Session amps - alive and kicking!
Stewart Ward
amps made during the eighties.
Many owners are wondering if they can get theirs fixed and don't know
how to contact us. If you have friends in this situation, please point
them our way!
We also make guitar and special cables for almost anything... and stock
Celestion speakers... all at very good prices!
--
Stewart Ward
Award-Session
Tel: +44 1256 477 222
Fax: +44 1256 817 687
Gary Wright
A fairly obviously cooked resister. Just as well, as I could find no info
out there at all....
My guitar teacher has a 75 also. Great little amp. Stupidly loud.
Gary
"Stewart Ward" <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dY2OuRA$lZ76...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk...
Stewart Ward
Wright <gary.wrig...@nospamntlworld.com> writes
>Nice to know - I fixed a Sessionette 75 last year for a friend of a friend.
>A fairly obviously cooked resister. Just as well, as I could find no info
>out there at all....
>
>My guitar teacher has a 75 also. Great little amp. Stupidly loud.
>
>Gary
>
dB speakers and the power was quoted RMS into an 8 ohm resistive load.
With solid state amps, it seems fairly common for manufacturers to
measure output power as a 1 kHz RMS volts across the speaker terminals
just prior to clipping and do the usual power calculations. However,
the calcs don't apply with voltages measured across the speaker because
the speaker's impedance varies with frequency. At 1kHz the speaker is
rarely 16, 8 or 4 ohms... up to 50% higher!
For example, I've had a couple of Marshall 8040s to repair recently and
they both measured only 28 watts RMS across my 200W 8 ohm dummy load!
Similar with an 8080 last week... it could only manage 66 watts! A 150
watt Carlsbro PA amp was 137 watts. On the other hand, a Marshall
JCM800 (all valve single channel jobbie) delivered a respectable 102
watts RMS across the same load!
The 8040 was fitted with a speaker which is a Celestion sporting a mere
96dB SPL, so the amp would sound very quiet up against a valve amp of
similar rating. Valve amps are nearly always fitted with better
speakers of around 100dB SPL, so are bound to be much louder anyway!
Old AC15s and AC30s with Celestion Blues are really loud for their
power... but Celestion's brilliant speaker design must take the credit!
No wonder people believe valve amps are louder, when some tranny amps
have deliberately inflated power capabilities AND quiet speakers!
No wonder players think valves are louder than trannies, which is of
course, complete nonsense. A watt of power is exactly the same whether
from valves or trannies. W = Vrms x Vrms/R. Maybe, manufacturers want
to perpetuate the myths because they know muso's will pay more money for
a valve amp?
Anyone wanting to debate this, please do so on this newsgroup only. And
let's have some scientific replies too - no old womens tales please! I
would like to see muso's getting 'more honest' products in the future...
how 'bout you?
Thanks for your kind words Gary,
Mike Whitaker
> let's have some scientific replies too - no old womens tales please! I
> would like to see muso's getting 'more honest' products in the future...
> how 'bout you?
Would this perchance explain why our bassist's 30W Park (two EL34's, I
THINK) is so stupidly loud compared to my old Valvestate 8080 '80W' combo?
--
Mike Whitaker | Work: +44 1733 766619 | Work: mi...@cricket.org
System Architect | Fax: +44 1733 348287 | Home: mi...@altrion.org
CricInfo Ltd | GSM: +44 7971 977375 | Web: http://www.cricket.org/
Stewart Ward
<mi...@altrion.org> writes
>> Anyone wanting to debate this, please do so on this newsgroup only. And
>> let's have some scientific replies too - no old womens tales please! I
>> would like to see muso's getting 'more honest' products in the future...
>> how 'bout you?
>
>Would this perchance explain why our bassist's 30W Park (two EL34's, I
>THINK) is so stupidly loud compared to my old Valvestate 8080 '80W' combo?
Yep!
However, big speaker cabinets give the impression of loudness. More
bass content in a signal is psycologically impressive! Also, the 8080
has an open back, so some of the acoustic energy goes backwards and is
not heard directly, unlike closed back cabs which are much more up-
front.
As I remember, the 8080 has a G12T-75 which has an SPL of 97dB... pretty
good, but a 100db speaker would be twice as loud. The Celestion Classic
Lead 80 is a 100dB speaker and would make your amp compete with most 65
watt valve amps. Remember it's not really 80 watts and the '80' number
gives you high expectations from it. Manufacturers love quoting bigger
numbers - you're more likely to part with your cash!
One big draw back with valves is, that their power tends to sag towards
the end of a gig. This is because valves are worked too hard in guitar
amps and can't maintain their performance long term. Valve quality is
rather poor too, compared to what was available in the sixties.
I don't want to knock your amp... it's jolly nice. But I do want the
world to understand what's really going on in this over hyped industry.
It's well known by shops that many supposedly valve amps have solid
state distortion and keep mum... but that's another story!
Mike Whitaker
> I don't want to knock your amp... it's jolly nice. But I do want the
> world to understand what's really going on in this over hyped industry.
> It's well known by shops that many supposedly valve amps have solid
> state distortion and keep mum... but that's another story!
I did say 'old' Valvestate. (grin)
Currently I have a Marshall JMP-1/JFX-1/VS8008 rack, with intent to upgrade
the power amp to the Marshall EL84 stereo 20+20, into a pair of 1912 1x12"
cabs. THAT is plenty loud enough for me given the size of venues I play,
and has speaker emulated outs off the JMP-1 for feeding the PA/monitors for
anything bigger (I have the 1912's on tiltback stands pointed at me, one
either end of the row of monitors at the front). I'm also after a GP-100
for non-Marshall amp sounds, and a few other effects I miss (harmoniser,
slow gear).
The current plan is something like this, taking advantage of the JMP-1's
effect loop, the GP-100's two assignable in/out loops, and the EL84 20/20's
attenuated line out after the power amp stage (thus getting power tube
saturation into the PA!):
-->-- mono
==>== stereo
guitar -->--- Samson rack wireless
|
V
|
GP-100|in | JMP-1
|send1|-------->--------------|in |
DTR-1 tuner |ret1 |---------<-------------|send|
|in |-----<-----|send2| | |
|out|---->------|ret2 | JFX-1 | |
|out |=>=|in | EL84amp | |
|out|==>==|in | | |
|line|=>==|ret |
2 x 1912========<==========|spkr| |emul|====>=== DI to PA
I left MIDI connections out.
Am I missing anything, or heading for trouble here? The only real problem I
can see is that the GP-100's cab emulation is almost certainly better than
the JMP-1's, but I can't see a way of hooking it all up to take advantage
of that. (Aside: do I recall correctly that you can set the GP-100 so it
knows you're using a pair of (say) 1x12's, and it compensates when it does
speaker emulation accordingly, or was it some other piece of kit?)
Rev Timothy N Nurse
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Interesting article. You are the same Stewart Ward responsible for the
Sessionette 75 and the later stomp boxes - JD10 or something like that?
Anyway watts and volume. An 8080 doing 66 watts is not going to have any
noticeable volume drop when compared against one doing the full 80 watts.
Even a 100 watt amp is going to be just a smidgin louder. Watts have become
something of a marketing tool - more watts =louder, louder = better. The
poinmt you make about the speaker system is a good one as far as volume
is concerned. Going from a 50 watt head to a 100 watt head is only a 3db
increase, but going from a 96dbSPL to a 102dbSPL speaker is 6db, the
equivalent of going from a 50 to a 200 watt amp. The issue of cabinet
desigtn also plays a big part, closed back systems being much more focused
and
directional than an open back system.
However excluded from all this is the most important factor, tone. It's
at this point that the issue of why musos buy valve amps really comes
in, not whether they sound louder.
There's no point in having a thoroughly deafening amp if it sounds awful
and the ole Fender Performer 1000 is a fine example of that - incredibly
loud but incredibly bad sounding. During my time, I've had a whole variety
of amps ranging from an awesome Hiwatt 100, a cantankerous Marshall plexi
100, various home made amps ranging from the venerable 2N3055 through Hitachi
Mosfet designs and even a Sessionette75 for a number of years. I recently
bought a little Laney LC15 as a cheap practise amp. I have to say that this
is one of the best sounding amps I've owned in a long time _and_ it is
incredibly loud for only 15 watts. It's speaker, an HH Invader, is well..
not the best.., but it still manages to sound good and loud at the same time. I
dare say fitting a Celestion will improve the tonality a bit. And if I need
it louder, I just pop a mic in front of it and put it through the PA.
Tonewise I think any transistor amp will be struggling to match it. Tranny
amps have come a long way from the HH IC100 and its 741 op-amps, and things
like the POD and DG Stomp do a good job of emulating the sounds of others.
But I don't have to spend hours programming the thing, I just plug in,
set the analogue controls to my usual settings and bingo! I have _my_
tone, not that of someone else or an approximation of it. For a long time I
thought tranny amps were the way to go - and they definitely are for the
likes of bass and acoustic players who need super clean sounds - however
since I bought this little Laney, I am absolutely sold on little valve
amps who's power stage overdrives so wonderfully and musically in
conjunction with the pre-amp. And it was cheap.
--
Note new signature file
steve_cobham
Nurse) wrote:
> I am absolutely sold on little valve
>amps who's power stage overdrives so wonderfully and musically in
>conjunction with the pre-amp. And it
<A Laney LC15>
>was cheap.
Hurrah!
I own two decent amps - a Fender The Twin and a Peavey Classic 20.
With one band I'm with, the Twin really has to be used because I want
that Fender top with my Tele and also the onstage movement of air, but
for the other band - which has more gigs and more lucrative gigs -
it's the Peavey used with a Strat and/or Tele all the way.
I set it up facing me and then mike it through the PA. Talk about
tone!
I don't get blasted by myself - and neither does anyone else.
Plus I can carry the amp in one hand and a guitar in the other. One
more trip to the car/van to get my gig bag, stands and pedalboard case
and I'm sorted.
Yup, the delights of a small valve combo are something that deserve to
be appreciated more.
As you rightly say, at the end of the day, what is described as power
and/or volume is often more a question of getting the right tone to
work for you in conjunction with your guitar.
No stand by switch on the Peavey BTW.
A question:
IIRC I once read an article recommending that if you had a valve amp
with a standby switch, then it was a wise move to have the standby
switch off, switch on the main power switch for about 30 seconds and
then put the standby switch on.
The problem is that I can't remember *why* now.......
Or is this yet more valve amp "voodoo"?
Steve.
================================================
Guitar and bass tuition - all styles and levels.
http://users.powernet.co.uk/guitars/tuition.htm
E-mail: st...@XSPAMXguitarsXMAPSX.powernet.co.uk
(Please remove obvious spam deterrent)
Interested in Zappa? Guitar? Beer?
Save money by setting up your own guitar!
How about trading Zappa and Danny Gatton tapes?
http://users.powernet.co.uk/guitars/
Heb de Latz und schpill dini Gitare.
================================================
Rev Timothy N Nurse
> A question:
>
> IIRC I once read an article recommending that if you had a valve amp
> with a standby switch, then it was a wise move to have the standby
> switch off, switch on the main power switch for about 30 seconds and
> then put the standby switch on.
>
> The problem is that I can't remember *why* now.......
>
> Or is this yet more valve amp "voodoo"?
I think that's what Stewart was alluding to - cathode stripping. I don't
know if it's voodoo or not as I've never seen a thorough explanation for
it, just some claims that it does happen in certain circumstances. When
I owned the Hiwatt, in my callow youth I'd just hit both at the same time.
I don't recall ever having any problems with it - although I did have a
cathode stripping problem when a grid cap to the output valves failed
and large lumps of the cathode began to fly to the anode, rather than
the usual electrons! But a new cap and EL34 fixed that.
Oh, whilst on the subject of valve voodoo - whilst rummaging through a pile
of old stuff, I came across 2 xEL84s and 3 xECC83s. all Mullard originals and
unused. I'm going to try them in the Laney in place of the old Sovtek's
and nameless Yugoslav ECC83s to see how they sound. It'll be interesting to
compare, especially given the ridiculous prices Mullards are going for.
