Your next amp

[Dean Aka Nekro]

The first jaw dropping, mouth-on-the-floor moment I ever had with an amp was the original Matchless DC-30. I had nearly the same experience with the Badcat Hot Cat 30R.

It's funny and ironic that you said that, because he wanted to get that very amp (Matchless DC-30). He had the same experience when he saw some blues/rock band playing one in Chicago. He could not find a store in the metro Detroit or even Michigan area, that even had one for sale/try. Nothing in a reasonable 2 hour max driving distance. The thing with my friend (and probably a lot of other guitarists) is that he needs to try out the amp first hand with his main guitar (and sometimes the pedals he has if the store carries them). He did not want to take a risk ordering one on the net. So I told him about Badcat amps, and we found a store just within 2 hours that had that one new-old-stock Black Cat that had been sitting there for a few years, in which the store owner knocked off $200 plus the sales tax, knowing that we drove 120 miles to possibly buy the amp, just so the store owner could get the amp out the store.

Indeed man that is most of the time the most important part, If i like something then I go back with my main guitar, OD pedal and noise suppressor and then I know for sure Sometimes if that is not possible I will bet somewhat, Always do try with my own shit though if I can do

John, Glad to hear you're making room for a second mic in the ISO cab, Playing with the relative volume/phase of each will do so much 'EQ' for you before even hitting record Meh sod all those gay rectification valves and get a solid-state recto in that new Frenzel, JJ Gold ECC83/12AX7 x2 in teh pre-amp and yeah a big bastard KT88 in the power slot. Be a man not a mouse!

Eric look forwards to more of the Kemper when you get the time to do more vids with it man, I am pretty much sold but have some other bits to get first as mentioned earlier

Would talk more but have either a wisdom tooth coming through or a pretty big abcess in my mouth, My whole jaw and cheek is bloody painful and can't eat anything and just about can drink but it fecking hurts. Hope everyone is having a good easter break or at better than myself, All the best

Dean

[Hink]

wow, total de ja vu

Biggest jaw dropping moment for me was no doubt when I first plugged into a sansamp, jaw dropping is 100% relative imo. My biggest disappointments have come when I have bought the "hi-end" expensive stuff (or tried it it) and yeah they sounded good but if I were paying that much I expect it to sound that good at the very least so no jaw dropping experience there.

The boogie pre? Great pre-amp, susiwong swears by his but I dont think it's all that much better than the Marshall 9000 (one of those things that I expected to be awesome and still have not found a real place for it..it's okay, add the matching power amp perhaps). The cab sim on both imo are just gimmicks and a joke. True they do change the tone, tbh on the boogie (which I sold a half dozen or so of) it was better than nothing but I would not record with either, monitoring my Marshall using the cheesy speaker sims in my emu power fx is way better.

The problem is there are no power tubes and though years ago when I first came to KvR I argued the point with Sascha F. to no end that I really only cared about having a tube pre and an SS power amp was fine (boy was I wrong, I sent him a pm maybe six months ago saying that very thing). I'm finicky about tone stacks and eqs, call me goldylocks a 5 band graphic eq is of no interest to me on a guitar amp (the marshall 9000 has one too) but I want no less than a BMT and with a presence it's even better.

Matchless? Underwhelmed...couldn't figure out what it did that was "special"...it sounded great but so doesn't many amps at much less the cost. A salesman did say "dude it's a Matchless" but I found it rather limiting and tbh I can add a Raw control to an amp if I want the tone like that (as simple a mod as there is).

But then over the last few weeks several people have said to me that when it comes down to it they use 2 maybe 3 tones tops and I have to admit I just scratched my head in disbelief. Sure I use three basic tones clean, crunch, and hi-gain but many, many variations of each (albeit subtle differences). When I posted the clips of the same thing using different amps (mostly at Dean's request) with the lead grossly exaggerated in the mix I wasn't surprised there was little or no interest in it because who wants to listen to all that when we can have pissing matches based on "PK" (if you dont know what PK is oh well). But now I wonder how many people heard the differences, I know how many plays they all got and again it's a head scratcher.

