Christophe,
I understood what you were doing as soon as i saw who was playing and the music. Who doesn't love anything Clapton and the others play! Some great Bluegrass music violin or Fiddle as they would say can sound just as nice as a great guitar with the same kind of tonality as that guitar on a Marshall stack. My point only was that it is hard to listen to anyone else and their opinion about sound if you are not intimately knowledgeable about that persons taste in music and skills at describing how something sounds. I only know a few people that I would trust their judgement on the sound of a component in a system or a pair of speakers. I think we agree as always about what makes great sound, you would be one of those people who's opinion I would trust.
I understood what you were doing as soon as i saw who was playing and the music. Who doesn't love anything Clapton and the others play! Some great Bluegrass music violin or Fiddle as they would say can sound just as nice as a great guitar with the same kind of tonality as that guitar on a Marshall stack. My point only was that it is hard to listen to anyone else and their opinion about sound if you are not intimately knowledgeable about that persons taste in music and skills at describing how something sounds. I only know a few people that I would trust their judgement on the sound of a component in a system or a pair of speakers. I think we agree as always about what makes great sound, you would be one of those people who's opinion I would trust.
A short diversion..... what is the band-width of a wire? Well it all depends;
In an actual build of an amp, the wiring can play havoc with the stability of the design... even if in SIM, you get it very stable.
Without comment... here is a pair of parallel pcb wires over a ground plane. The wires are 1cm wide and 20cm long. they are side by side closely spaced. the ground plan is a few mil thickness from the strip wires.
THx-RNMarsh
In an actual build of an amp, the wiring can play havoc with the stability of the design... even if in SIM, you get it very stable.
Without comment... here is a pair of parallel pcb wires over a ground plane. The wires are 1cm wide and 20cm long. they are side by side closely spaced. the ground plan is a few mil thickness from the strip wires.
THx-RNMarsh
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[it's one of the contributing reasons we need to place a big Cap locally or directly at the amp stage... ie OPS]
THx-RNMarsh[/QUOTE]
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I will repeat ......This CFA modified by BV ,in my case,isn't crystal clear when playing the same track on the same speaker as Nad,Gnome,VSSA,DX super A,CFA simple Ver.
BTW VSSA is a very good sounding amplifier but if you have a sensitive speaker.
Gnome and Nad are better for non sensitive speakers and more powerful with more bass.
That's my opinion only!
Haven't used beautic parts in any case
Thimios.
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no, i build their designs and listen....😉
it is well known that guitar amps are made to a different set of design goals since these amps are in tandem with musical a instrument, making musical sounds the way the artist want them.....
otoh, amps meant for hifi are a different kind altogether...
AJT,
I happen to think that your perspective of the original intent for a guitar amplifier and speaker are based on a false premise. I do not believe that the original designers of these tube power amplifiers had harmonic distortion in mind when they designed the amps. Limited power was a result of the tube output sections of the time. The speakers used at the time were not designed to have cone cry, harmonic distortion, this was more a result of over driving of both the amplifier and the speaker. This is where this original sound was developed but I do believe it was quite accidental originally. Another factor often not understood was that the open back guitar cabinet was designed to be used at a set distance from a wall and the wall used to load the enclosure. By moving the cabinet away from the wall the designed loading on the speaker cone was lost and again a higher level of distortion was the result. It was all really serendipity that we ended up with this becoming the norm for a guitar enclosure and what we have come to understand as electrified guitar sound. That was not the original intent of Les Paul or any of the designer working on the original electric guitar, it was just the final result.
I happen to think that your perspective of the original intent for a guitar amplifier and speaker are based on a false premise. I do not believe that the original designers of these tube power amplifiers had harmonic distortion in mind when they designed the amps. Limited power was a result of the tube output sections of the time. The speakers used at the time were not designed to have cone cry, harmonic distortion, this was more a result of over driving of both the amplifier and the speaker. This is where this original sound was developed but I do believe it was quite accidental originally. Another factor often not understood was that the open back guitar cabinet was designed to be used at a set distance from a wall and the wall used to load the enclosure. By moving the cabinet away from the wall the designed loading on the speaker cone was lost and again a higher level of distortion was the result. It was all really serendipity that we ended up with this becoming the norm for a guitar enclosure and what we have come to understand as electrified guitar sound. That was not the original intent of Les Paul or any of the designer working on the original electric guitar, it was just the final result.
your opinion.....😉 can't argue with your opinion....
fwiw, i build guitar amp heads, but i do not discuss them here,
only with my musician friends, they are very picky as to how they want their amp to sound like..