Stan Barr
Stewart Ward <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <UUgH6.9209$Kt2.8...@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com>, Gary
>Wright <gary.wrig...@nospamntlworld.com> writes
>>Nice to know - I fixed a Sessionette 75 last year for a friend of a friend.
>>A fairly obviously cooked resister. Just as well, as I could find no info
>>out there at all....
>>
>>My guitar teacher has a 75 also. Great little amp. Stupidly loud.
>>
>>Gary
>>
>Stupidly loud? Of course they are! For kick off, we used decent 99/100
>dB speakers and the power was quoted RMS into an 8 ohm resistive load.
>
[snip]
>No wonder players think valves are louder than trannies, which is of
>course, complete nonsense. A watt of power is exactly the same whether
>from valves or trannies. W = Vrms x Vrms/R. Maybe, manufacturers want
>to perpetuate the myths because they know muso's will pay more money for
>a valve amp?
>
>Anyone wanting to debate this, please do so on this newsgroup only. And
>let's have some scientific replies too - no old womens tales please! I
>would like to see muso's getting 'more honest' products in the future...
>how 'bout you?
It's not just musical amps - remember the infamous "xxx Watts Music Power"!
My computer Speakers/Amps say 36W on the box, but have a 6 Watt IC in the amp.
I have a big dummy load as well, and my Fender Twin measured 107W when I last
looked. My Hi-Fi (old Cambridge amp and Wharfedale spkrs) runs about 1/2 to
1 Watt at a good listening level - efficient speakers again!
I used to use a Sessionette (the old one), great amp, the only transistor one
I really liked. Sounds really nice, not like a valve amp but a sound all
it's own.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr st...@dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
Stan Barr
>
>Anyway watts and volume. An 8080 doing 66 watts is not going to have any
>noticeable volume drop when compared against one doing the full 80 watts.
Agreed...
IIRC 6dB - or a doubling/halving of power - is reckoned to be the smallest
change in volume that can be detected easily be the average listener at
normal volumes. A 100W amp is not twice as loud (subjectively) as a 50W
one - assuming the same speakers. of course.
Stewart Ward
Timothy N Nurse <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net> writes
>Anyway watts and volume. An 8080 doing 66 watts is not going to have any
>noticeable volume drop when compared against one doing the full 80 watts.
>
>Even a 100 watt amp is going to be just a smidgin louder. Watts have become
>something of a marketing tool - more watts =louder, louder = better. The
>poinmt you make about the speaker system is a good one as far as volume
>is concerned. Going from a 50 watt head to a 100 watt head is only a 3db
>increase, but going from a 96dbSPL to a 102dbSPL speaker is 6db, the
>equivalent of going from a 50 to a 200 watt amp. The issue of cabinet
>desigtn also plays a big part, closed back systems being much more focused
>and
>directional than an open back system.
Of course you are right in what you say about power and loudness, and
the difference between the quoted and actual power of the 8080 is
rightly insignificant - unless you are a very impressionable youngster.
But what about the 8040 - that is 30% under!
But this was not really the issue I was addressing. You know, people
have a right to get what they think they are paying for, so if an amp
says its 80 watts, then it should be at least that and quoted as a
result of honest (independant?) measurement. I wonder what the British
Trading Standards would make of it? If the '80' is not an important
figure, why did the manufacturer not call it the 8065 then? Of course,
it would not sell as well - many people listen with there eyes - and
they believe the maker.
If an amp maker claims "hot bottled distortion", then it must have valve
distortion. Whether or not valves do actually sound better is not the
point here. The point is that if guitarists are prepared to pay more
for valve distortion, because they believe it is superior and the amp
manufacturer 'suggests' to the customer through advertising that it has
valve distortion... then the customer has every right to get just that -
valve distortion and nothig else!
How many supposedly valve amps do you know of where this is the case?
It may not be wise to mention names for reasons of inconvenience and I
have better things to do, although what I say is easily defendable. But
go buy some books on very famous amps and explore the schematics
section!
On the valve vs tranny loudness topic, I was trying to demonstrate how
trannies are unfairly treated. Customers compare amps by the power
alone, which as we engineers well know is not enough. The users
expectations of amplifiers are the same regardless of what makes it
work. So you can see how the wrong assumption is reached because the
amp says 40 watts on the front when it's only 28 watts and the speaker
is not as efficient as one fitted to a similar 40 watt valve amp. As a
musician, I would look at the amp and see a name 12" speaker, a 40 watt
badge, a well known badge, but the only difference I would know of is
that one is tranny and the other is valve... therefore, that's the
reason for the tranny amp being quieter. Which is clearly the wrong
conclusion.
For the sake of fairness, I am assuming the valve amp has a solid state
rectifier and behaves more like a tranny amp. Valve rectifiers change
the amps response to transients entirely. A topic for later?
I merely hope to highlight the reasons for much of the belief that
tranny watts are quieter than valve ones... which I still say is
nonsense. My Session amps have always been regarded as 'bloody loud'
because they are what I say they are and you get exactly what you pay
for. I am a small maker, I didn't have Hendrix, etc to promote my amps,
so I have to work much much harder than those guys. For me, it makes
good sense to offer far better value. And, we are prepared to semi-
customise/tailor them to the users needs.
Tone is another topic, so let's dicuss that separately. If we throw in
all the issues at one time then the plot gets totally lost.
No further witnesses ma lud! Nice to hear from you.
Stewart Ward
<st...@dial.pipex.com> writes
>I used to use a Sessionette (the old one), great amp, the only transistor one
>I really liked. Sounds really nice, not like a valve amp but a sound all
>it's own.
It was a nice amp - then! We moved on since then. The introduction of
our FlexiDrive distortion circuitry in 1995 (JD10) has been a great
improvement over the olduns. FlexiDrive sounds flash, but it's more to
do with attitude. We do it with symetrical distortion (output stage) or
asymetrical (like pre-amp distortion). The latter has more of a 'growl'
in the tone (as Jerry Donahue calls it) and spreads the transition from
clean to on-the-edge over a wider margin, just like it's valve
counterpart.
Thanks for your kind words and logical outlook.
steve_cobham
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>If the '80' is not an important
>figure, why did the manufacturer not call it the 8065 then? Of course,
>it would not sell as well - many people listen with there eyes - and
>they believe the maker.
That's a good point, but surely the public needs to be less gullible?
It's like a "Watchdog" program when Mr and Mrs X invite a
double-glazing salesman into their house and get quoted £6000 for the
product and then get irritated when told that if they sign there and
then that the price will be a "special" deal one of £2000. Then
Watchdog digs around and asks an expert if £2000 is a fair price only
to be told that the job should really cost only £1500.
(When I was young my father told me to always shop around and it was
good advice.)
OK I'm not condoning shoddy business practice, but people must surely
be aware that a supplier of goods will often use tricks to get
customers - nothing new about that, it's been going on for centuries -
and that if they can sell you the product for more than it's worth,
many of them will.
It's over two thousand years since the Romans came up with "caveat
emptor" and still people get suckered.........
>If an amp maker claims "hot bottled distortion", then it must have valve
>distortion.
Not necessarily. The term "hot bottled distortion" is just advertising
copy.
So, one valve in the pre-amp stage provides the gain. No lies were
told.
The fact that valves are sometimes referred to as "bottles" doesn't
help matters, but surely by now people are used to reading past
hyperbole and catchy slogans.
It's largely a question of education.
Just as no-one in their right mind buys a car without doing a little
research - although plenty of people do! - so potential amp buyers
need to learn a few facts about amps.
And never has it been so easy to find out about potential purchases
and what to look out for.
> I am a small maker, I didn't have Hendrix, etc to promote my amps,
>so I have to work much much harder than those guys.
You must be talking about Marshall....... ;-)
It might have been his own fault in the final analysis, but Jim
Marshall spent years tied into a disastrous distribution deal which
throttled the growth of the business for many years.
It wasn't all beer and skittles.
Sure, the mere fact that the majority of "guitar heroes" used
Marshalls helped Jim considerably ;-) but I doubt whether their
"endorsements" (no free amps for these guys) would have persisted -
and these were very largely free of advertising hype - had the product
not been so good.
It was only latterly that Marshall began to use the media to really
push their product.
It seems to me that before this, Marshall amps pretty much promoted
themselves.
One last point, up to the point that Hendrix, Townshend and Clapton
began using Marshall amps you could say that Jim was a "small maker"
then.
Previous to the use of his amps by such luminaries it certainly was a
small operation with Ken Bran making 5 amps a week out of Jim's shop
in Hanwell at the beginning of it all in 1962.
That musicians actually came to Marshall with the spec of what *they*
wanted - e.g. Big Jim Sullivan, who wasn't exactly high profile - just
reinforces the point that the product itself was its own
recommendation.
Jim Marshall merely gave people what they wanted - not always the best
plan as Townshend's roadies struggling with 8x12 cabs quickly
discovered......... ;-)
From what you wrote it sounds as if Marshall and Hendrix et al had
some sort of endorsement deal going.
That just wasn't the case.
The artists were free to play through whatever they wanted.
The fact that they chose Marshall was the only "endorsement" happening
at that time.
Marshall got their gear visible at gigs and the musicians' word of
mouth recommendations and the musicians got their gear very well
looked after.
The fact that some of these artists looked elsewhere after a while -
Townshend with his Hiwatts - just shows how loose and informal any
such endorsement was.
The fact that Marshall now plays the "Hendrix used 'em" card is just
what you'd expect a company to do.
I know I'd push the Hendrix link as much as I could..............
steve_cobham
>On Tue, 1 May 2001 23:28:20 +0100, Stewart Ward
><Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>If an amp maker claims "hot bottled distortion", then it must have valve
>>distortion.
>
>Not necessarily. The term "hot bottled distortion" is just advertising
>copy.
>
>So, one valve in the pre-amp stage provides the gain. No lies were
>told.
OK - and I think I read your post wrong - maybe *no* valves are used,
but it's still just a slogan.
IIRC the smallest Valvestate amp doesn't have a single valve in it.
If people just read the manufacturer's own publicity they'd soon
discover whether an amp had a valve in it or not.
And they can always ask/look/phone a friend/post here/look on the
net/go to the library/get a magazine or two/etc/etc.
I'm really not condoning the public being duped, I just think that
they should share some of the responsibility due to their inability to
find out more about what they want to buy.
Stewart Ward
If anyone's interested, I've got some nice S/H '80s style Sessionettes
for sale (that I keep tripping over). All fully recon'd, complete with
F/S, some with brand new black vinyl cabs, new Celestion G12T speakers
and all with 6 months warranty.
One collectors S/N 75182 (#182 out of 55,000+), black/silver/white check
grill cloth c/w black vinyl cab & G12H 100 (101dB) speaker - LOUD!
Lots of other bits and bobs too that I must clear out, inc Morley pedals
etc. Worth a call to see!
Rev Timothy N Nurse
st...@dial.pipex.com wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Apr 2001 19:24:09 +0100,
> Stewart Ward <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >Anyone wanting to debate this, please do so on this newsgroup only. And
> >let's have some scientific replies too - no old womens tales please! I
> >would like to see muso's getting 'more honest' products in the future...
> >how 'bout you?
>
> It's not just musical amps - remember the infamous "xxx Watts Music Power"!
> My computer Speakers/Amps say 36W on the box, but have a 6 Watt IC in the amp.
He he! I love those ridiculous claims they make for computer speakers.
From the Maplnb catalogue 'Elan 5.1 Speaker System. 2000 watts total power'
- And it comes with a wall-wart supply!
Rev Timothy N Nurse
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <tnnurse-ya0235800...@130.209.34.15>, Rev
> Timothy N Nurse <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net> writes
> But this was not really the issue I was addressing. You know, people
> have a right to get what they think they are paying for, so if an amp
> says its 80 watts, then it should be at least that and quoted as a
> result of honest (independant?) measurement. I wonder what the British
> Trading Standards would make of it?