To me the differences are huge but other people seem not to hear them, putting together the best signal chain (from strings to speaker) for my guitar to compliment the piece I am working on and achieve the results I want is an art form in itself (once again I doubt anyone here would care for what I consider a good tone though...I mean I hate Peavey guitar amps and Gibson guitars so what do I know? )

I never have tried a BadCat but again I do not want or need all that power (yes 30 watts is more than I need or want), I cannot imagine with all the amps I have played through and owned in 40 years what would make it head shoulders above the rest or a jaw dropper. Contrary to popular belief there is no "secret weapon" with tube tone, quality parts is key (but that has it's limits) precise wiring is important as one lead to close to another or a cold solder joint can create unwanted noise so the quality of the build is key.

But like with many things I begin wondering what I am paying for and of course there are many more parts to guitar tone than just the amp. (for instance my egnater is a fairly generic tube amp with the exception it runs el84s and 6v6 power tubes, put in the YJs and it changes a lot but then the difference between running my TS clone into it and my digitech screamin blues into it are amazing...the digitech works better with the egnater than any of my amps and it is itself a generic OD IMO.

Speaking of unwanted noise, do you know what causes the most unwanted noise in tube amps? IMHO transformers and the bigger the transformer the more noise there is when you crank it up (of course a lot, but not all of that noise can be reduced by moving away from the amp). The first Frenzel with it's two watt power tube has these smaller transformers and I now realize the advantage. Still a high voltage amp but quiet, the new Frenzel has much bigger transformers but they are just as quiet, especially compared to either the boogie or the Jet City (I have to have at least 6 feet between myself and the boogie or jet city if I want to crank them and get that gawd awful noise). I do know Jim Frenzel makes a big deal about the trannies he uses and I'm sure that is one difference that applies to high end amps as well like a BadCat. But then to change a transformer is child's play and the highest quality trannies are not all that expensive...at least no where near the same as the cost there is between boutique amps and production line amps. But to me this is another advantage of low wattage tube amps.

I guess I'm just getting old (but with that age has for me meant much more acute hearing) some would call it quantity over quality I suppose but it's neither...for me it's about tone and value, very few people will ever actually see my gear but many will hear it and those people will hear it in a mix. For me when recording having the tone that works best for me is priceless whether it be a sansamp or a 3K tube amp.

I can't help but remember being a young foolish guitar player with a cool plexi modded to my taste, I came into some extra cash and the amp I decided needed new tubes. Wanting to go with what was "in" I bought Groove Tubes (at hefty price, it cost me 150 dollars to retube the amp and that was 1980s money), biggest mistake I made with that amp. Even though I could boast having a custom modded Marshall with Groove Tubes I tried to get back into it but I gave up when I plugged into a mesa boogie sob for two minutes...blew me away and I traded my beloved plexi that day. Now I have another boogie sob and it does not sound anything at all like I remember my first one sounding...or does it? (Ironically it has Groove Tubes in it) Like I said, it's all relative

[Hink]

Would talk more but have either a wisdom tooth coming through or a pretty big abcess in my mouth, My whole jaw and cheek is bloody painful and can't eat anything and just about can drink but it fecking hurts. Hope everyone is having a good easter break or at better than myself, All the best

Dean

sorry about your tooth Dean, I know tooth aches and they suck...I hope you feel better soon my friend

[Hink]

btw when discovering that silvertone kit mojotone had a link for these guys... http://www.specimenproducts.com/tube-am ... d-seminar/ ...most expensive amp is a tweed twin (100 watt) at 1,735 usd...now that's a killer value and something I already told my wife I want to do...but apparently they are not the only place for such things so I'll be looking into this more...Amp Camp, what a concept

[Uncle E]

Biggest jaw dropping moment for me was no doubt when I first plugged into a sansamp, jaw dropping is 100% relative imo. My biggest disappointments have come when I have bought the "hi-end" expensive stuff (or tried it it) and yeah they sounded good but if I were paying that much I expect it to sound that good at the very least so no jaw dropping experience there.

