow-body guitar players a Deep Bass Boost pull-switch has been added on the F Gain control to give that Bassman 864 contour for those deep bass tones; and a Bright Switch on the M Gain control for sparkling Treble tones. There is a Trim control on the rear panel to match the input drive level of the amp you are using it with.

That is the description of this pre-amp from the page.

I'm not sure if you know who Frenzel is but he has been building amps for longer than I have been playing http://www.frenzeltubeamps.com/ I'm not sure what your point is about this not 'stirring up interest' is. Check out his page and see if you still think it has not stirred up interest. It has stirred up interest in this thread.

A tube pre-amp is key to a good tube tone just like a tube power amp, I also own a Mesa boogie SOB and I have a Marshall 9000 tube pre-amp. I do run my Marshall into the return on the Egnater and it sounds better than the Marshall has with any other combination I have used it in (I use to use it with a CS400 with my cab wired to stereo @4ohms). If you read the quote above you'll see where this pre will also excel in this area.


You may run your tubescreamer through a clean channel and yes it often is used that way, but it also used to overdrive the pre-amp section of a tube amp. I have always used something with tube amps to 'excite' the pre-amp tubes in this manner going back to my first tube amps though the first time I really 'got it' was when I ran one of those cheap mxr 6 band eq pedals into my plexi and it was a monster (but noisy). That's when I started putting pre-amps in my guitars (circa 1982) just for the OD I got. I do not have a tubescreamer but will sooner or later be building a tubescreamer kit. I do use an MXR dist+ and if I turn the distortion down I can use it as an overdrive but I more often use mt digitech blues screamer with the drive pushed up and the gain (dist) very, very low.

For the record in 40 years of playing and several years of retail I have owned and used many, many tube amps. As far as owning, a plexi, another Mesa Boogie SOB, an Ampeg V4, an Ampeg B55, a silver face bassman, a Fender Blues Jr. and my first amp my father built from an old ham radio amp...no more than two watts. The only Hybrid that I liked was a Musciman because I know that it's the combination of power and pre-amp tubes that gives me the tone I like. (as I am typing this I am thinking about hose Tusc amps that were hybrids, I wanted one until I played one...awful)

I'm well aware of what I am buying, why I am buying it and what me expectations are...and I have no doubt it will do just what I want.

EDIT: *the power control on the egnater, not the attenuator

[Hink]

btw check out some of the cabinets people have built for their Frenzels like this one



http://www.frenzeltubeamps.com/id39.html

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Somewhat true and alot of extremely presumtious possiblities as FACTS.

A One Watt All-Valve Amp. You will have to take my word for it that this thing is loud when maxed out and sounds big through a 4x12" 400 Watt Cab Caleb or try it yourself man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enaYgJesWeM&fmt=18

A 1/2 Watt All-Valve Amp. You will have to take my word for it that this thing is rather loud when maxed out, Plenty to record with and does a good job of nailing a decent AC/DC sound through a typical marshall 1960AV 4x12" Cab:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLOZHodvBs&fmt=18

Not tried any of these but i am willing to bet plenty loud for recording:

Surprise Sound Lab Rock Block 1 Watt All-Valve:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8etg9XhFHs&fmt=18
&
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL0tnjEl7nw&fmt=18

A Comparisson of the Nano Amp and Rock Block, not the greatest sound quality but they both some air as can be heard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvnottwizeE&fmt=18

A DIY 1 watter, not my sort of amp preference but for some stlyes it would definately work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh-fkgGoQMk&fmt=18

A Variation of the above, I like this one alot more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87fuVQT78ao&fmt=18

Your "Theory" be either under or over biased methinks you better go get your multi-meter out man

Nekro

[Dean Aka Nekro]

btw check out some of the cabinets people have built for their Frenzels like this one



http://www.frenzeltubeamps.com/id39.html

boutique with a capital B, That housing is really nice work. To fancy for me but still eye candy. When i hear your own Frenzel i hope it sounds as good as that looks but with more venom if required.

The tubescreamer or any varient for me works best inside the Boss NS-2's loop set drive 1-3, Tone - Taste/depends on your own tonestack settings and volume - Maxed, the amp is already set fairly high-gain but not as much as some would think and the overdrive is much more an boost with some overdrive. Although it works differently for different players. Compared with the Dist+ you will be getting i would think more versatility and for want of a a ballpark comparison less Randy Rhoads more Zakk Wlyde type of saturation but this is only expanding your pallete as a tubescreamer is very nasal into a clean amp i find where the Dist+ into a clean amp would think will give a fuller sound. You can even cascade both if they are in that NS-2's loop for a bit of both and it should work pending that you have each set at more conservative settings. All good dirty fun anyway dude

[Hink]

btw check out some of the cabinets people have built for their Frenzels like this one



http://www.frenzeltubeamps.com/id39.html

boutique with a capital B, That housing is really nice work. To fancy for me but still eye candy. When i hear your own Frenzel i hope it sounds as good as that looks but with more venom if required.

The tubescreamer or any varient for me works best inside the Boss NS-2's loop set drive 1-3, Tone - Taste/depends on your own tonestack settings and volume - Maxed, the amp is already set fairly high-gain but not as much as some would think and the overdrive is much more an boost with some overdrive. Although it works differently for different players. Compared with the Dist+ you will be getting i would think more versatility and for want of a a ballpark comparison less Randy Rhoads more Zakk Wlyde type of saturation but this is only expanding your pallete as a tubescreamer is very nasal into a clean amp i find where the Dist+ into a clean amp would think will give a fuller sound. You can even cascade both if they are in that NS-2's loop for a bit of both and it should work pending that you have each set at more conservative settings. All good dirty fun anyway dude

that's pretty much how I see it