I know what your saying - it's a weights and standards issue. If you go
into a shop and buy 3lbs of potatoes, that's what you should get and
no less. The problem with watts, as I'm sure you're aware as a designer,
is that there is no one standard, like there is for the lb or the kg and
so manufacturers vie to use the system that makes it appear that you get
more, so we get 'Watts RMS Continuous into 8ohms' then we get "Watts RMS
not quite so continuous into 8ohms but measured before the power supply
sags and numerous other shennanigans such as watts ISO and the ridiculous
'Watts PMPO total" favoured by computer speaker manufacturers. I've even
seen one amp quoted as 'Watts Peak to Peak Instantaneous Square Wave'.
Until there is a common standard, and I doubt there ever will be, some
manufacturers will continue to try and hoodwink the public. Perhaps
what is needed is a db-SPL measure of the complete system and abandon
watts altogether. Then again, no doubt manufactuirers would then start
applying weighting curves to boos the numbers.
> If an amp maker claims "hot bottled distortion", then it must have valve
> distortion.
Surely not? The old and much revered MXR Hot Tubes didn't have any valves
in it at all, it just reused the mosfets in a CD4xxx chip or something
like that.
> Whether or not valves do actually sound better is not the
> point here. The point is that if guitarists are prepared to pay more
> for valve distortion, because they believe it is superior and the amp
> manufacturer 'suggests' to the customer through advertising that it has
> valve distortion... then the customer has every right to get just that -
> valve distortion and nothig else!
Yes but there's a big price jump between something claiming to be 'valve-like'
and the real thing. The Mesa Boogie V twin and Bottle Rocket cost almost
as much as a Marshall 8080! So no doubt there is a market for 'valve-like'
distortion boxes.
> How many supposedly valve amps do you know of where this is the case?
> It may not be wise to mention names for reasons of inconvenience and I
> have better things to do, although what I say is easily defendable. But
> go buy some books on very famous amps and explore the schematics
> section!
Ahh! I misunderstood. I've had Pittman's book for a long time so I'm
familiar with a some amps. Are we discussing the method that some valve amp
manufacturers use to generate their valve distortion being rather less
vacuum based and rather more solid?
> On the valve vs tranny loudness topic, I was trying to demonstrate how
> trannies are unfairly treated. Customers compare amps by the power
> alone, which as we engineers well know is not enough.
I think you misjudge the typical guitar customer. Sure, very young kids
who know nothing of amps and are off to buy their first amp with a dad
who is equally unknowledgeable about these things in tow to sign the finance
deal might make that comparison, but I think these people tend to go for
'brand' first, just to play safe. But I think you'll find that musos tend
to be much more fickle. I think that it is important that you, as an
engineer, find your target market and find out what that market wants.
I think you'll find that it is more than just 'louder please'.
> I merely hope to highlight the reasons for much of the belief that
> tranny watts are quieter than valve ones... which I still say is
> nonsense. My Session amps have always been regarded as 'bloody loud'
> because they are what I say they are and you get exactly what you pay
> for.
Indeed, they were extremely loud, more so than my Laney LC15 but did they
have that tone? By way of an anecdotal example, a bunch of young kids
around our way formed a band - 16 year olds, keen as mustard. They got
their parents to mortgage themselves to the hilt to buy them gear. The guitar
player, whom I know quite well, rushed up to Glasgow with his dad to buy
an amp. Didn't bother asking me and did two things. 1) went for brand,
2) went for watts. He came back with some Fender Ultra Chorus Super Reverb
tranny thing. He brought it round to me triumphantly and I tried it. It
really sounded pretty awful, but I didn't have the heart to tell him as
it was his pride and joy. 2 months later, the amp broke down and had to
go back for repair, but the band were desperately practicing for their
'first gig' in front of an audience - the school christmas concert
featuring a brass band, some dancers, a recital of Andrew Lloyd Webber's
Pia Zu (or whatever its called) and an address by the headmaster who looks
like John Cleese and the music teacher who resembles one of the Chuckle
Brothers (don't laugh - we've all done those. Topic for a seperate thread -
first live gig?). Anyway, he came round and scrounged the Laney. He no
longer wants the Fender, being totally converted to valve amps by that
short experience. Now I know you will say that he was being unfair in
that he tars all tranny amps on the basis of one and lauds all valve
amps similarly on the basis of one biut the point is that that young kid
has learned a lesson - it's not watts that count - it's tone. Almost
invariably the next amp he buys will be a valve amp - maybe not an LC15,
but something in the 30 - 50 watt category
> I'm a small maker, I didn't have Hendrix, etc to promote my amps,
> so I have to work much much harder than those guys. For me, it makes
> good sense to offer far better value. And, we are prepared to semi-
> customise/tailor them to the users needs.
Sure, and the S75 was excellent value for money in its day. It was a very
giggable amp (although those pots frequently gave grief and Servisol was
essential)
> Tone is another topic, so let's dicuss that separately.
Okay-dokey
> No further witnesses ma lud! Nice to hear from you.
And you too. It's good to have people from the manufacturing end
wading into the mire that is Usenet!
>Stewart Ward
>Award-Session
Oh! I never got this before - A.Ward?
Matt
> Stewart Ward
> <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> . I recently bought a little Laney LC15 as a cheap practise amp. I have to
say that this
> is one of the best sounding amps I've owned in a long time _and_ it is
> incredibly loud for only 15 watts. It's speaker, an HH Invader, is well..
> not the best.., but it still manages to sound good and loud at the same
time. I
> dare say fitting a Celestion will improve the tonality a bit.
improve the tonality a bit? try loads. I had one of those amps and
absolutley loved it as standard up until hooking up a 1x12 Marshall
(celestion) cab to the extension socket.... never played it again without
the cab - it absolutely transformed it
Matt
James Screaton
"Rev Timothy N Nurse" <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net> wrote in message
news:tnnurse-ya0235800...@130.209.34.15...
perhaps its the size of the wall though :))
2000 watts, on a good day, downhill with a prevailing wind perhaps :)
hmm 8 amps - smell that plastic cooking :))
Cheers
James
Rev Timothy N Nurse
<j.scr...@sheffield.ac.uk> wrote:
Real handy as a PA rig!
JNugent
> Stewart Ward <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > You know, people
> > have a right to get what they think they are paying for, so if an amp
> > says its 80 watts, then it should be at least that and quoted as a
> > result of honest (independant?) measurement.
> I know what your saying - it's a weights and standards issue. If you go
> into a shop and buy 3lbs of potatoes, that's what you should get and
> no less.
You trying to get some innocent greengrocer thrown into jail?
Agent provocateur! :-)
Stan Barr
Stewart Ward <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>For the sake of fairness, I am assuming the valve amp has a solid state
>rectifier and behaves more like a tranny amp. Valve rectifiers change
>the amps response to transients entirely. A topic for later?
Yes, I've played with making solid-state GZ34s etc. ;-)
Stewart Ward
>> Stewart Ward
>> <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> . I recently bought a little Laney LC15 as a cheap practise amp. I have to
>say that this
>> is one of the best sounding amps I've owned in a long time _and_ it is
>> incredibly loud for only 15 watts. It's speaker, an HH Invader, is well..
>> not the best.., but it still manages to sound good and loud at the same
>time. I
>> dare say fitting a Celestion will improve the tonality a bit.
Sorry Matt, someone else wrote this!!!
Stewart Ward
<?@?.?> writes
Hello Steve, nice of you to call.
>That's a good point, but surely the public needs to be less gullible?
>
And they constantly show they need to be protected. And that's what
legislation is trying to achieve. I'm not a 'police' everything person
though.... honest guv:) (I love this smiley face biz... James and Clive
showed me it today!!)
>Not necessarily. The term "hot bottled distortion" is just advertising
>copy.
Not certain that Advertising Standards would agree. It's bit near the
bone according to my experience. However... I just pulled that from the
air. I did not mean to imply that anyone had actually used it. It was
just a metaphor.
>So, one valve in the pre-amp stage provides the gain. No lies were
>told.
In the circuits I've seen, the solid state distortion appears before the
single valve. Using the "valve distortion is best" theory... the damage
has already been done? So has it been plonked there to justify claims
or what? Want me to send you said schematics?
>It's largely a question of education.
Yes, quality of education... less hear say. ( hmmm that'd make a good
band name!) But isn't that why I'm contributing to this newsgroup?
>Just as no-one in their right mind buys a car without doing a little
>research - although plenty of people do! - so potential amp buyers
>need to learn a few facts about amps.
Won't comment on potentail customer groups and their abilities. Yes,
no, maybe and not sure. Sure you can understand:)
>
>And never has it been so easy to find out about potential purchases
>and what to look out for.
Where did you read about the valve being after the SS distortion?
>> I am a small maker, I didn't have Hendrix, etc to promote my amps,
>>so I have to work much much harder than those guys.
>
>You must be talking about Marshall....... ;-)
Not really, Hendrix was the first name that came out. I don't want to
knock Jim Marshall in any way. He's been very successful and contiued
luck, health and best wishes for the future. There's room for all.
Just don't plonk valves though.
I already know all the rest. Yes, no, maybe and not sure:)
Thanks for your post - speak again.
Stewart Ward
>who know nothing of amps and are off to buy their first amp with a dad
>who is equally unknowledgeable about these things in tow to sign the finance
>deal might make that comparison, but I think these people tend to go for
>'brand' first, just to play safe. But I think you'll find that musos tend
>to be much more fickle. I think that it is important that you, as an
>engineer, find your target market and find out what that market wants.
>I think you'll find that it is more than just 'louder please'.
I see things from a manufacturers point of view based on daily
encounters over the last twenty one years. As much as I'm tempted, it
would not be appropriate to respond. Hope you understand:)
>Indeed, they were extremely loud, more so than my Laney LC15 but did they
>have that tone?
I know where you're coming from on this one. Yes, they had the tone for
the kind of players that we aimed them at. We never ever claimed they
sounded like any other amp. It was unique. So unique, that we made a
batch last year... and they've all gone!
What is 'that' tone? Ask a hundred guitarists and you'll get a hundred
and one different answers.
I'm actually not a volume freak either. You've heard my twenty one year
old designs. Session has moved on since then. I am confident you would
be impressed by what we are doing now. The AceTone amp, we make for
Shadows fans, creates the sound of the AC15, AC30, AC30T, AC30TB and
Mesa Boogie years. Not merely as a copy of the live amp sounds, but of
the sounds you hear coming off the records (Scratches omitted!).
>Sure, and the S75 was excellent value for money in its day. It was a very
>giggable amp (although those pots frequently gave grief and Servisol was
>essential)
Sadly, normal of most make pots. However, one way to preserve them is:
DON'T leave amps in your car over night in winter and then take them
into a steamy pub or club. The condensation that collects on the pot
tracks is the killer!
>>Award-Session
>
>Oh! I never got this before - A.Ward?
10/10. As you may be aware, I did not make amps from 1988 to 1997.
From 1988 to 89 they were made by new owners. They made 'Sessionette'
looking amps with altered electronics - they sounded different. So, to
differenciate between their's and my new ones, they had to be "A Ward
Session" - so subtle, not even I got it!!
I'm sitting here with some schematics of Matchless amps in front of me
and one of them is the Spitfire (14watt Mullard 5-10ish 2 x EL84) fitted
with guess what...... Yes, you've been listening.... a 100dB Celestion
Vintage 30 12" 60W speaker. Now that will be loud for just 14 watts!!
Oh dear, it's bed time.... sorry. Stay tuned though!
What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
as files??
icarusi
news:3mgvet8c3nnek8pkb...@4ax.com...
> IIRC the smallest Valvestate amp doesn't have a single valve in it.
I didn't think any of the 'valvestate' amps used valves? I thought it
was just Marshall's terminology for their solid state emulation of
valve distortion, like Peavey's Transtube?