The DC-30 was jaw dropping for me in that I didn't know guitars could sound that good. I'd never heard anything sound like that before that, not even from listening to pros.

My most recent jaw dropping moment was with the Kemper, not because it's a sound I've never heard before but, like you with the Sansamp, because it's a sound I didn't believe was possible to attain DI'd. The Dynamics control is really sweet, too, as it can make it even more responsive than a real tube amp.

Matchless? Underwhelmed...couldn't figure out what it did that was "special"...it sounded great but so doesn't many amps at much less the cost. A salesman did say "dude it's a Matchless" but I found it rather limiting and tbh I can add a Raw control to an amp if I want the tone like that (as simple a mod as there is).

What era Matchless are you referring to? Which model? I'm talking about the original Mark Samson-era DC-30. The Badcat Hot Cat 30R, though still lovely, excels at clean distortion lead tones (think Santana without any hint of grittiness) and lacks the original DC-30 clean tone. I'm not a huge fan of any other Mathless or Badcat model.

But then over the last few weeks several people have said to me that when it comes down to it they use 2 maybe 3 tones tops and I have to admit I just scratched my head in disbelief.

People have told me they can hear me playing a mile away because I was always dial in the same Cowboy Junkies/Chris Isaak clean tone no matter when amp it is.

[Hink]

People have told me they can hear me playing a mile away because I was always dial in the same Cowboy Junkies/Chris Isaak clean tone no matter when amp it is.

which I'm sure almost everyone including any other guitarists would say the same thing about me. I think my demo of amp shows that some tbh because the differences in tone I speak of the ones that are subtle tweaks from the "norm" because of other factors that come into play. The obvious is different guitars, different rooms, different speakers but also the music and style. I think a lot of people not with the understanding of such things, John Q Public as it were would label my tone to probably three types. The fact is there are many that are not for the listener but for me the player so I'm on my game (whether it ever get recorded or not) and getting the reaction to my playing I need. I'm sorry if that sounds confusing but I know what I want and when I want it and it's not going to matter to anyone else on earth if I nail it or not once the part is in a mix...but nothing is more important to me for my playing experience.

On the other hand there is a side to me that loves to experiment so I dont want to be locked into one or two tones like back in the day. Face it, a plexi did not exactly have the most responsive tone stack nor were many amps more than a 1 trick pony (I think that still holds true today though and why I have the amps I do).

As far as what amp I tried, I'm sorry Eric but I'm getting old and if I had of known i would start losing my mind and need this info in the future I would have taken notes...but alas i didn't...it was a combo, small and had a volume, treble, bass and master...I'm sorry I do not remember that tube configuration (if I even knew at the time). I worked at one store with a wheeler and dealer named Jack, this guy knew gear, he had been at the game a long time, played fast and loose with bosses money and introduced me to a lot great gear. Our store was a small store and we had two phone lines, one was a phone number we ran in papers that just read "used musical instruments wanted" and we answered like it was a home phone (the boss didn't want to the people to know we were a store). Our store was the used gear acquisition store for the chain (4 store chain)

Jack was our buyer but man could this guy work a game, some things he knew he could flip before the boss knew anything about it (like a cp 88 once and we had a waiting list for rhodes) and he would use the bosses money to buy the gear, sell it and keep all the profit (some days i would have 5 dollars to open the store with because he cleaned us out the night before...but he always replaced it). What was in it for me? The boss was a dick, he was out of his mind and besides helping me get my foot in the retail door did nothing for me but take advantage of me and imo paid me no where what I was worth. He called me the manager and paid me..well I think you get the point. Jack would pick up other things that would come with these quick flips, things he wasn't go to flip and I got some nice little presents from time to time.

But then MARs opened, recruited me and I couldn't resist the size of the store, the pay and all the fun, then I went to the king of used gear Daddy's Junky Music (now dead)...so over the years a lot of gear as gone through my hands and model numbers run together (trust me you'll understand one day )

[Peevy2000]

Ok sorry for doing this but I'm gonna throw another option into the mix here.

