Those Seymour Duncan Powerstage amps are utter tripe

[la szum]

Just saw someone on Facebook saying that only dynamic microphones are affected by proximity effect.

People are fucking stupid.

Only people that use Facebook. Apparently.

 

[Antipodes]

So to sort of bring it back around to the topic of the thread.... I do think... maybe the 700watt Powerstage is better, even at the same volumes.

I was going to suggest that the PS700 is a better bet. The distortion figures climb significantly as you ascend the power curve on the PS amps and the 700 has masses more clean headroom.

Just on the feel/frequencies thing. When we perceive sound, we don't just experience it through our ears - eg you can feel the pulse of a kick drum hit in your chest - unamplified. You are talking about the same things when you talk about the ride cymbal or feeling the vibration of the instrument/strings through your fingers.

So our peripheral nervous system is picking up all kinds of sensations in the presence of loud instruments/amplification. Even our own voices - which give rise to all kinds of resonances in our heads - give us a different perception of the timbre of our voices to that which another listener hears or a microphone captures in the studio.

OK so feel is real - but what gives rise to feel?: You could safely say that all these sensory experiences are induced by pressure waves traversing the atmosphere from sources - which may be extended - to our bodies. Theoretically at least, you could capture all these sound waves and reproduce them through a reproduction system which would recreate all of the feelings and sounds we experience when local to a source - given sufficient bandwidth and power/volume in the reproduction system. Generally speaking, both the micing and reproduction systems fall short of this to some degree. Tech explanations of why economical Class D amps might fall short when recreating the loud tube amp feel (eg from Cliff) have already been advanced.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Only people that use Facebook. Apparently.

Only people that talk gear on Facebook

 

[Mongillo19]

I took my recto and Egnater 4x12. He had a Powerstage 170 and a Helix LT. He was using a Marshall 1960 Lead.

Maybe at some point have them use the mesa as a power amp only to see if that helps

Not that it's practical in any manner but just to see the difference between that and the SD

 

[Orvillain]

Maybe at some point have them use the mesa as a power amp only to see if that helps

Not that it's practical in any manner but just to see the difference between that and the SD

Yeah might do that next time. We're having another jam in 2 weeks.

 

[Jarick]

Okay so concerning the earlier idea I had for a YouTube video on Class D "FRFR" vs a real amp, here's a preliminary plan.

Video shows punk band practices in an outdoor storage unit. One guitarist, one bassist and a drummer. They switch and back between real amps (Boosted Dual Rec Multi Watt and some old Peavey 15inch combo) and different combos of "FRFR" speakers (1 Yamaha DHR12M each, then two DHR12Ms each stacked on their sides) with an Axe-FX and a Tech 21 Bass Driver pedal. FRFRs would most likely have some high/low pass filters applied and some harsh frequencies reduced a bit.

The point of the video would be two-fold:
1. Do a review of the DHR12M for guitar-centric uses
2. Do a side-by-side comparison for those of you that mutter "amp in the room" in your sleep


Does this seem like a solid plan? Anything I'm forgetting? Might also compare my DHR12's since those are other speakers that people tend to mention in "FRFR" land. I know some people will say this is a futile exercise but I'm gonna do it anyway.


Also I'm just realizing that this has nothing to do with the Seymour Duncan Powerstage but considering it's focusing on Class D stuff, maybe this is relevant to the conversation?

That could be interesting. Shootout at band volumes with a band.

You reminded me though of my old metal band I was in for a bit. One guitarist used a Peavey 2x12 solid state amp (one of the red stripe models) with no effects, and the other guitarist used a THD Univalve boosted with an SD-1 into a 4x12 with V30's. Both amps got loud enough to keep up with me on drums no problem, but the V30 4x12 cut through better. Honestly I think that's mostly due to more and better speakers though.

 

[State of Epicicity]

@jay mitchell Are there any current power amps (no pun intended) you know of that can properly produce guitar transients?

 

[TubeStack]

I spend so much time second guessing myself when I'm in that "modern" world of guitar, that I barely get anything done. But when I'm stinky and vintage about things, I get tons of stuff done.

With an analog rig, you can just... get the sound you like.

I know exactly what you're saying. Whether it's the FM9/3 or QC, I'm always second-guessing and wondering if it “sounds like it should” and if there's just one more adjustment I should make.

Whereas with my Dyne, I literally just turn it on and have one thought: “Holy sh*t that sounds incredible. “

 

[MirrorProfiles]

I know exactly what you're saying. Whether it's the FM9/3 or QC, I'm always second-guessing and wondering if it “sounds like it should” and if there's just one more adjustment I should make.

Whereas with my Dyne, I literally just turn it on and have one thought: “Holy sh*t that sounds incredible. “

I think thats something thats often overlooked - with a real amp and cab, you know what it sounds like in the room, and you can hear whether its a case of adjusting settings, changing cabs, changing mics, moving the mic etc. With modellers, you only hear the final result, so you're balancing a lot more moving parts at once.