Icarusi
--
remove the 00 to reply
Pete Croft
(icarusi) wrote:
ISTR that as you go up the range, you get a valve in the preamp. Last
time I was looking around for an amp, that was the definite implication
from the blurb - I'm not too sure how far up the range you have to get
though. The blurb left me with the impression that pretty much all of
them had a single valve preamp, but if there's one in my VS230 I'd like to
know where!
Cheers,
Pete
steve_cobham
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <madvet0v9v94stcm3...@4ax.com>, Steve Cobham
><?@?.?> writes
>>So, one valve in the pre-amp stage provides the gain. No lies were
>>told.
>
>In the circuits I've seen, the solid state distortion appears before the
>single valve. Using the "valve distortion is best" theory... the damage
>has already been done? So has it been plonked there to justify claims
>or what?
If the single valve contributes *anything* to the sound - even being
placed after the SS circuitry - people are getting some sort of preamp
valve distortion.
Of course, the results might not be pleasing to the ear (and the amp
might not give much in the way of valve gain) - and I can't say I'm a
fan of Valvestates and their ilk - but that's up to the individual to
decide.
The potential purchaser needs to A/B amps and also find out what
contributes to overall sound - cab construction, pre- and power amp
stages valve versus SS circuitry, etc, etc.
It's not a vast amount of knowledge to acquire.
Ultimately, people purchase an amp because of cost and tone/power.
After a 10w bedroom practice amp a Valvestate 8080 is going to sound
great. Play through the 8080 and then through a comparative all-valve
amp and people will probably prefer the all-valve unit.
But then there's the extra £300 or so to find............
That immediately puts the buyer in a quandry and if he needs the
bigger amp - maybe for gigging? - then he's probably going to go with
the cheaper option.
This is exactly the niche that single valve and other hybrid amps are
aiming for and where the efforts of people like yourself are
appreciated.
To me it makes more sense to refine SS amp circuitry than to pursue
the "faux" valve amp option, because people will end up getting their
money's worth.
As I believe you said earlier, SS tecnology has come a long way since
the early H&H gear.
(But, hey, wasn't that green light on the control panel groovy?)
Having said all this, I remain a committed valve amp user.
>Want me to send you said schematics?
I believe you.
>
>>It's largely a question of education.
>
>Yes, quality of education... less hear say. ( hmmm that'd make a good
>band name!) But isn't that why I'm contributing to this newsgroup?
Indeed - and ngs like this are - hopefully - one of the conduits for
more information and education. So far it seems to be working.
>>And never has it been so easy to find out about potential purchases
>>and what to look out for.
>
>Where did you read about the valve being after the SS distortion?
Nowhere, but it's in the public "database" now...... ;-)
>
>>> I am a small maker, I didn't have Hendrix, etc to promote my amps,
>>>so I have to work much much harder than those guys.
>>
>>You must be talking about Marshall....... ;-)
>
>Not really, Hendrix was the first name that came out. I don't want to
>knock Jim Marshall in any way. He's been very successful and contiued
>luck, health and best wishes for the future.
I interviewed Jim for the local paper a few years ago and found him to
be a very nice guy. I made the point at the start of the article that
although people like Leo Fender (who was still alive then) are seen as
legends in their own lifetime, Jim Marshall was not.
To me Marshall should be mentioned in the same breath as Gibson,
Martin and Fender - particularly when Jim's amps helped to shape the
sound of the last 35-odd years.
>
>Thanks for your post - speak again.
I will......I will.......
BTW - it's nice to have a UKMG amp "guru" ;-)
NP - Jethro Tull Best of compilation.
Steve - an ex-Session owner who traded it in for a Yamaha combo and
wished he hadn't..........sob!.........
steve_cobham
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
>as files??
Verboten.
You could post them on a web page.
I for one would like to see them.
Steve.
Rick Booth
> What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
> as files??
From the friendly FAQ:
} Q: Can I post binaries here?
}
} A: No. Binaries should be restricted to newsgroups with the word 'binary'
} in its title. This is a text only group and unless there is a very good
} reason for doing so, binaries should be restricted to binary groups,
That should probably say "their titles", or "a newsgroup", but I think
the intention parses. Put them on the web and post a link.
Or use the Sacred ASCII Art, of course.
- rfb
--
richar...@umist.ac.uk http://www.ma.umist.ac.uk/rb/
Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff
on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it.
-- Linus Torvalds
Julian
"Stewart Ward" <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:zaLfkJAS...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk...
> In article <tnnurse-ya0235800...@130.209.34.15>, Rev
> Timothy N Nurse <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net> writes
> >
<<snip lots of interesting amplifier stuff>>
> What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
> as files??
> --
> Stewart Ward
Hi Stewart - welcome to UKMG!
You seem to be getting the hang of this Usenet thing pretty fast. If you
read the FAQ that the Rev Night Nurse posts every week, you will get lots of
your questions answered. From my experience here, there are 3 golden rules -
1. Very mild advertising is ok every so often - like footers & such. Best to
have a link in the message signature file that points to a web site - that
ay, folk can look if they want, but ignore if they wish.
2. Do not post binaries (pictures, attachments etc)!!! This is certain to
get you flamed (shouted at, name called etc). Again, post a link to a web
site.
3. Be polite, help folk out.
Hope this helps
Cheers
Julian
Rev Timothy N Nurse
<ica...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> <Steve Cobham> wrote in message
> news:3mgvet8c3nnek8pkb...@4ax.com...
>
> > IIRC the smallest Valvestate amp doesn't have a single valve in it.
>
> I didn't think any of the 'valvestate' amps used valves? I thought it
> was just Marshall's terminology for their solid state emulation of
> valve distortion, like Peavey's Transtube?
No, the bigger one's did, but it was just around the tone stack to
'warm' it slightly. The distortion was done by op-amps and diodes.
Rev Timothy N Nurse
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <tnnurse-ya0235800...@130.209.34.15>, Rev
> Timothy N Nurse <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net> writes
> >
> >Indeed, they were extremely loud, more so than my Laney LC15 but did they
> >have that tone?
>
> I know where you're coming from on this one. Yes, they had the tone for
> the kind of players that we aimed them at. We never ever claimed they
> sounded like any other amp. It was unique. So unique, that we made a
> batch last year... and they've all gone!
Agreed.
>
> What is 'that' tone? Ask a hundred guitarists and you'll get a hundred
> and one different answers.
"That' tone for me is Strat into a Fender Twin on clean, P90s 'singing'
the blues, and humbuckers rawking out.
I know it's not possible to get them all on one amp, but 2 out 3 for an
amp costing 120 quid is pretty good. I've never heard a tranny amp give
that sparkling 'clean' tone of the classic Strat/Twin. There's always
that slight hard 'edge' lurking in the background that doesn't seem to
be there in valve amps. Now you're going to prove me wrong...
>
> I'm actually not a volume freak either. You've heard my twenty one year
> old designs. Session has moved on since then. I am confident you would
> be impressed by what we are doing now. The AceTone amp, we make for
> Shadows fans, creates the sound of the AC15, AC30, AC30T, AC30TB and
> Mesa Boogie years. Not merely as a copy of the live amp sounds, but of
> the sounds you hear coming off the records (Scratches omitted!).
OK. I'll bite. Without divulging any trade secrets you obviously want to
protect, how did you address the issue of transient clipping caused by
the headroom issue of the first gain stage - something I think may be
the cause of the 'hard edge' to many tranny amps? Does this make sense
to you or do you want me to elaborate a bit more?
> I'm sitting here with some schematics of Matchless amps in front of me
> and one of them is the Spitfire (14watt Mullard 5-10ish 2 x EL84) fitted
> with guess what...... Yes, you've been listening.... a 100dB Celestion
> Vintage 30 12" 60W speaker. Now that will be loud for just 14 watts!!
> Oh dear, it's bed time.... sorry. Stay tuned though!
>
> What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
> as files??
Well, binaries are not normally permitted, but you could do as we used
to do back in the late 80s on Usenet and use ASCII-Schematics! A bunch of
us spent some time coming up with symbols for components and used them
to post schematics. I did a couple of beginners project called The
Fuzz Box From Hell, The Rawk Box and Wah-U-Like. If you do a web search,
you might come across someone with one of them on their web page. I still
get the odd e-mail from people asking 'How do I tell which is the right
way round for the diodes?" - especially the FBFH.
Seriously though, if the file is small and its highly pertinent to the
ongoing discussion as an education tool, then it's probably OK. It's just
that we don't want the group flooded with "Hear Me Shred!" mp3s or
promo photos! Better is probably to put them up on a web site and refer
to them with a URL. That way, anyone interested can access them as there
are a myriad of newsreaders out there and the all handle (or sometimes
reject!) binary or UU encoded binary attatchments differently or not at
all. Web browsers are much more uniform in their handling of binaries
and pictures.
.clive.murray. (at work)
news:9cr4ki$1uh$1...@phys-ma.sol.co.uk...
> If you
> read the FAQ that the Rev Night Nurse posts every week, you will get lots
of
> your questions answered. From my experience here, there are 3 golden
rules -
very true, julian. one small caveat though...
> 2. Do not post binaries (pictures, attachments etc)!!! This is certain to
> get you flamed (shouted at, name called etc). Again, post a link to a web
> site.
in my experience, this group has never *flamed* anybody.
if someone does break the charter and post binaries/HTML/x-posted spam, they
usually get a polite nudge in the direction of the charter, and a request
not to do it again.
likewise, when trolls and knowlessmen start barging in and flaming/spamming
*us*, there is usually a polite(ish) rebuff, and into the killfile they go.
all in all, it's a much more civilised way to deal with the occasional nasty
side of Usenet. ;-)
cheese,
--c.
np: me first and the gimmie gimmies, summer of 69
--
* cliveatearthmandotorg | [don't use my hotmail address]
* clive.murray | http://earthman.org/
* music | http://www.mp3.com/clivemurray/
* you can feel it right down to your knucklebones
Julian
".clive.murray. (at work)" <earth...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9crd3k$ev16l$1...@ID-56037.news.dfncis.de...
> "Julian" <jm...@NOSPAMPLEASEsol.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:9cr4ki$1uh$1...@phys-ma.sol.co.uk...
>
> > If you
> > read the FAQ that the Rev Night Nurse posts every week, you will get
lots
> of
> > your questions answered. From my experience here, there are 3 golden
> rules -
>
> very true, julian. one small caveat though...
>
> > 2. Do not post binaries (pictures, attachments etc)!!! This is certain
to
> > get you flamed (shouted at, name called etc). Again, post a link to a
web
> > site.
>
> in my experience, this group has never *flamed* anybody.
Very true - a slip of the language. Apologies!
Cheddar
Julian
Steve Dix
>
>The artists were free to play through whatever they wanted.
>
>The fact that they chose Marshall was the only "endorsement" happening
>at that time.
>
Reminds me of a story I once heard from a sales rep who had spent
years in the music biz. He told me the reason that all the top
groups in the 60's used Vox was that their sales rep would go to
concerts etc and replace a promising new bands tatty old amps with
brand new spanking Voxes without even being asked.
Rev Timothy N Nurse
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <madvet0v9v94stcm3...@4ax.com>, Steve Cobham
> <?@?.?> writes
>>
> >So, one valve in the pre-amp stage provides the gain. No lies were
> >told.
>
> In the circuits I've seen, the solid state distortion appears before the
> single valve. Using the "valve distortion is best" theory... the damage
> has already been done? So has it been plonked there to justify claims
> or what? Want me to send you said schematics?
If I remember correctly, the valve stage in the Valvestate range - the
ones that have a valve - is around the tone stack, a cathode follower
which provides no voltage gain and, the other side of the tone stack,
the other half of the 12AX7 is configured common cathode to act as a gain
recovery. No Valve distortion takes place as the signal has been clamped
by the diodes prior to the valve stage in the 'distorion' stage.
Mind you, the JCM900 range used to use diodes for distortion and some of
the early JCM900s even used the valvestate pre-amp in them!