Hughes & Kettner TubeMiester 18



Details:

• Clean and Lead channels, both with GAIN and MASTER controls
  2 x 12AX7 Preamp valves, 2 x EL84 Power amp valves
  Controls: Treble, Mid, Bass EQ, Lead Boost and Channel Select switches, Master and Gain controls on both channels
  Power: 18 Watts
  Four-step power soak
  Switchable to 18, 5, 1 and 0 Watts (for silent recording) power outputs
  Built-in Red Box recording output
  Serial Effects loop

This seems like another ideal option to me since I'd be mostly playing at home for now & using for recording. Again, Because my local music store is pretty limited, I've had to go on reviews & youtube videos for this amp. But it seems pretty decent for the price, great for home use & recording. & when I get round to gigging, its seems like it can hold its own. Plus it has a handy red box output that can go straight to the PA.

Any of you tried one of these Amps out??

[insonicbloom]

wow, total de ja vu


Speaking of unwanted noise, do you know what causes the most unwanted noise in tube amps? IMHO transformers and the bigger the transformer the more noise there is when you crank it up (of course a lot, but not all of that noise can be reduced by moving away from the amp). The first Frenzel with it's two watt power tube has these smaller transformers and I now realize the advantage. Still a high voltage amp but quiet, the new Frenzel has much bigger transformers but they are just as quiet, especially compared to either the boogie or the Jet City (I have to have at least 6 feet between myself and the boogie or jet city if I want to crank them and get that gawd awful noise). I do know Jim Frenzel makes a big deal about the trannies he uses and I'm sure that is one difference that applies to high end amps as well like a BadCat. But then to change a transformer is child's play and the highest quality trannies are not all that expensive...at least no where near the same as the cost there is between boutique amps and production line amps. But to me this is another advantage of low wattage tube amps.

Transformers are generally screened and don't cause that much noise, the noise you hear in an amplifier is amplified noise from an unscreened source which in old/boutique amplifiers designed by people who don't have any real knowledge about electronics will be unscreened "handwired" turret board assembly's and improper bypassing and grounding, that of course is unless the noise is coming from bad guitar lead or faulty guitar wiring.
using smaller transformers will not change noise level it will just mean it's in an amplifier that isn't as powerful and therefore less noise is amplified
there are of course advantages to having lower wattage amplifiers but I really don't know where you heard that smaller transformers affect noise levels, it's the screening that affects noise levels

[Hink]

wow, total de ja vu


Speaking of unwanted noise, do you know what causes the most unwanted noise in tube amps? IMHO transformers and the bigger the transformer the more noise there is when you crank it up (of course a lot, but not all of that noise can be reduced by moving away from the amp). The first Frenzel with it's two watt power tube has these smaller transformers and I now realize the advantage. Still a high voltage amp but quiet, the new Frenzel has much bigger transformers but they are just as quiet, especially compared to either the boogie or the Jet City (I have to have at least 6 feet between myself and the boogie or jet city if I want to crank them and get that gawd awful noise). I do know Jim Frenzel makes a big deal about the trannies he uses and I'm sure that is one difference that applies to high end amps as well like a BadCat. But then to change a transformer is child's play and the highest quality trannies are not all that expensive...at least no where near the same as the cost there is between boutique amps and production line amps. But to me this is another advantage of low wattage tube amps.

Transformers are generally screened and don't cause that much noise, the noise you hear in an amplifier is amplified noise from an unscreened source which in old/boutique amplifiers designed by people who don't have any real knowledge about electronics will be unscreened "handwired" turret board assembly's and improper bypassing and grounding, that of course is unless the noise is coming from bad guitar lead or faulty guitar wiring.
using smaller transformers will not change noise level it will just mean it's in an amplifier that isn't as powerful and therefore less noise is amplified
there are of course advantages to having lower wattage amplifiers but I really don't know where you heard that smaller transformers affect noise levels, it's the screening that affects noise levels

thanks for your explanation Paul, where I heard smaller transformers are quieter is an observation and an assumption.

