Incredible Guitar Tube Drives

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hink wrote: I now use a Marshall 3 channel, stereo tube pre-amp (3 12ax7's). That has an Alesis midiverb4 in the loop (stereo loop) and I have the pre going into an Aphex aurel exciter. That rig is powered by a 400 watt power amp and my 4x12 (celestion G35's) is wired for stereo and down to 4 ohms.
Sort of similar set-up here.. except my power amp is only rated 40 watts! (20 per channel)

:shock:

Loudest 40 watts I've ever heard! I've NEVER felt I needed any more power: even on large out-door festival stages I always felt there was more there if I needed it (not the case with the 100 watt Marshall I used before it btw.) I've even jammed along to 10K sound systems at free parties without mic'ing my cab, and still cut through loud & clear!

Its not quantity its quality thats important!

I wouldn't dream of sticking an enhancer in my rack btw.. I don't even use the EQ in my pre-amp except creatively (I sweep mid-bands with my foot-controller for custom filter effects).. it sounds f**king great already! All of that magic dissapears without the power stage.. :shrug:
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I wouldn't dream of sticking an enhancer in my rack btw.. I don't even use the EQ in my pre-amp except creatively (I sweep mid-bands with my foot-controller for custom filter effects).. it sounds f**king great already! All of that magic dissapears without the power stage
I will promise you if you put a BBE in your rack you'll be in awe...a true defination of what you get is, it's just as if you had an invisible wet blanket over your speakers and someone removed it. Trust me, buy one and try it, you can always return it if you don't like it...but you won't be returning it.

I bought the Aphex becuase it has more controls then the bbe...it has "big bottom" which increases the bass perception while not boosting the signal. They call it girth, it also has a seperate high end enhancer. Of course it's stereo so it has two identical channels, so it can be used in mono as well...but it's a lot more work to tweak then the bbe. The bbe is absolutely as simple as it gets... :wink:
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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btw I don't run my power amp that high, but when I back it down to where it suits my needs there is much less thd... :D
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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hink wrote:I will promise you if you put a BBE in your rack you'll be in awe...a true defination of what you get is, it's just as if you had an invisible wet blanket over your speakers and someone removed it.
Thats what it felt like when I got the Mesa amp instead of the Marshall! It actually improved the sound of the whole band; I was really struck by the fact that after I got the Boogie I hardly ever heard anyone say "Good gig but your guitar was a bit quiet".. rather people were saying "Wow your guitar sounded so clear!"

Thats after dropping from 50 Watts per channel to 20! :lol:

Maybe I'll borrow a BBE someday and try it.. but to be honest, I struggle to imagine my rig sounding any better than it already does!

I suspect we go for rather different guitar sounds though.. probably we're both right! :wink:
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Maybe I'll borrow a BBE someday and try it.. but to be honest, I struggle to imagine my rig sounding any better than it already does!
yup...that's exactly what I said too...sometimes you need to go beyond imagination. Because I don't care what you use it for bbe makes it better...there is something better and once you hear it you'll be hooked...trust me I sold many, many with a 30 second a/b test...they're used by many dj's too...you can't go wrong with this thing... :wink:
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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Well, I'll keep an open mind and try it first chance I get, but I suspect my glowing EL84's are doing a similar job of exciting the important bits of the sound as your BBE.. and I'll be very suprised if I like the BBE as much. I know the device btw, not disputing its usefulness, but I still don't believe it would add anything to *my* sound.. which is pretty unusual tbh! :hihi:
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platinumears wrote:Well, I'll keep an open mind and try it first chance I get, but I suspect my glowing EL84's are doing a similar job of exciting the important bits of the sound as your BBE.. and I'll be very suprised if I like the BBE as much. I know the device btw, not disputing its usefulness, but I still don't believe it would add anything to *my* sound.. which is pretty unusual tbh! :hihi:
you're quite right it won't add anything...I never said it would. I said it's like taking a wet blanket off your speakers...it enhances. It is know where near a tube or solid state thing. It distract a thing from the tube sound you like and it won't add anything. What it will do is bring the sound too life. Subtle things that ar a major part of what you like are brought out more and it just sounds better...I suspect it would be a bigger difference for your (in a good way) because I find one sound causes ear fatigue and gets stale. You don't percieve it that way because you're comfortable...the bbe is the refresh for ear fatigue... :wink:

btw I only use mine (Aphex) for live in my live rig, my live rig and recording rig have nothing to do with that. For recording I use Sansamp with a super chorus or POD 2.0.
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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hink wrote:Subtle things that ar a major part of what you like are brought out more and it just sounds better...
Ok. I promise to try it out next chance I get (I jam with a drummer sometimes, I think he has one in his studio).. if you promise to try out a Mesa 20/20 power amp!

Image

I "felt" the difference the first time I played through mine, even at guitar shop levels, and when the assistant had brought me an Epiphone when I said Les Paul! :tantrum:

:lol:
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Ok. I promise to try it out next chance I get (I jam with a drummer sometimes, I think he has one in his studio).. if you promise to try out a Mesa 20/20 power amp!
I'll keep it mind that's for sure. My power amp gave me a hernia a few years ago :x I'm not kidding, I had to have surgery... :?
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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I'm sorry, hink, but slightly overdriven power amp tubes is what it's all about. No need to add anything if you aren't aware of this.
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
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Yea overdriven power tubes rock. I love the way they "sag" or compress when hit hard. The magic for me is more in the dynamics than the distortion.
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Sascha Franck wrote:I'm sorry, hink, but slightly overdriven power amp tubes is what it's all about. No need to add anything if you aren't aware of this.
we'll have to agree to disagree... :hihi:
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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uhm I just looked at the 20/20...has three 12ax7's so there's your magic just like I said from pre-amp tubes a straight power amp does not have pre-amp tubes...I rest my case, power amps only purpose is to accurately reproduce the incoming signal at a high volume.
http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/ ... tereo.html

:wink:
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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but power amp tubes are still microphonic so that's what sets them apart from solidstate amps... :D
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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brianbrian wrote:Yea overdriven power tubes rock. I love the way they "sag" or compress when hit hard. The magic for me is more in the dynamics than the distortion.
Of course. It's nothing about the drive being added, it's all about the dynamic interplay.
Unfortunately there's nothing else but hot driven powertubes along with the right set of speakers giving you that effect. In case you got the proper combination there's nothing which will give you an even halfway similar response.

FWIW, I am ALL into simulations, I am using them constantly, I just love the convenience.
And I'm also all into the thought that a proper pre-amp (tube or not tube... to paraphrase someone wellknown) running into *any* power amp will some day replace a tube PA. Really!

But still, there's nothing even coming close.
For recordings it might be a moot point (unless you're doing heavily guitar oriented stuff), but in a live situation there's NOTHING that will replace this sort of drive/kick/interaction yet.

There's good reasons that people who can afford the efforts are using mic'ed and cranked up (and eventually hidden) amps running through the rest of their setup (to add FX and such), finally being fed into solid state PAs for monitoring.

It's just another world than feeding some tube preamp into an FX unit and running it through whatever no-tube power amp.

If there's one thing I'd wish, it'd be being able to run such a setup (well, amongst others of course).
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
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