Steve Dix
wrote:
I've got a little Vox Pathfinder that I'm very happy with, and similar
things have been said about connecting up a cabinet to it.
Unfortunately the European version only has a headphone connection,
rather than an extension speaker connection.
.clive.murray. (at work)
> > in my experience, this group has never *flamed* anybody.
>
> Very true - a slip of the language. Apologies!
ho! how polite we are too! no apologies necessary, julian. :-)
--c.
Rev Timothy N Nurse
<jm...@NOSPAMPLEASEsol.co.uk> wrote:
> read the FAQ that the Rev Night Nurse posts every week,
Hey ! I like that!
James Screaton
"Steve Dix" <st...@stevedix.de> wrote in message
news:9mg2ft0r8p5fk0g2g...@4ax.com...
You can just see someone ranting at having their Marshall Plexiglass being
replaced by a shiny new <insert modern cheapo tranny amp>. "Well your old
one looked knackered".
Cheers
James
Julian
"Rev Timothy N Nurse" <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net> wrote in message
news:tnnurse-ya0235800...@130.209.34.15...
> <jm...@NOSPAMPLEASEsol.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> > read the FAQ that the Rev Night Nurse posts every week,
>
> Hey ! I like that!
>
Tee Hee
J
Stewart Ward
>
>I didn't think any of the 'valvestate' amps used valves? I thought it
>was just Marshall's terminology for their solid state emulation of
>valve distortion, like Peavey's Transtube?
>
>Icarusi
Hi Mate,
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou, your reply shows exactly how confusing the
the market place is (lack of informed/educated media). This leaves the
it wide open for abuse and quacks.
I hope Steve and Rev. can see why I worry and have made some of the
comments I have. I'm not hyper about it though, just want to help
'educate' musicians. Maybe this is the only place to learn the truth?
Spread the word!
Get hold of a copy of Doyle's 'History of Marshall' many of the recent
classic amp schematics (JCM 800, 900, 8080 and so on) are featured.
Please take a close look and report what you find.
I don't want to target Marshall, their products are good value, if you
want that kind of tone. I cater for those that want something else, and
there's plenty for all of us.
Stewart Ward
Croft <pete@_NO_SPAM_drufus.cix.co.uk> writes
>ISTR that as you go up the range, you get a valve in the preamp. Last
>time I was looking around for an amp, that was the definite implication
>from the blurb - I'm not too sure how far up the range you have to get
>though. The blurb left me with the impression that pretty much all of
>them had a single valve preamp, but if there's one in my VS230 I'd like to
>know where!
>
>Cheers,
>
>Pete
Pete,
Again, thankyou. Yes, it's 'just advertising copy' (Steve)! We are now
building a picture of how manufacturers can play with your emotions and
deliberately lead you to believe what they want.
In the 8040, 8080 era, the ECC83 followed the 'LED' clipping
(distortion) circuitry and provides the usual (AC30TB/Marshall/Gibson
GA30) cathode follower drive for the three band 'bridged T' style
passive EQ. This valve does eventually go into distortion, but the LEDs
are predominate.
I can't be more sincere or open; there's a limit to what I can say in
public.
JNugent
news:9mg2ft0r8p5fk0g2g...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 02 May 2001 08:43:23 +0100, Steve Cobham wrote:
That was true to some extent. Jennings had a very long UK endorsement roster
by 1966 AM (Anno Marshall), including the Beatles, the Shadows and a list
right down to Bert Weedon.
Vox were supreme BM. But only because they were the best. OK, so there is
nowadays a degree of interest in Selmer and Watkins, but really... do the
Zodiac or the Dominator compare with the AC30 or the AC15?
JNugent
news:9mg2ft0r8p5fk0g2g...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 02 May 2001 08:43:23 +0100, Steve Cobham wrote:
That was true to some extent. Jennings had a very long UK endorsement roster
by 1966 AM (Anno Marshall), including the Beatles, the Shadows, the Dave
Clark Five, the Animals, Sounds Incorporated and a list
right through to Bert Weedon.
Mike Whitaker
> classic amp schematics (JCM 800, 900, 8080 and so on) are featured.
> Please take a close look and report what you find.
What about the JMP-1?
--
Mike Whitaker | Work: +44 1733 766619 | Work: mi...@cricket.org
System Architect | Fax: +44 1733 348287 | Home: mi...@altrion.org
CricInfo Ltd | GSM: +44 7971 977375 | Web: http://www.cricket.org/
icarusi
news:zaLfkJAS...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk...
> I'm sitting here with some schematics of Matchless amps in front of
me
> and one of them is the Spitfire (14watt Mullard 5-10ish 2 x EL84)
fitted
> with guess what...... Yes, you've been listening.... a 100dB
Celestion
> Vintage 30 12" 60W speaker. Now that will be loud for just 14
watts!!
> Oh dear, it's bed time.... sorry. Stay tuned though!
Is that the 3 knob jobbie? If so, I tried one of those in A1 at the
time of the original Line 6 Axis. I'd been through the Axis emulations
and mentioned that the Matchless was the one I liked, and they
happened to have a little Matchless combo someone had either traded or
was selling. IIRC it was 15 watts and had a very nice sound, as they
say 'straight out of the box'. The Axis was pretty close for one
sound, but with the real amp you could dial in more variations, which
was nice.
Stewart Ward
<ica...@hotmail.com> writes
>Is that the 3 knob jobbie? If so, I tried one of those in A1 at the
>time of the original Line 6 Axis. I'd been through the Axis emulations
>and mentioned that the Matchless was the one I liked, and they
>happened to have a little Matchless combo someone had either traded or
>was selling. IIRC it was 15 watts and had a very nice sound, as they
>say 'straight out of the box'. The Axis was pretty close for one
>sound, but with the real amp you could dial in more variations, which
>was nice.
>
>Icarusi
These little amps all have something in common that heavilly contributes
to the particular tone you all like. Should I start a new thread on
this topic?
The decision is yours (Cilla)... will your spouses, where applicable,
put up with more of my ramblings??
--
Stewart Ward
Award-Session
Tel: +44 1256 477 222
Fax: +44 1256 817 687
DO NOT EMAIL CREDIT CARD NUMBERS
THIS ADDRESS INSECURE
Stewart Ward
<mi...@altrion.org> writes
>> Get hold of a copy of Doyle's 'History of Marshall' many of the recent
>> classic amp schematics (JCM 800, 900, 8080 and so on) are featured.
>> Please take a close look and report what you find.
>
>What about the JMP-1?
The JMP1 is virtually the same! Five LED's and then the the valve used
as a driver for the EQ section.
--
Stewart Ward
Award-Session
Tel: +44 1256 477 222
Fax: +44 1256 817 687
DO NOT EMAIL CREDIT CARD NUMBERS
THIS ADDRESS INSECURE
Steve Dix
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>The decision is yours (Cilla)... will your spouses, where applicable,
>put up with more of my ramblings??
Go for it. This is interesting.
James Screaton
> In article <MqiI6.9$yy....@news.dircon.co.uk>, Mike Whitaker
> <mi...@altrion.org> writes
> >> Get hold of a copy of Doyle's 'History of Marshall' many of the recent
> >> classic amp schematics (JCM 800, 900, 8080 and so on) are featured.
> >> Please take a close look and report what you find.
> >
> >What about the JMP-1?
>
> The JMP1 is virtually the same! Five LED's and then the the valve used
> as a driver for the EQ section.
>
hmm did that apply to the JCM800 50w that I used to own, which sounded
superb.
I really miss the sound of a real amp, but bedroom levels are not really
appropriate for a 50w amp :(
Cheers
James
.clive.murray. (at work)
news:9ctsfe$s8u$1...@hermes.shef.ac.uk...
> hmm did that apply to the JCM800 50w that I used to own, which sounded
> superb.
>
> I really miss the sound of a real amp, but bedroom levels are not really
> appropriate for a 50w amp :(
broadly true, but I've recently been enjoying superb sounds out of my JCM800
100w lead head in my bedroom.
mind you, it's set up to be fairly neutral and glassy, as the ADA MP-1 is
providing all distortion duties, and the zoom8080 is handling effects.
can't wait to get it up to decent volumes again...
--c.
Stewart Ward
>the blues, and humbuckers rawking out.
Yeah, I love P90s too. I've got a '75 Twin with JBLs, as new still with
it's swing tags and original Fender/GE bottles!! Cost me £375 new. It
was far too bassy, so I changed the capacitor feeding the input to the
phase splitter back to .001uf (from .01uf) per the original earlier AB-
763 mark. Much better now. That cap made '70s Twins rather unpopular
with blues players because they 'f****d' (guitarists term for distorted
low frequency signals) at the low end when turned up loud!
When Leo left, they had to employ 'lesser' engineers who did not have
his 'feel'. They like to tinker and change things to justfy their
jobs... and destroy what was good. Then accountants and marketing people
can't understand why the product sales slow down! "Well it is a Twin,
it's always sold well..." The assets wears the boots. Golden rule?
Never buy products from companies where the originator has sold it to
someone else... they'll never be as good. I.E. Sessionette:90, re-
issues... they just look the same! One cap can make that difference!
The speakers are chronic! The ali domes (dust covers) act as resonators
and set off (just like snare drum springs) at any note around it's
resonant frequency. Therefore, this gives off high end harmonics that
are not always related to the fundamental frequency of some notes
(discordant). No matter how much you turn down the treble control, you
can't lose it! Dicky betts (Allmans - Jessica - old Top Gear tune) used
Marshall S/L 100 heads and small 2 x 12" boxes loaded with same JBL
D120Fs and got a great tone (Knebworth with Doobies, Van Morrison,
etc)... but I worked out ('cause I have the same Les Paul Deluxe with
mini H/Bs) that if you played everything in D or related keys they sound
ok... those Allmans tunes are mostly in D!
Later I stuck in a pair of Celestion Vintage 30s... they sorted it good
and proper... now it will play in any key!!
>I know it's not possible to get them all on one amp, but 2 out 3 for an
>amp costing 120 quid is pretty good. I've never heard a tranny amp give
>that sparkling 'clean' tone of the classic Strat/Twin. There's always
>that slight hard 'edge' lurking in the background that doesn't seem to
>be there in valve amps. Now you're going to prove me wrong...
I don't want to appear as if I must have the last word, so all I will
say is... when I connect a current Sessionette (the clean channel is
straight Fender) into the Twin's speaker cab, the sound is just as nice.
A few 'known' players, inc Jerry Donahue, agree. But the new
Sessionettes employ a different 'voicing' culture to the old ones.
>OK. I'll bite. Without divulging any trade secrets you obviously want to
>protect, how did you address the issue of transient clipping caused by
>the headroom issue of the first gain stage - something I think may be
>the cause of the 'hard edge' to many tranny amps? Does this make sense
>to you or do you want me to elaborate a bit more?
I understand. The input stage on the new ones is basicaly the same as
the old one, except it attenuates the incoming low frequency signals
starting an octave higher. This means guitars with high output PUs are
far less likely to clip at this stage. If they do, then it will only be
at high frequencies which will not be noticed. Every stage throughout
the amp is 3dB down at 10kHz, which daisy chains into a very steep
filter! Your concerns are noted and I believe have been dealt with on
this mark of amp.
But now you will say that the tone is bass light. Yes it would be if
left as is. You've heard of pre and post emphasiss... well that's part
of the secret of this new design. We strip most of the bass out of the
signal (6dB/octave slope) at the input... do all the signal processing
in the preamp... and then attenuate the treble (inverse slope) to
restore bass/treble ratio. This actually happens naturally in early
valve amplifiers, when you take every stage into account from input to
speaker!
It's never been done before in this application and has been the reason
for so much of the acclaim for the JD10/20 pedals and new amps. We also
mimic the varying power bandwidth of valve output stages (those without
negative feedback)... there's much more to these new babies!
>> What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
>> as files??
Thanks for the info... I'll not post any just to be squeaky clean.