As I understand it the interference is created through electro magnetic induction, something I have heard on most tube amps I have played (with the exception of the lower powered amps, the Frenzels are so silent I'm not even sure sometimes if my NS-2 is on or not (of course th ns-2 would not affect this hum at all and something that my father also explained to as being electro magnetic, it increases a ton with single coils and if you like I will make sound clips demonstrate it by recording any of my amps putting any of my guitars (which are meticulously wired and all my guitar cavities are shielded) close to the amp and moving it away...there is noise.

You're right that is more apparent when I crank the amp, it's absolutely no different than the sound of say having a tv on and putting the guitar close to it. So that would be the cause of my assumption, bigger trannies create more electro magnetic interference.

It's also my understanding that this is the reason why often the inputs are on one side of the chassis while the power transformer is on the other. Are you saying that trannies do not create electro magnetic interference?

[insonicbloom]

from what you are describing, you aren't describing noise you are describing cycle hum which in these things is a big difference and yes transformers can cause hum if mounted on the inside of the amp and are unscreened - if you are getting hum then there is something wrong and it's not down to the size of the transformer. it is probably old capacitors which are past their best. you're looking far too technically for solutions - things like EMI and core flux theory should be best left as an absolute last thing to look at unless you happen to have any of those "walwarts" nearby - they are never screened but I've never seen a bare transformer on an amplifier
I know you have a similar Bugera amp to me and the one I have (mine is 130watt 6262) doesn't hum at all, the valves are screened as are the transformers which are about as big as they get.
your experience may tell you that it's transformer size but it really isn't
all it will be doing is lessening the effect of something else that is wrong which I would look into because it could just kill your amp if you leave it that way.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

Ok sorry for doing this but I'm gonna throw another option into the mix here.

Hughes & Kettner TubeMiester 18



Details:

• Clean and Lead channels, both with GAIN and MASTER controls
  2 x 12AX7 Preamp valves, 2 x EL84 Power amp valves
  Controls: Treble, Mid, Bass EQ, Lead Boost and Channel Select switches, Master and Gain controls on both channels
  Power: 18 Watts
  Four-step power soak
  Switchable to 18, 5, 1 and 0 Watts (for silent recording) power outputs
  Built-in Red Box recording output
  Serial Effects loop

This seems like another ideal option to me since I'd be mostly playing at home for now & using for recording. Again, Because my local music store is pretty limited, I've had to go on reviews & youtube videos for this amp. But it seems pretty decent for the price, great for home use & recording. & when I get round to gigging, its seems like it can hold its own. Plus it has a handy red box output that can go straight to the PA.

Any of you tried one of these Amps out??

]

That is the little bugger that I could not remember the name of by H&K (Might of mentioned it on this thread or the 'your next guitar' one but yep thats it), I noticed it in my local but did not try it out as didn't have the time, I was really liking the way it looked FWIW. Also every H&K I have tried which has suited my personal taste has always been really solid and there was a time when I was very close to picking up first a TriAmp and later a Switchblade by them, Only reason I did not is due to finding something cheaper/second-hand and nothing to do with the H&K's I have tried. Thier Redbox is certainly IMVHHO one of the better sounding speaker emulated things out of whats available. It even looks abit like a micro TriAmp. (And no it was not the Alex Lifeson sig model triamp which i nearly got me playing one of those for realz? never, Just the regular triamp...Nothing personal against Alex or Rush intended I must add)

Dean

[insonicbloom]

don't badmouth lifeson Dean you fuckhead twat faced c**t gimp

[Hink]

from what you are describing, you aren't describing noise you are describing cycle hum which in these things is a big difference and yes transformers can cause hum if mounted on the inside of the amp and are unscreened - if you are getting hum then there is something wrong and it's not down to the size of the transformer. it is probably old capacitors which are past their best. you're looking far too technically for solutions - things like EMI and core flux theory should be best left as an absolute last thing to look at unless you happen to have any of those "walwarts" nearby - they are never screened but I've never seen a bare transformer on an amplifier
I know you have a similar Bugera amp to me and the one I have (mine is 130watt 6262) doesn't hum at all, the valves are screened as are the transformers which are about as big as they get.
your experience may tell you that it's transformer size but it really isn't
all it will be doing is lessening the effect of something else that is wrong which I would look into because it could just kill your amp if you leave it that way.