 

[TubeStack]

I think thats something thats often overlooked - with a real amp and cab, you know what it sounds like in the room, and you can hear whether its a case of adjusting settings, changing cabs, changing mics, moving the mic etc. With modellers, you only hear the final result, so you're balancing a lot more moving parts at once.

Yes, although for my reference I'm talking about a live setting, using either one with a real cab and playing with a drummer and bass player.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Meh. I disagree. The only differences there can be are SONIC differences. You have clearly articulated what SOUNDED off to you, and I can clearly describe what SOUNDS off to me with an amp that is not performing properly. But if somebody can't tell me what the sonic differences are and have to resort to the word "feel", then they are observing shit with their spider-senses. I get that sonic differences are more easily experienced first hand, etc., but once it gets to "uh, it feels different" and one can't describe, even poorly and inarticulately, what the actual sonic difference is... its not an empirical observation, imo, its an emotional/biased/whatever response. Which is totally fine. Play what makes you feel happy, regardless of the reasons. All of this is just passing time until death comes knocking on the door.

FWIW “feel” to me is the sonic difference you experience while there is a sort of closed loop that starts with the players hand goes through the gear and ends at the players ears.

Any shift in time in this is very much perceived as feel but frequencies arriving at different times from source and reflection are a change in sound.
That and the parasitic nature of pickups feeding part of the sound audible back into signal makes for a difference in sound between being an active vs. Passive listener.
Proof? Play something and repeat it through a looper.

As for the palm mute thing, my biggest beef with any gear in the past was that I was expecting a very specific slew rate from an amps input
The thing when that’s off I couldn’t enjoy the playing experience.
When I had the Guytron I likened it to dragging my pick through a sponge.
It did something like a dip in the attack halfway between start and peak.

I got that under control by changing the filtering in the power section and using a SD1 in front folks keep thinking that it works great with Rectos because it removes bass, I think it does because it slows the attack

 

[jellodog]

The Quilter has some weird secret sauce that makes it sound way better with a modeler into the return.

I believe that Quilter uses "current feedback" in the power amp resulting in a lower damping factor than many of the other SS solutions like the PowerStage.

There are other products that do this though. For example, the Amped range of SS guitar amps from Blackstar also employ a current feedback design to mimic the tube amp interaction with the speaker.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

@jay mitchell Are there any current power amps (no pun intended) you know of that can properly produce guitar transients?

Current id say the guys that always made tube power amps Fryette, Mesa.


I was always good with the old Mosvalve SS jobs.
And actually quite like the Orange Pedal baby with Tonex, UAFX and Kemper pedals

All that said because of the functioning eq the return in a Silver Jube is sonically where it’s at for me.

 

[DrewJD82]

Someone should make something like a small tube power amp head for modelers, just a clean flat tube amp without a preamp. Seems like a good idea.

Friedman is doing something, but it's going to be small, I'm thinking 50-watts. He won't give details on it yet, but I busted his balls about bitching about modelers and not providing any solutions such as that a few months back and he talked about it briefly.

 

[la szum]

Friedman is doing something, but it's going to be small, I'm thinking 50-watts. He won't give details on it yet, but I busted his balls about bitching about modelers and not providing any solutions such as that a few months back and he talked about it briefly.

Isn't it already revealed that it is going to be solid-state. Or am I dreaming that I dreamt that?

 

[DrewJD82]

Isn't it already revealed that it is going to be solid-state. Or am I dreaming that I dreamt that?

I can't remember right now and I'm too lazy to dig through that ToneTalk where I asked him.

 

[MTB1973]

I’m happy with this so far, but I do want to try a Fryette LXII

 

[SKU]

Isn't it already revealed that it is going to be solid-state. Or am I dreaming that I dreamt that?

Hope it won't be ... class d(isturbing)

 

[northern_fox]

You can do things just fine with a class D as long as it's sized appropriately for the job at hand. Cliff's message itself mentions a Crown amp doing a fine job at moving air. What you can't do is get a tiny class D amplifier, use it way beyond its limits and expect it to deliver the same experience as something more capable.

Missed this because apparently this thready grew at a ridiculous rate. But yes, I agree - I'm only saying I've been personally less satisfied with the guitar oriented poweramps I've tried, quite possibly because they were underpowered. I have a crown 2502 which sounds alright but it's not really worth using given I have a matrix and a PA50 haha. I had an old macrotech 2402 (big iron, way too big and heavy to be useful, loud as jet) that was incredible too but that wasn't class D.

 

[SKU]

The only explainable situation where sound is the same, but feel is different, is when there is latency.
I don’t think there is such a thing as latency in analog circuits…but to me..SS amps at volume, feel more direct, faster somehow….
Some how the wavefile of tubepower feels like a zucchini…and SS like a rectangle with hard corners.
Maybe a different envelope of the attack is easier spotted when you play…then when you only listen.

Should be easy enough to prove I’m imagining things by comparing wave forms

Latency is one but there's also this one little aspect called time. When you run a sinewave to measure the frequency response ( what some people reduce "sound" to ) it's done momentarily ...
Have yet to see a multidimensional spectrum ... as in plot the frequency spectrum as a function of time ... that would be interesting.
So if an IR is a two dimensional vector ... make it three-dimensional ...