Thanks.
Rev Timothy N Nurse
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> These little amps all have something in common that heavilly contributes
> to the particular tone you all like. Should I start a new thread on
> this topic?
Yes please. Are we talking topology here?
Rick Booth
> The decision is yours (Cilla)... will your spouses, where applicable,
> put up with more of my ramblings??
Go for it! I'm learning stuff here...
- rfb
--
richar...@umist.ac.uk http://www.ma.umist.ac.uk/rb/
The reason that every major university maintains a department of
mathematics is that it's cheaper than institutionalizing us all.
icarusi
> These little amps all have something in common that heavilly
contributes
> to the particular tone you all like. Should I start a new thread on
> this topic?
>
> The decision is yours (Cilla)... will your spouses, where
applicable,
> put up with more of my ramblings??
The decision is yours (Shirley?)
Why not? Will it relate to anything about my Watkins Westminster?
Stewart Ward
<j.scr...@sheffield.ac.uk> writes
>hmm did that apply to the JCM800 50w that I used to own, which sounded
>superb.
>Cheers
>James
According to the Doyle book:
1987, 2203 &2204 are natural valev designs.
The following have varying designs of SS distortion:
2205, 2210, 2550, 2555, 8240, JCM900, JCM900 Dual Reverv, and JMP1. In
addition to those others discussed.
Certainly the single channel (Hi/Lo inputs) JCM800 100W is pure valve.
I guess this particular subject has run it's course now... I don't want
to appear to be slagging off Marshall products. As I've said elsewhere,
they are very successful and good value products. Enough said about
valve 'plonking'. That will stop when this knowledge starts to hit
their sales. I hope they do stop it, because their reputation is being
affected in the US.
From what I can make out, the JCM800 is favourite and I would not be at
all surprised if it makes a comeback - it ought to Jim, if you're
henchmen are tune in!!
But make sure you use 'em with Celestion G12T-75s... they *are* the
Marshall tone! No good with bright speakers... ouch, yuk! In fact many
players remove the 'bright' (470pf) caps from around the volume pots
too... There you are Jim, advice - put a bright switch next to the
volume pot and *heavy* rockers will be in Marshall Wonderland.
Make cheques payable to Stewart Ward please....:) no chance:(
--
Stewart Ward
Award-Session Amplification
Mike Whitaker
> The JMP1 is virtually the same! Five LED's and then the the valve used
> as a driver for the EQ section.
Ok. My analogue electronics is rusty as heck here, and while I have the
Doyle book, I'm well behind on figuring out what the circuits *do* (above
and beyond 'make it louder' and 'distort it').
My understanding is the JMP-1 has TWO ECC83s: exactly how and where do
these contribute to the sound, and where do the LEDs you mention fit it?
(I love my JMP-1., however it makes its sound - I'm just keen to learn.)
Semi-related question: power tube distortion seems to be something of a
Holy Grail among some guitarists. Comments?
Stewart Ward
<st...@stevedix.de> writes
>
>I've got a little Vox Pathfinder that I'm very happy with, and similar
>things have been said about connecting up a cabinet to it.
>Unfortunately the European version only has a headphone connection,
>rather than an extension speaker connection.
>
workshop!
--
Stewart Ward
Steve Dix
Really? Can you tell me how? (I'm not really local, being in the
middle of Germany).
BTW I narrowly avoided being a sessionette amp owner - I found one in
a 2nd hand shop but someone beat me to it, dammit.
Daniel
seen one in the US. My new brother-in-law in the UK owns one, and that's the
first time I'd ever heard of them.
Daniel
Stewart Ward
<son...@aol.comedancing> writes
Sadly yes, Peavey registered our name (Session) in 1986, so we cannot
legally sell there, although there are quite a number in the US.
Jerry Donahue represents us in LA.
Stewart Ward
<mi...@altrion.org> writes
>My understanding is the JMP-1 has TWO ECC83s: exactly how and where do
>these contribute to the sound, and where do the LEDs you mention fit it?
>(I love my JMP-1., however it makes its sound - I'm just keen to learn.)
Your second question first. Valves can be made to distort in a number
of different ways, so the term 'valve distortion' is a little vague.
Taking preamp generated distortion first:
1. There's asymetrical distortion which uses just one half of an
ECC83/12AX7/7025/7025WA. This is very common in Mesa Boogies. What
happens is that one half cycle of the wave form starts to distort before
the other half, then the other have catches up as the signal amplitude
increases. Often both half cycles have a different shape to the
distortion as well... it depends on how the designer has set them up to
run - biasing.
2. Symetrical clipping, where two valves following each other
(cascaded) are biased similarly and produce symetrical distortion. This
is more pleasant on the ear in deep distortion.
3. Output stage distortion, symetrical, is good for grungy kinds of
sounds. Vox AC30s and old JTM45s etc. do this well. Same with many old
'60s amps too. However, too much bass in the signal can make it sound
awfull! This is one reason not all valve amps sound good - and there
are a lot!
It is difficult to say exactly what the ECC83 is truly doing in your
JMP1 other that it's just there to enable the maker to claim valve
sound. The LEDs create the distortion by clipping the peaks off the
signal. The distortion they make is not dissimilar to that made by a 2.
above. You would be very hard pushed to hear it anyway, although some
will claim they can... once they know the LEDs are there!
Our RetroTone amp makes distortion of the style in 1. and has a
Marshall-esc EQ on the Lead channel A. Channel B has distortion 2.
style with an AC30-esc EQ circuit. Great amp for 60s/70s rock and is
the amp made for and used by Jerry Donahue of Hellecasters fame!
--
Stewart Ward
Award-Session Amplification
ni...@dcs.ed.ac.uk
: In article <tf15duc...@corp.supernews.co.uk>, ica...@hotmail.com
: (icarusi) wrote:
:> <Steve Cobham> wrote in message
:> news:3mgvet8c3nnek8pkb...@4ax.com...
:>
:> > IIRC the smallest Valvestate amp doesn't have a single valve in it.
:>
:> I didn't think any of the 'valvestate' amps used valves? I thought it
:> was just Marshall's terminology for their solid state emulation of
:> valve distortion, like Peavey's Transtube?
:>
: ISTR that as you go up the range, you get a valve in the preamp. Last
: time I was looking around for an amp, that was the definite implication
: from the blurb - I'm not too sure how far up the range you have to get
: though.
I would have been with Icarusi until a couple of months ago, but yes;
Pete's right. A friend of mine brought along a Valvestate recently, and I
started to get a bit huffy about playing through a solid state. I then
felt a bit stupid when I found out it had a tube preamp stage. (But I
still took the "not fully valved" high ground!)
Titch.
--
Serious, business-type email for life: niall_...@bigfoot.com
Hotmail is giving me serious gip, and moremail appears to have folded
without even a courtesy notice, so you'd best use the bigfoot address
if you feel like getting in touch.
Email address that'll be out of date next year: ni...@dcs.ed.ac.uk
.clive.murray. (at work)
> I would have been with Icarusi until a couple of months ago, but yes;
> Pete's right. A friend of mine brought along a Valvestate recently, and I
> started to get a bit huffy about playing through a solid state. I then
> felt a bit stupid when I found out it had a tube preamp stage. (But I
> still took the "not fully valved" high ground!)
heh... ATM I'm playing an ADA MP-1 midi tube preamp into a 100w marshall
JCM800 master volume head. maximum valvage!
the MP-1 is such a great piece of kit - I'd forgotten I even owned one until
vinny started talking about them at UKMGPU5.0, so I dug it out. what great
sounds!
the only downside with it is that it's very noisy. once you get a good rock
lead sound (quite a lot of gain, medium treble and presence) the thing
really starts to hiss when the guitar volume is off. it's not noticeable
when playing, and personally I always drop the output volume to off on my
zoom floorboard when I stop, so it doesn't bother me so much as it might,
but that could put some people off.
personally, I love it. I run it in the "external distortion device" loop of
my zoom8080, and use the midi out on the zoom to trigger patch changes on
the MP-1. I haven't gigged this setup yet, but if and when I do I'll give a
full report!
cheers,
--c.
love/hate, blackout in the red room, one more round
Mike Whitaker
> off on my zoom floorboard when I stop, so it doesn't bother me so much as
> it might, but that could put some people off.
Volume pedals scare me. I have this recurring nightmare of launching into a
perfectly timed, straight between the eyes solo guitar intro and...
nothing...
Stan Barr
Stewart Ward <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>3. Output stage distortion, symetrical, is good for grungy kinds of
>sounds. Vox AC30s and old JTM45s etc. do this well. Same with many old
>'60s amps too. However, too much bass in the signal can make it sound
>awfull! This is one reason not all valve amps sound good - and there
>are a lot!
Our experiments (abt 20 yrs ago) suggested that the lack of HT supply
"stiffness" in some valve amps with valve rectifiers and low value smoothing
caps caused the tops of the clipped signal to sag off giving a sort of
sawtooth effect. In general these amps sounded better (to our ears anyway!)
than those with "stiffer" supplies - solid-sate rectifiers, high-value
smoothers - which clipped with flatter tops. I can't help thinking, though,
that the time constant formed by the combined R and L of the output
transformer and C of the smoothing capacitor may be a factor. I keep
meaning to follow this up....
IIRC a '60s 50W Marshall used silicon diodes and 2x50uf caps and a Fender
Deluxe used a GZ34 and one 16uf cap, I for one prefer the sound of the
Fender...
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr st...@dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
Stewart Ward
have an inductive load, the speaker. Valve amps don't seem show this
effect when on a resistive load. My tranny amps show the overshoot too,
under the same conditions.
Don't forget that Fender & Marshall have different preamp designs too,
which grossly effects their tone. So a direct comparison is not that
accurate. You may just like the Fender's tone and the technology may
have nothing to do with what it is you like. You would need to drive
both Fender & Marshall power amps, into the same speakers/cabs, with
only one preamp to be fair. Even then, small differences in the power
amp designs (negative feedback) would make this difficult too. So, not
much value in attempting it really!
One thing for sure, is that the Fender will have much higher
instantaneous (peak) power due to the current limiting effects of the
GZ34.
In SS amps one way to achieve this simply (experiment only) is to reduce
the current spec of the mains transformer so that current limiting takes
place earlier. Modern transformers can run much hotter with safety.
Also reduce the value of the smoothing caps by 50%. Our HiFlex 100W RMS
output stages produce 143 watts peak and are perfectly reliable!
In article <slrn9fggk9...@citadel.metropolis.local>, Stan Barr
<st...@dial.pipex.com> writes
>IIRC a '60s 50W Marshall used silicon diodes and 2x50uf caps and a Fender
>Deluxe used a GZ34 and one 16uf cap, I for one prefer the sound of the
>Fender...
>--
>Cheers,
>Stan Barr
--
Rev T. N. Nurse
<Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> One thing for sure, is that the Fender will have much higher
> instantaneous (peak) power due to the current limiting effects of the
> GZ34.
If the current is limited, how can it have a much higher peak transient
power than one who's power isn't limited, given that power = I^2*R?
(Ignoring diode meltdown, of course!)
If anything, given that power is a square of the current, the one that
doesn't have current limiting will have a big advantage.
Stewart Ward
work) <earth...@hotmail.com> writes
>> I would have been with Icarusi until a couple of months ago, but yes;
>> Pete's right. A friend of mine brought along a Valvestate recently, and I
>> started to get a bit huffy about playing through a solid state. I then
>> felt a bit stupid when I found out it had a tube preamp stage. (But I
>> still took the "not fully valved" high ground!)
>
>heh... ATM I'm playing an ADA MP-1 midi tube preamp into a 100w marshall
>JCM800 master volume head. maximum valvage!
>
>the MP-1 is such a great piece of kit - I'd forgotten I even owned one until
>vinny started talking about them at UKMGPU5.0, so I dug it out. what great
>sounds!
The old distributor for ADA once told me that the MP-1 had solid state
distortion (un-confirmed though). It was before the Marshall 'valve
plonking' era. I would be interested to see the schematics??