AJT,
I am not saying that today you would not design with those goals in mind. there is an expectation of what an electric guitar should sound like today. But I am saying that was not the original design intent. If I designed a very high powered amplifier with very low harmonic distortion and used a speaker with little to no harmonic distortion due to cone breakup nobody would want to listen to that. It would lose the life and tonality that we have come to expect, but take that same guitar amp and speaker and use that to amplify a grand piano and nobody will want to listen to that either.
I am not saying that today you would not design with those goals in mind. there is an expectation of what an electric guitar should sound like today. But I am saying that was not the original design intent. If I designed a very high powered amplifier with very low harmonic distortion and used a speaker with little to no harmonic distortion due to cone breakup nobody would want to listen to that. It would lose the life and tonality that we have come to expect, but take that same guitar amp and speaker and use that to amplify a grand piano and nobody will want to listen to that either.
I believe Kindhornman (thanks for your nice words ;-) was not giving his 'opinion', but history.
The first guitar amps were made to help guitarist to be eared in Jazz big bands, aside brass section.
Then some freaks (the two links i provided were chosen on purpose) had began to play *too loud* with them, looking for strange and unknown effects like sustain, larsen and distortion.
Then manufacturers had begun to design guitar amps to maximize those effects. Musical instruments by themselves each with a special character 🙂
The strange thing is that, with so much distortion, and so little bandwidth, we need top performing Hifi amps and speakers to reproduce all the details, the heat and attack of Gibson 335 on a saturated Vox Ac30 🙂
And very few mikes are good on this too. This remain a mystery for me.
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AJT,
This is where a very accomplished designer should be able to produce a solid state amplifier to rival a tube amplifier stage. You would have to be talented enough to produce the high second harmonic distortion levels that a tube amp design achieve by its general nature. One comes by it naturally with tubes and you would have to intentionally design this type of harmonic structure into a solid state amplifier.
This is where a very accomplished designer should be able to produce a solid state amplifier to rival a tube amplifier stage. You would have to be talented enough to produce the high second harmonic distortion levels that a tube amp design achieve by its general nature. One comes by it naturally with tubes and you would have to intentionally design this type of harmonic structure into a solid state amplifier.
I don't believe such a genius is born yet, reason why most of the guitarists continue to bore themselves with fragile and more and more expensive tubes 🙂
Christophe,
You are more than welcome for the comments I make about you. I wonder at the same time if someone like Bob Carver couldn't actually design a solid state amp to emulate a tube amp as he seems to have the emulation very well understood. I imagine that Bod Cordell could also do it if he wanted to.
You are more than welcome for the comments I make about you. I wonder at the same time if someone like Bob Carver couldn't actually design a solid state amp to emulate a tube amp as he seems to have the emulation very well understood. I imagine that Bod Cordell could also do it if he wanted to.
i build both tubes and solid state amps....
i can't say one is better than the other...
i am not just into it, i am into the enjoyment that diy brings....
the satisfaction one gets in making something that works is priceless imho...😎
i can't say one is better than the other...
i am not just into it, i am into the enjoyment that diy brings....
the satisfaction one gets in making something that works is priceless imho...😎
I don't like tube sound, and I don't like solid state sound, either.
I just want an accurate sound. That's it 😀
I just want an accurate sound. That's it 😀
I don't think it is possible. There is more than pure distortion aspect. Like tube microphony (Material of tube sockets change the sound), progressiveness of the distortion due to tube high voltage, saturation of the trasfo etc. nothing compare tubes for a guitar amplifier, on my opinion, unless you are looking for some junk effect ;-).
This said, i prefer solid state for Hifi amps, since decades, of course.
where is the like button?😀
accurate maybe asking too much...
for me i am content when my amps do not hum, do not hiss, sound consistent at low volumes as well as high volume levels(below clipping) and above all is not tiring to listen to...my expectations are modest, no?😉
I agree that is why I sold all my tube gear years ago except for a tube Mac tuner that I have still. It has one of the best tuner sections I have ever heard or used. I am all for solid state myself for a stereo system, forget about taking care of tubes and setting hum, bias voltage, you can have those hot tubes I don't want any myself. Now if I still played the guitar I would want tubes.