Is it so wrong of me to be digging a solid state amp so much.

[Senor Forum]

The key word is thinking.

Nope! Not here!

 

[modernp]

Nope! Not here!

Thinking is way overrated.

 

[killer blues]

Digging it? Heck no!

Admitting it here???

J/K - I still like my Tech21 TM60.

great movie!

 

[AcceptableNorm]

I've been solid state since 78'....

 

[bobcs71]

Thinking is way overrated.

That's why I'm killing my brain with beer!

Earlier I played through my FlyRig & Bose desktop speakers. SS!

 

[muzishun]

Imagine what this stuff will be like 5 or 10 years down the road.

My lab series L5 is awesome and was made in the mid 70's.

Simple tech that has always been avail, just took fender to give it a big marketing push and a price (high enough) that allow players to feel good about their purchase.

I would bet most of you would choose the L5 over the fender modeling amp, actually, it's a lot more versatile.

 

[modernp]

My lab series L5 is awesome and was made in the mid 70's.

Simple tech that has always been avail, just took fender to give it a big marketing push and a price (high enough) that allow players to feel good about their purchase.

I would bet most of you would choose the L5 over the fender modeling amp, actually, it's a lot more versatile.

My lab series L5 is awesome and was made in the mid 70's.

Simple tech that has always been avail, just took fender to give it a big marketing push and a price (high enough) that allow players to feel good about their purchase.

I would bet most of you would choose the L5 over the fender modeling amp, actually, it's a lot more versatile.

I will try it

 

[Dude’s black strat]

I have owned many high dollar/high end tube amps and I could gig the rest of my life with a Red Stripe Peavey Bandit and be happy. I am not a fan of single ended tube amps and have always enjoyed multi channel amps better so there's that, but the Bandit can do single ended tube breakup type stuff with the right settings.

I still have the first amp I ever owned. My parents got me a silver stripe Peavey Bandit 112 for Christmas back in 1993. Made in the USA with transtube technology. I didn’t even know what I had as a fledgling 13 year old but I loved that thing then and I love it now. I played Slayer, Pantera, Metallica, and the like with my sss MIJ strat plugged straight into that amp for years in bands. The clean was really great for the finger style stuff i did on my own as well.

I never knew a thing about tube amps until much later in life. Now in my forties, almost 30 years later, I’ve got a couple of tube amps, namely a Marshall dsl40cr which I like well enough, a hand wired Princeton reverb that I like pretty well, a fender bassbreaker 30r that I absolutely love, and a jet city custom that is just too much of everything for me now. The Peavey is in still in rotation with me only once having to take the chassis out and putting some deoxit on the pots… in 30 years! The low maintenance alone makes me often think about dumping the tube amps in favor of a ss lineup. The technology was good decades ago and has only gotten better.

 

[Zenyatta Mondatta]

I had a 90s transtube Bandit for years. No idea if it was any good as it was my first amp and I sold it off years ago

 

[Chriswa]

Went with Quilter micro. Love it. And only 17 lbs

 

[Valves-R-Us]

It's a feeling you get stepping up to tube amp power. We're talking 350+ plate voltage that can leak through a defective capacitor and weld your fillings together. Kinda like a Honda scooter rider kicking over a Harley with ape-hangers? It's all about fear management!

 

[GrantRowlands]

It's a feeling you get stepping up to tube amp power. We're talking 350+ plate voltage that can leak through a defective capacitor and weld your fillings together. Kinda like a Honda scooter rider kicking over a Harley with ape-hangers? It's all about fear management!

I don't see it as "stepping up" to a tube amp. Most of us here have been there, or still own tube amps. SS is just different and not necessarily inferior. Generally SS 'used' to be inferior in sound and feel to tube amps. That was a long time ago.
This discussion is about those of us who use SS amps, and what we're using. It doesn't mean we don't like tube amps. It's about being quite happy using good SS amps without feeling a need to justify there use to anyone else.
I've been playing for over 55 years and have owned and/or played through many tube and SS amps, and some modeling amps. Now i just play at home. I use a Quilter Aviator Cub. All my other amps are gone. No more welding of my fillings together. There is no need for an 'us or them' attitude. That's 'old'

 

[Chriswa]