--
Stewart Ward
Award-Session Amplification
PO Box 3, Basingstoke, RG24 9QA, UK.
Stan Barr
Stewart Ward <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>The 'over-shoot' to which you refer to seems only to be there when you
>have an inductive load, the speaker. Valve amps don't seem show this
>effect when on a resistive load. My tranny amps show the overshoot too,
>under the same conditions.
>
It's not so much an overshoot as the inability of the PSU to keep up the
required current over the whole of that part of the cycle when the o/p valve
is more-or-less saturated. We could see it impressed on the HT rail with
the 'scope. We were using a dummy load...big amps at full chat upset
the neighbours!
Pity I no longer have my notes on all this, I don't remember all the details
any more (old age and loose living takes it toll....).
I was doing all this to try and design my ultimate amp using the mortal
remains of an old Carlsboro ;-)
>
>One thing for sure, is that the Fender will have much higher
>instantaneous (peak) power due to the current limiting effects of the
>GZ34.
>
Less power I would have thought...
.clive.murray.
>In article <9d8q7v$h8b6p$1...@ID-56037.news.dfncis.de>, .clive.murray. (at
>work) <earth...@hotmail.com> writes
>>the MP-1 is such a great piece of kit - I'd forgotten I even owned one
until
>>vinny started talking about them at UKMGPU5.0, so I dug it out. what great
>>sounds!
>
>The old distributor for ADA once told me that the MP-1 had solid state
>distortion (un-confirmed though). It was before the Marshall 'valve
>plonking' era. I would be interested to see the schematics??
heh... well he's not lying there, but he is misleading you a bit. here's a
bit from the manual's list of features:
* Two low noise 12AX7/7025 tubes.
* Unique Tri-State Voicing for choice of Clean Tube, Distortion Tube, or
Solid State circuit for each program.
and I love it.
--c.
--
* cliveatearthmandotorg | [don't use my hotmail address]
* clive.murray | http://earthman.org/
* music | http://www.mp3.com/clivemurray/
* I ain't drowning - just waving...
Titch Tracey
: In article <zaLfkJAS...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk>, Stewart Ward
: <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
:> What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
:> as files??
: Well, binaries are not normally permitted,
<snip>
: Seriously though, if the file is small and its highly pertinent to the
: ongoing discussion as an education tool, then it's probably OK.
No! Under no circumstances should binaries ever be posted to any NG
without the word "binaries" in the title.
This is not just a case of people being anally retentive and clinging to
the letter of the law for its own sake but a real practical issue.
Many newshosts have problems with the amount of data going through them.
This leads many newsadmins to drop any groups containing binaries, even if
just one or two binaries are spotted. This makes the group inaccessible to
some and degrades the performance as some posts fail to get fully
propagated across the Usenet, meaning valuable information can be lost.
I personally quite like UK.m.g, and would rather this didn't happen to it.
Titch
Titch Tracey
: In article <20010505144809...@ng-ct1.aol.com>, Daniel
: <son...@aol.comedancing> writes
:>So then are Session amps only available in Europe? i guess yes since I've never
:>seen one in the US. My new brother-in-law in the UK owns one, and that's the
:>first time I'd ever heard of them.
: Sadly yes, Peavey registered our name (Session) in 1986, so we cannot
: legally sell there, although there are quite a number in the US.
Have you considered using "Sesh" as an abbreviation of "Session" to get
round this?
As my payment for this remarkable business consultancy, I would like a
nice big fully-valved amp with Celestion speakers. ;)
Titch.
Rev T. N. Nurse
>Rev Timothy N Nurse <tnn...@xyz.usa.net> wrote:
>: In article <zaLfkJAS...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk>, Stewart Ward
>: <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>:> What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
>:> as files??
>: Well, binaries are not normally permitted,
><snip>
>: Seriously though, if the file is small and its highly pertinent to the
>: ongoing discussion as an education tool, then it's probably OK.
>No! Under no circumstances should binaries ever be posted to any NG
>without the word "binaries" in the title.
>This is not just a case of people being anally retentive and clinging to
>the letter of the law for its own sake but a real practical issue.
Actually it is and no, there is no real practical issue behind it. Many
groups do indeed permit exceptions to be made, if there is a good reason
to post it and provided its small.
>Many newshosts have problems with the amount of data going through them.
For 'many' read some JANET sites, on the academia network.
>This leads many newsadmins to drop any groups containing binaries, even if
>just one or two binaries are spotted.
That's not true. Anyway, it would be almost impossible for newadmins to
sift every article looking for a uuencoded signature, which is why they
simply just drop the entire blocks from alt.binaries instead. The reason
these are selectively dropped by both JANET and a number of ISPs has more
to do with the distribution of mp3s, porn and warez than a lack of
throughput. And now that JANET have started charging on a per-packet basis,
all the more reason to block binaries en masse - which is why you can't
get Napster and most sites now have enforced caching for web stuff.
> This makes the group inaccessible to
>some and degrades the performance as some posts fail to get fully
>propagated across the Usenet, meaning valuable information can be lost.
I'm afraid this just isn't the case. Of course binaries in non-binary
newsgroups do mean long downloads, which can be very time consuming for
those who use off-line non-threading newsreaders. But whilst these were
common 10 years ago when the decision to restrict binaries to binary
newsgroups was taken, they are very rare now and most readers can select
what they wish to download first, before incurring long download times.
Not, I hasten to add, that I'm making a case for willy-nilly binary postings
to a non-binary group, simple stating that your rationale, that the newsgroup
will be dumped by sysadmins in academia who have nothing better to do with
their time that sit around sifting through 700,million articles a day looking
for the odd binary and whacking an entire group should one appear is simply
not the case.
> I personally quite like UK.m.g, and would rather this didn't happen to it.
I agree.
Stan Barr
>Titch Tracey (ni...@dcs.ed.ac.uk) wrote -
>>Rev Timothy N Nurse <tnn...@xyz.usa.net> wrote:
>>: In article <zaLfkJAS...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk>, Stewart Ward
>>: <Ste...@radius-intl.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>:> What's the proto' about posting pictures or circuits on this newsgroup
>>:> as files??
>>: Well, binaries are not normally permitted,
>
>><snip>
>
>>: Seriously though, if the file is small and its highly pertinent to the
>>: ongoing discussion as an education tool, then it's probably OK.
>
>>No! Under no circumstances should binaries ever be posted to any NG
>>without the word "binaries" in the title.
>
>>This is not just a case of people being anally retentive and clinging to
>>the letter of the law for its own sake but a real practical issue.
>
>Actually it is and no, there is no real practical issue behind it. Many
>groups do indeed permit exceptions to be made, if there is a good reason
>to post it and provided its small.
>
>>Many newshosts have problems with the amount of data going through them.
>
>For 'many' read some JANET sites, on the academia network.
>
>>This leads many newsadmins to drop any groups containing binaries, even if
>>just one or two binaries are spotted.
>
>That's not true. Anyway, it would be almost impossible for newadmins to
>sift every article looking for a uuencoded signature,
My ISP drops any news items containing binaries (and html - I think) in
non-binary n/g. As they provide a newsfeed to many other ISPs, they
don't get them either, so there are many people your message won't reach.
>
>I'm afraid this just isn't the case. Of course binaries in non-binary
>newsgroups do mean long downloads, which can be very time consuming for
>those who use off-line non-threading newsreaders. But whilst these were
>common 10 years ago when the decision to restrict binaries to binary
>newsgroups was taken, they are very rare now and most readers can select
>what they wish to download first, before incurring long download times.
Only if you sit there manually selecting your news to download...some of
us don't have the patience and have the whole thing automated to just suck
up all the requested newsgroups at a set time of day whether we're there
or not. We can then sit and read them at our leisure secure in the knowledge
we won't miss out on anything and have to go back for it. Computers were
meant to make things easier and save time ;-)
Doesn't take that long anyway, my system gets 35 newsgroups (about 1.5Mb),
plus my mail, in about 5 mins twice a day. Large binaries would have a
significant effect on that. I could restrict the size of messages
downloaded, but luckily my ISP solves the problem...
Titch Tracey
: Titch Tracey (ni...@dcs.ed.ac.uk) wrote -
:>No! Under no circumstances should binaries ever be posted to any NG
:>without the word "binaries" in the title.
:>This is not just a case of people being anally retentive and clinging to
:>the letter of the law for its own sake but a real practical issue.
: Actually it is and no, there is no real practical issue behind it. Many
: groups do indeed permit exceptions to be made, if there is a good reason
: to post it and provided its small.
Many groups allow beating seven shades of shellac out of each other
(boxers). Doesn't mean it's a good idea....
:>Many newshosts have problems with the amount of data going through them.
: For 'many' read some JANET sites, on the academia network.
:>This leads many newsadmins to drop any groups containing binaries, even if
:>just one or two binaries are spotted.
: That's not true. Anyway, it would be almost impossible for newadmins to
: sift every article looking for a uuencoded signature, which is why they
: simply just drop the entire blocks from alt.binaries instead.
You seem to be forgetting that newsgroups are distributed by computer, and
that computers have a knack for data processing. ;) It's a simple matter
for a small script to check posts for binaries during system idle-time.
At the very least, binaries can cause several minor niggles with threading
as they are dropped from the propagation path if one of the newshosts on
the path takes exception to the binary (even if this is only JANet
servers, they are still linked to other servers) and people start to miss
messages and the like.
Rev T. N. Nurse
> Rev T. N. Nurse <tnn...@xyz.usa.net> wrote:
> : Titch Tracey (ni...@dcs.ed.ac.uk) wrote -
>
> :>No! Under no circumstances should binaries ever be posted to any NG
> :>without the word "binaries" in the title.
>
> :>This is not just a case of people being anally retentive and clinging to
> :>the letter of the law for its own sake but a real practical issue.
>
> : Actually it is and no, there is no real practical issue behind it. Many
> : groups do indeed permit exceptions to be made, if there is a good reason
> : to post it and provided its small.
>
> Many groups allow beating seven shades of shellac out of each other
> (boxers). Doesn't mean it's a good idea....
>
> :>Many newshosts have problems with the amount of data going through them.
>
> : For 'many' read some JANET sites, on the academia network.
>
> :>This leads many newsadmins to drop any groups containing binaries, even if
> :>just one or two binaries are spotted.
>
> : That's not true. Anyway, it would be almost impossible for newadmins to
> : sift every article looking for a uuencoded signature, which is why they
> : simply just drop the entire blocks from alt.binaries instead.
>
> You seem to be forgetting that newsgroups are distributed by computer, and
> that computers have a knack for data processing. ;) It's a simple matter
> for a small script to check posts for binaries during system idle-time.
Oh really? So how does it distinguish between, say, a PGP signature and
a straight forward binary? The amount of overhead this would generate
in an NNTP server would be collosal. Besides news software is not geared
towards indivudual article checking, this has always been the argument
used by the major players like Demon regarding the distribution of
warez and porn, and why JANET just delete the lot. It is simply not feasible.
Do you know how many articles it would have to process daily and what sort
of load that would impose on the poor little NNTP server?
> At the very least, binaries can cause several minor niggles with threading
> as they are dropped from the propagation path if one of the newshosts on
> the path takes exception to the binary (even if this is only JANet
> servers, they are still linked to other servers) and people start to miss
> messages and the like.
And how does this affect threading, given that threading is done locally
rather than globally and, anyway not all news servers, including many in
the distribution path support threading? Threading is irrelevant. That is done
by your newsreading software. I don't know of any newsreading software that
would get upset if one of the article numbers in the references line, which is
what the software uses to thread, is not on its server. It simply skips it
- as you would expect any sensible software to do as news articles do not
arrive at all servers at the same time due to net propogation delays and it
is not uncommon for an article to appear on your news server that is a
response to a previous article which has not yet arrived at your server,
the original article popping up hours, even days, later.
