I'm sorry to say that, but "all tubes preamp" won't make much difference. You need a tube power amp to make a difference, and a Shure SM-57 Mic, for instance, or one of the large capsule condensers like AKG C-214 or SE 2200A for a huge sound.

Rather save some more and buy a decent power amp. REALLY.

Yeah, I know they don't come cheap. But the difference is worth it IMHO.

Just my 1.5 humble c...

Haha, that should be your sig file Hink. Brilliant. I have a similar relationship with my wife except substitute tats with vacations or Michelin star restaurants. To be fair, she gets almost no benefit from my G.A.S. and I do get something out of nice times.

Love it! That's the attitude!

How dare you! I will counter your post by posting this!

http://procatinator.com/?cat=31

I agree and I dont, just power tubes are not the answer imo either...Like I have said before I bought my marshall 9000 pre-amp (all tube) many years ago, thought it was my dream amp and still have yet to like it more than "it's better than nothing". Today's small tube amps are have some hidden gems for the home recording artist and well worth looking at.

The problem for ZC is that his home is not in a good location for miking a cab (I lived this way from 1996-2010 as well), it's the outside noise that is the biggest problem. Which means a nice condenser will make matters worse and trust me this is a crappy situation to be in.

Also ot a bit but if one should choose to use an iso cab like I am at my new(ish) location beware, putting a nice condenser in the cab and cranking the amp might kill the mic. Fortunately one of my three condensers has a pad (Gauge ECM-87, condensers in a room is good, in a cab very risky

This is another aspect of the "round and round." No matter what you talk about, here, but even more so on GearSlutz, someone will ultimately tell you that if you don't have the full deal, stay home. If we were talking about synths it would be "get a model D, they're expensive but worth it." For me, there is always somewhat of a compromise. I guess we all have to compromise in one way or another.

So I guess I ask, "where should I put the money to do the most damage?" I figured start preamp because with my current set up it would be a working solution and I could easily add an amp and iso cab at a later time.

Going with the Hughes and Kettner is interesting because there would be only one step I'd need to take. I've listened to a lot of demos of the Randall Iso cab and IMO it sounds great... I hesitate because although I've heard some great Tubemeister 18 demos, the redbox out ones were less than stellar, and it seems like all the e530 demos sounded fantastic... well at least the ones that are well recorded.

Which leads me to my next rant: Dear people of Earth: Do not make product demos that involve you blathering about nothing for a length of time, or showing how a product gets taken out of a package and then use the mic on your iPhone to show how something sounds.

maybe IK should come out with a couple of modeled tube power amps

Oops, sorry, I won't bring up the Kemper again.


Yup, one and done, AND you'll get a pretty good amp out of the deal, as well.


Agreed, that video you posted sounds great. Do it.

Haha, that Kemper looks like a piece of hospital equipment! Not to say it sounds good, or bad, just that it looks funny to me.

I've had the JMP-1, Sansamp PSA1 and they both had good tones. I guess it depends on exactly which tones you are gravitating towards. Phil Collen w/ Def Lep uses a JMP-1 in his stage rig if that means anything to you. When I ran the rack gear qite a few years back they ran through a PV Classic power amp - the one with a ton of tubes. The power amp made as much of an impact on the sound as the pre did.

You can do as you please but for me it took getting back to a whole amp to do it for me. I now run a Zinky MoFO head into a Zinky 2x12 cab w/ one Celestion V-30 and one gt-75 (both English made...mmmhm, an English maid...uh, I digress!)I also have a 1x12 sealed cab and a 1x12 Thiele cab both w/ different speakers. It's not really rocket science to mic and amp and man the sounds (and inspired playing feel) you get is awesome.

I guess my setup may seem complicated to you though.

What about the Mesa Boogie preamps?

Good luck w/ your search!

There's really only the triaxis or the recto. The Recto maybe has an edge on the Engl as far as variety goes but it's a lot (3x) more expensive. The triaxis is another league, price wise.


ZC, you saw that the Engl has speaker compensation and a 2x1.5 Watt headphone amp that can can drive a regular guitar cab (see "tip 7" on page 3 of the manual http://www.engl-amps.com/cms/uploads/tx_ddfproducts/OM_E530_ Tube_Preamp.pdf). That's pretty cool. (Be sure to follow the instructions though)

Damn you! I missed this post initially. Yeah, I want one of those so bad. If I got it though, it would mean putting off buying a new computer until Christmas... or maybe longer. I do have a couple of Tube pedals. A Blackstar HT-5 Duel Distortion that Dean recommended and it does sound good in front of Amplitube. I actually have a Vox Cooltron Bulldog on it's way, but that's deemed to go on the output of an analog synth.

I love the way the Kemper looks! Maybe it'll make a "PING" sound! That would rule. Looks sci-fi to me, and I dig that.

Mesa Boogie stuff seems out of my price range if I want to get a new computer as well... if not I may as well go Kemper.

Complicated rig? HA! BRING IT. You don't know the half of it. I had a gig in the 80s which involved helping Laurie Anderson and her band set up! My rig used to be so complicated (part of it was a Roland based GR set up) that I'd get to a gig an hour early just to set up. That's not my problem. My real amp issues come from two things. A) I use an audio looper. This can work in an effects loop pretty well, but if you're running a hot power amp you can distort your loops. This can sound nice but not all the time. Doing it post mic creates feedback issues.

More importantly, I live in a condo next to a major Amtrack train line. My play time is usually from 8 to 10 pm and that's the time my wife uses to watch TV shows that depict horrible things happening to people in hospitals while good looking doctors try to fix them and half sex with the other good looking doctors. She's only a floor away so I can't really crank it, in fact I usually use headphones. Also, neighbors... and trains. Sometimes I get these metal on metal sounds... I have no idea what they're doing but it's crazy noise... kind of beautiful in a NIN song intro kind of way. But you get the idea.
Last edited by zerocrossing on Sat May 12, 2012 4:55 am; edited 1 time in total

OK kids, I'm off for a little "holiday" as they say over the pond. I'll probably be afk for the next week but I just wanted to say I really appreciate all the help and suggestions. I might not be able to respond much but trust me I read all the posts and consider everything.

I too have a lot of experience here (was in retail for years and I'm old), have you ever seen the Carvin Quad X Pre-amp?

http://www.bazaar-world.com/guitar-amp-9006-Carvin-Quad-X-AL L-TUBE-Preamp-Rack-Mount

4 channels, 9 pre-amp tubes...imo better than the Boogie imo (and I'm a Boogie lover, I have an old Mesa/Boogie S.O.B. 100 watt head), much better that the Marshall 9000 I have...I still regret not trading in my 9000 for this when I worked retail. As I recall I didn't because the boss would have known my pre-amp and we were not allowed to buy used gear from the store unless it had made the rounds of all 4 stores and didn't sell. Typically I worked around this selling gear to my alter ego in the computer "Roland Dube".

pretty cool pre-amp though if you can find one.

So... I've come to the conclusion that I don't think I'll be happy half assing this endeavor. I'm going full ass!

Do I go Kemper or pod hd500/dt25/Randall iso cab? It'll probably never leave my studio.