Where are the pedal amps?

Boudoir Guitar said:
Who has a passive "FRFR" that needs powering anymore? Car poweramps don't have to worry about power supplies the way pedal amps do, since they have a huge source of DC power coming directly from the car's electrical system. So with pedal amps, you wind up with stuff that is actually pedalboard "friendly" but has a wimpy power supply and puts out ... not really enough oomph. Or stuff that is a bit bulky for a pedalboard but actually has some.oomph behind it.

I'm all for small/light poweramps, but pretty convinced that the speaker box is the right place for them, not the pedalboard.
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Totally correct. Power supply is the biggest technical hurdle with pedal-board amps and what is holding them back. The issue is always going to be those high currents being derived from the mains supply required for the amplification process, and how to get that compact enough to not piss a guitar player off.

The amplification process is still physics. Even at 100% efficiency, Power IN=Power Out. Agree - somewhere near the speaker box is right place for an amp. Also, for durability.

It's difficult to do a transformer/series-regulated power supply (which electrically, is ideal imo), as in a small area it's pretty tough to come up with enough surface area in that space to cool it from my experiments.

Comes down to getting high quality switchmodes like exist in high-quality rack gear, maybe? Mate of mine got one of those EHX Magnum 44's years ago. Loud, sounded pretty good (wet/dry system), but the power supply was essentially a computer notebook SMPS, caused all sorts of high-pitched whine, and a ground loop to boot.
 
I hadn't considered that about the power supplies, though I had been looking into rackmount power amps to go inside my cabinet. Its another head scratcher that there are TONS of lightweight, extremely high powered amps for reasonably cheap in comparison to what it would have been like a few decades ago, but finding one around the 200 watt size is pretty tricky!
 
pipelineaudio said:
I hadn't considered that about the power supplies, though I had been looking into rackmount power amps to go inside my cabinet. Its another head scratcher that there are TONS of lightweight, extremely high powered amps for reasonably cheap in comparison to what it would have been like a few decades ago, but finding one around the 200 watt size is pretty tricky!
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How SS amps are rated is black magic, and only increases the confusion. Wrote this up in the recent thread about the Matrix GT1000FX. I don't think it gets much (if any) louder than some Marshall 8008 Valvestate's I have. They are rated 80+80 watts. Both need to be matched to 4 ohm to get that power.
 
Coalface1971 said:
How SS amps are rated is black magic, and only increases the confusion. Wrote this up in the recent thread about the Matrix GT1000FX. I don't think it gets much (if any) louder than some Marshall 8008 Valvestate's I have. They are rated 80+80 watts. Both need to be matched to 4 ohm to get that power.
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The sound reinforcement industry has some pretty robust measurement standards that I wish the guitar side would adopt. Believe me, a 15,000 watt RMS PA amp would blow a hundred valvestates right thru a window, but I see your point, I always think of the guitar amp ratings as "for entertainment purposes only"
 
pipelineaudio said:
The sound reinforcement industry has some pretty robust measurement standards that I wish the guitar side would adopt. Believe me, a 15,000 watt RMS PA amp would blow a hundred valvestates right thru a window, but I see your point, I always think of the guitar amp ratings as "for entertainment purposes only"
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I don't doubt what you're saying. I've a couple of 2200w PA amps in my cave that run some 15" bins. Plenty of headroom for me. More head than the speakers.

All the same, there's consumer and car stereo ratings that are complete BS.

Not sure how to standardize the ratings to give the buyer a chance of meeting their expectations.
 
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