I dont have a Bugera, I have a Boogie SOB, an Egnater Rebel, a Jet City 50, the Frenzel Champ Super Sporster (CSS for short 'cause I'm lazy) which is the new one, and the Frenzel Pre with the two watt power tube (a 12au7). I've looked at a few Bugeras but I just have no need for the power of the ones you and Dean like so much (now that is, just like two years ago I had no place to even mic up a cab things change and if I have the second room one day then everything changes.

Yes I'm talking about the hum, but to me it's all noise and you may have taken my post wrong because I'm not saying it's a problem. What happens like with any amp like this I have owned when I turn up the Jet City or the Boogie say to about 8 I'm going to hear the hum. When I'm standing right in front of the amp tweaking it of course it's going to be louder and as I walk away (because if I'm on a stage I'm not standing 8" away from amp while playing) that part of the noise dissipates and I always just chalked it up to EMI (of course at that volume there can be a whole bunch more noise from pedals, pres on my ax and way too much gain but that's not the same).

In my post I was speaking to why I dont want a lot of power, my studio is not huge and I like my amp close by because I do tweak a lot. The lower powered amps like the Frenzels are near silent, the Jet City turned down is no problem at all and actually the amp unlike some amps does well with it being lower and then of course sometimes in that amp I use the Yellow Jackets which brings down the power even more.

With the Boogie one of the things I liked best about my first one in the 80s was the cascading gain stages on channel one (channel 2 is just one gain). It's all kinds of noise if I turn it up on the dual gain channel which is precisely why I want to recap the amp. On channel two it's no different than the Jet City or the Egnator. It's not all that expensive for the parts and as long as I drain the caps it's an easy retro, I know it isn't tubes because damn do I have plenty of tubes to swap out and all matched pairs for power tubes

[Uncle E]

Hughes & Kettner TubeMiester 18

I'd put it in the class of Blackheart and other budget tube amps, not bad but not on the level of higher-end H&K's. The H&K Puretone is a the best H&K I've ever used.

[Peevy2000]

That is the little bugger that I could not remember the name of by H&K (Might of mentioned it on this thread or the 'your next guitar' one but yep thats it), I noticed it in my local but did not try it out as didn't have the time, I was really liking the way it looked FWIW. Also every H&K I have tried which has suited my personal taste has always been really solid and there was a time when I was very close to picking up first a TriAmp and later a Switchblade by them, Only reason I did not is due to finding something cheaper/second-hand and nothing to do with the H&K's I have tried. Thier Redbox is certainly IMVHHO one of the better sounding speaker emulated things out of whats available. It even looks abit like a micro TriAmp. (And no it was not the Alex Lifeson sig model triamp which i nearly got me playing one of those for realz? never, Just the regular triamp...Nothing personal against Alex or Rush intended I must add)

Dean

Yeah the redbox really does seem to be great quality. The Amp certainly looks the part & going by the reviews & demo clips, sounds the part too.

Hughes & Kettner TubeMiester 18

I'd put it in the class of Blackheart and other budget tube amps, not bad but not on the level of higher-end H&K's. The H&K Puretone is a the best H&K I've ever used.

Unfortunately I cant afford high-end right now. The Orange TH30 was as high-end as things were going to get but it looks like that's gonna be out of my reach now too. So far the TubeMeister 18 is ticking most of the boxes, Small, portable, 2 channels (almost 3 channels if you include the Boost switch), FX loop, small-gig-able & Home practice/recording friendly.

Still gonna wait until the Orange OR15 & Jim Root Terror comes out before I finally make my mind up.