Your off on a bum steer, here. Threading failure due to missing articles
is not an issue as it doesn't happen
Rev T. N. Nurse
st...@dial.pipex.com wrote:
> >That's not true. Anyway, it would be almost impossible for newadmins to
> >sift every article looking for a uuencoded signature,
>
> My ISP drops any news items containing binaries (and html - I think) in
> non-binary n/g. As they provide a newsfeed to many other ISPs, they
> don't get them either, so there are many people your message won't reach.
Are you sure about that Stan, and they don't just cancel on the basis
of complaints received? I *can* see a very good reason for cancelling
such articles, the risk of a virus as a binary attachment, but I can't
see how they could sift for it first. How can they tell if its a binary
or a PGP signature, for example? Both are binaries.
> Only if you sit there manually selecting your news to download...some of
> us don't have the patience and have the whole thing automated to just suck
> up all the requested newsgroups at a set time of day whether we're there
> or not. We can then sit and read them at our leisure secure in the knowledge
> we won't miss out on anything and have to go back for it. Computers were
> meant to make things easier and save time ;-)
Hmmm, I just download all the headers and choose the ones I want to read.
I assumed everyone operated that way.
> Doesn't take that long anyway, my system gets 35 newsgroups (about 1.5Mb),
> plus my mail, in about 5 mins twice a day. Large binaries would have a
> significant effect on that.
Fair enuff.
Stan Barr
>In article <slrn9g06u8...@citadel.metropolis.local>,
>st...@dial.pipex.com wrote:
>
>
>> >That's not true. Anyway, it would be almost impossible for newadmins to
>> >sift every article looking for a uuencoded signature,
>>
>> My ISP drops any news items containing binaries (and html - I think) in
>> non-binary n/g. As they provide a newsfeed to many other ISPs, they
>> don't get them either, so there are many people your message won't reach.
>
>Are you sure about that Stan, and they don't just cancel on the basis
>of complaints received? I *can* see a very good reason for cancelling
>such articles, the risk of a virus as a binary attachment, but I can't
>see how they could sift for it first. How can they tell if its a binary
>or a PGP signature, for example? Both are binaries.
Well...in other (less well behaved) newsgroups I frequently see people getting
well flamed for posting binaries where I have never received the original.
It happens quite often - too often, I think, for it to be the result of
complaints. In fact I've *never* got a binary in a newsgroup from Pipex.
I'm not limiting the size of messages at the moment so it's not my system doing
it.
Someone emailed me a couple of years ago to tell me Pipex were killing them and
I took his word for it - don't know how they do it...
I've looked for the original binary postings for such followups in the past and
they're not in my news server directory, where they are kept for 7 days, and
there are no gaps in the article numbers so I'm pretty certain I've never
received the original.
JNugent
news:slrn9g2quq...@citadel.metropolis.local...
> Rev T. N. Nurse <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net> wrote:
> >st...@dial.pipex.com wrote:
> >> My ISP drops any news items containing binaries (and html - I think) in
> >> non-binary n/g. As they provide a newsfeed to many other ISPs, they
> >> don't get them either, so there are many people your message won't
reach.
> >Are you sure about that Stan, and they don't just cancel on the basis
> >of complaints received? I *can* see a very good reason for cancelling
> >such articles, the risk of a virus as a binary attachment, but I can't
> >see how they could sift for it first. How can they tell if its a binary
> >or a PGP signature, for example? Both are binaries.
>
> Well...in other (less well behaved) newsgroups I frequently see people
getting
> well flamed for posting binaries where I have never received the original.
Same here.
Freeserve filters binary posts out of non-binary groups (and for that
matter, denies access to many binary groups that you wouldn't want your
maiden aunt to see...).
Rev T. N. Nurse
st...@dial.pipex.com wrote:
> On Tue, 15 May 2001 16:06:16 +0100, Rev T. N. Nurse <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net>
wrote:
> >Are you sure about that Stan, and they don't just cancel on the basis
> >of complaints received? I *can* see a very good reason for cancelling
> >such articles, the risk of a virus as a binary attachment, but I can't
> >see how they could sift for it first. How can they tell if its a binary
> >or a PGP signature, for example? Both are binaries.
>
> Well...in other (less well behaved) newsgroups I frequently see people getting
> well flamed for posting binaries where I have never received the original.
> It happens quite often - too often, I think, for it to be the result of
> complaints. In fact I've *never* got a binary in a newsgroup from Pipex.
> I'm not limiting the size of messages at the moment so it's not my system
doing
> it.
Ah well. Anyway I think we've discussed this enough. It's not going to
happen here.
ni...@dcs.ed.ac.uk
: Oh really? So how does it distinguish between, say, a PGP signature and
: a straight forward binary? The amount of overhead this would generate
: in an NNTP server would be collosal.
It would be, so they don't. PGP signed messages are often dropped as
binaries.
What I said:
:> At the very least, binaries can cause several minor niggles with threading
:> as they are dropped from the propagation path if one of the newshosts on
:> the path takes exception to the binary (even if this is only JANet
:> servers, they are still linked to other servers) and people start to miss
:> messages and the like.
: And how does this affect threading, given that threading is done locally
: rather than globally and, anyway not all news servers, including many in
: the distribution path support threading? Threading is irrelevant. That is done
: by your newsreading software. I don't know of any newsreading software that
: would get upset if one of the article numbers in the references line, which is
: what the software uses to thread, is not on its server.
tin (the newsreader I use) doesn't get upset per se when one of the
references is missing, but the thread tree becomes a bit mangled and
unordered. There are various effects based on the number of missing
articles and the number of quoted references that muck up the threads.
I have seen it in practice, and while it might be linked to over-zealous
reference trimming by the sending news package, it happens.
Rev T. N. Nurse
> Rev T. N. Nurse <tnn...@xyz.usa.net> wrote:
>
> : Oh really? So how does it distinguish between, say, a PGP signature and
> : a straight forward binary? The amount of overhead this would generate
> : in an NNTP server would be collosal.
>
> It would be, so they don't. PGP signed messages are often dropped as
> binaries.
Then there must be an *awful* lot of messages going astray.
>
> What I said:
> :> At the very least, binaries can cause several minor niggles with threading
> :> as they are dropped from the propagation path if one of the newshosts on
> :> the path takes exception to the binary (even if this is only JANet
> :> servers, they are still linked to other servers) and people start to miss
> :> messages and the like.
>
> : And how does this affect threading, given that threading is done locally
> : rather than globally and, anyway not all news servers, including many in
> : the distribution path support threading? Threading is irrelevant. That
is done
> : by your newsreading software. I don't know of any newsreading software that
> : would get upset if one of the article numbers in the references line,
which is
> : what the software uses to thread, is not on its server.
>
> tin (the newsreader I use) doesn't get upset per se when one of the
> references is missing, but the thread tree becomes a bit mangled and
> unordered. There are various effects based on the number of missing
> articles and the number of quoted references that muck up the threads.
By definition *no* newsreader should get upset if an article in the
References line doesn't happen to be on the news-spool. It would be
quite ridiculous if one did given that Usenet is NOT real-time and
propagation delays are very common. For example, I could post
this article and it could be on your news-spool withing minutes
ready for you to reply. You then reply to my article and within an hour
it is in my newspool ready to read. *However* my original article may
not have make it to Stan's server for a day, because of the vagries of
Usenet routers. Your reply though, again because of the vagries of
Usenet routing and that your articles may go an entirely different
route to Stan's arrives at his server within minutes of it arriving
at mine. Stan sees your reply, but doesn't see my original article.
His threading software does not see the original article and so it does
the best it can by working back down the References line until it finds a
grandparent article it can link to. If Stan read's it at this point,
the parent article will be missing, however he will get the gist of it.
If he marks it as 'unread' however, and comes backthe next day, when
the parent has arrived, his news software will thread correctly.
Threading is no more than a very basic sorting tool. It cannot compensate
for propagation delays that are inherent in Usenet and anyone writing
news software has to take this into account and ensure that it is robust
enough to cope with such issues. Delayed articles happen *millions* of times
every day and threaders do the best they can to cope.
> I have seen it in practice, and while it might be linked to over-zealous
> reference trimming by the sending news package, it happens.
Indeed it happens. It is in the nature of the beast that threading will
*never* be accurate or terribly reliable whilst article propogation delay
exists.
Anyway, I think we've thrashed this the death for long enough, and we are
away off topic. Back to guitars..
>
> Titch.
> --
> Serious, business-type email for life: niall_...@bigfoot.com
> Hotmail is giving me serious gip, and moremail appears to have folded
> without even a courtesy notice, so you'd best use the bigfoot address
> if you feel like getting in touch.
> Email address that'll be out of date next year: ni...@dcs.ed.ac.uk
--
Note new signature file
ni...@dcs.ed.ac.uk
: Anyway, I think we've thrashed this the death for long enough, and we are
: away off topic. Back to guitars..
They're grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!
And amps, too.
Stewart Ward
In article <tnnurse-ya0235800...@130.209.34.15>, Rev T. N.
Nurse <tnn...@XYZ.usa.net> writes
--
Stewart Ward
Stewart Ward
<st...@dial.pipex.com> writes
>It's not so much an overshoot as the inability of the PSU to keep up the
>required current over the whole of that part of the cycle when the o/p valve
>is more-or-less saturated. We could see it impressed on the HT rail with
>the 'scope. We were using a dummy load...big amps at full chat upset
>the neighbours!
>>One thing for sure, is that the Fender will have much higher
>>instantaneous (peak) power due to the current limiting effects of the
>>GZ34.
>
>Less power I would have thought...
Of course, there are many aspects of the design which can affect the
outcome... mains transformers being just one and cost being a big factor
too. Aah, the wonders of electronics/physics and I wonder if the
'supporting' components are more to do with what 'the valve' is credited
with? Wouldn't it be nice to unplug the valve and slip a transistor in
it's place, then we'd know for sure what was causing these effects.
However, I can only speak based on my experiences. I have in the past,
replaced GZ34s, EZ81's, etc. with SS rectifiers wired across the valve
bases and found that the resultant DC available had increased. % wise I
cannot remember - too long ago. Further, I noticed that the rms output
power (naturally) had increased, but the peak power not much.
Valve rectifiers are current limiting devices. They deliver so much and
then something else has to give - volts drop. In many amps, the voltage
across the output stage is higher to allow for the fact that the volts
will drop when the power supply is under load, otherwise the true rms
output quoted would not be realised. As a result we hear enormous
instant cleanish output power rapidly fading away into distortion as the
smooting caps are discharged to a level that the rectifier is just able
to maintain. Effectively the fabled 'valve amp compression' - that
squashy sound when you strum a chord in true Neil Young fashion? The
same amp fitted with SS rectifiers would deliver more current as
required on demand - and the O/P stage would just clip.
My '75 Fender Twin with SS rectifiers and original valves (hardly
gigged) don't do it Guv... why then is the Twin noted for being loud and
hard to distort? It just clips, no squashy sound.
Compression may not be to do with the rectifier alone, but also
'economic' mains transformers (an expensive component) and smoothing
caps. Since amps first amps appeared, manufacturers were under pressure
to make them cheaper - nothing's changed! You would be so wrong to
assume that quality of sound was the only criteria considered in making
valve amps even then. Accounts have always been busy in the background!
I don't want to merely credit valves as 'the' reason alone. Valves
operated with near perfect power supplies don't seem to be that special.
As long as I recognise what it is that's happening (beneficial defects)
to make the instruments sound good, then I should use that knowledge and
apply it to modern circuitry. Transistors (and chips) have a lot to
offer and I don't believe many designers have tried hard enough with
them... given up too soon under the weight of public opinion. If I had
adopted this line in 1979, the Sessionette would never have appeared...
and would not have inspired the many other Sessionette-like amps that
appeared after. It was not perfect, but a major step in the right
direction.
Yes, it's so much easier to re-cycle old designs and technology. But,
where's the fun? Where's the kudos? You still haven't heard what we
are doing today with trannies! :)