I don't see it as "stepping up" to a tube amp. Most of us here have been there, or still own tube amps. SS is just different and not necessarily inferior. Generally SS 'used' to be inferior in sound and feel to tube amps. That was a long time ago.
This discussion is about those of us who use SS amps, and what we're using. It doesn't mean we don't like tube amps. It's about being quite happy using good SS amps without feeling a need to justify there use to anyone else.
I've been playing for over 55 years and have owned and/or played through many tube and SS amps, and some modeling amps. Now i just play at home. I use a Quilter Aviator Cub. All my other amps are gone. No more welding of my fillings together. There is no need for an 'us or them' attitude. That's 'old'

I’m super happy with the Quilter. Like you been playing over fifty years. Have a Mesa mk III. Can barely pick it up

 

[Boneslygrifter]

I highly regret selling my peavey bandit. I liked it better than my AC15. And now bandits like I had are going for almost AC15 prices (I got my AC15 this year for $320). I also play through a Quilter at practices because I don't want to load/unload a tube combo twice a week.

 

[wildschwein]

Epiphone Triggerman 60 DSP. Purchased one of these new in 2009. It's still my favourite amp and i will sell the tube stuff off (Fender Twin and Mesa Boogie Rocket 44) before letting go of it:

 

[Neptical]

I have four that are coming up on 40 years old. One that is 30 years old. A hybrid that has SS preamp that is near 40 years old.



2X Marshall 3310’s - 80’s
Marshall 3210 - 80’s
Marshall Artist 3203 - 80’s
Pearce G2r - 90’s
Gallien-Krueger 250rl - 80’s

The only one that needed work was the GK and that was some shipping damage to it.

They last a long time.

My favorite Marshall SS amps are all from the 80’s

Pretty sure I said it before - brothas from anotha motha.

 

[teemuk]

SS is just different and not necessarily inferior.

I think we have enough of differences in amps in general. There are tube amps that are different from each other just like there are solid-state amps that are different from each other, or different from certain tube amps. Yet...

..A Fender 5F1 has much less similarity to Peavey Ultra than, say, Peavey XXL even though the first is a genuine tube amp and the later is a solid-state amp. A vintage Magnatone is more in the realms of Mosrite SS amp than Marshal DSL series and so on.

Categories as broad as "tube" and "solid state" are basically worthless. They can describe technology but have very little to offer in describing characteristics like "tone", "feel" and et cetera.

Generally SS 'used' to be inferior in sound and feel to tube amps.

I don't agree. Throughout the history of amplification tube amps have again and again been abandoned in favour of solid-state. And vice versa. Yes, there have been revivals of tube amplification but likewise there have been revivals of solid state amplification.

These are usually in contexts of advancements in technology; e.g. semiconductors obsoleting tubes in the 1960's, modeling obsoleting tubes in the 1990's etc. Basically the new gizmo becomes the new exiting thing.
Revolutions in the music scene: e.g. rock music displaces former music genres and old solid state AND tube amps, some of which distorted the wrong way, become obsoleted by newer generation of amplifiers.
...Or just revolutions in the industry, like the 1990's "boutique" revival of tube amps.

In a larger context of history you will find that preference towards certain type of technology varies a lot, and these preferences come and go, shift as trends, and that ever since it's larger introduction in the early 1960's solid-state amplification has remained as steady and popular part of guitar amplification and isn't disappearing anywhere.

 

[rokon]

Maybe I'm old school, but digital amps like the Tonemasters or Katanas aren't solid state amps. Solid state amps, like my old Yamaha, are analog.

Whether it's analog or digital, all of the amps you've listed are actually solid-state (using transistors, op-amps, DSP chips etc).

 

[MrTAteMyBalls]

I did a gig recently with my old band and the guitar player had switched to a Boss Katana. I thought it sounded great

I did a gig recently with my old band and the guitar player had switched to a Boss Katana. I thought it sounded great!

In my last band we both switched to Katanas. After a few rehearsals of dialing in, we sounded just as good as ever. Those are good little rock amps.

I would like to try the TM series Amps. I like this idea of doing a really good solid state version of a single amp instead of several digital models crammed into one box.

 

[Snakum]

I gigged a PV Bandit plenty when I didn't feel like lugging my Classics or Mesa Bs. And played Tech21 TMs several times and they were excellent. This from a guy who started on Plexis, Dual Showman, Mesa, etc.

I've posted here before one of the best tones I've heard was a guy in Boston running PAF clones thru an old Bandit on 10. I didn't believe it till he showed me. Never heard a SS amp growl and sag like that.