Solid State Amps

[garthplinko]

With Musicman amps they are pretty rugged except for the two speaker combos which seemed to be a bit buggy.

+1

I can say this has absolutely not been the case for mine.

But now you guys got me freaked. Love this amp and have come to look at it as a good old dependable friend.

[deadfate]

i've found a yamaha g100 (1x15) for 220€, it's in good condition, maybe i had to fix the tremolo. now i'm playing with an ampeg j20 reissue, but it's too loud for house and it feedback too much with archtops guitars. the yamaha compared to the traynor ts-25 how it sounds? i need an amp to practice and maybe to play in some small jazz ensemble. will it fit my exigences?

[yaledelay]

board member pepper is going to borrow (with intent to buy) a old Traynor... I am excited...

[TheMilford]

With Musicman amps they are pretty rugged except for the two speaker combos which seemed to be a bit buggy.

+1

I can say this has absolutely not been the case for mine.

But now you guys got me freaked. Love this amp and have come to look at it as a good old dependable friend.

Is yours a 12AX7 version?

My guitar payer in Champion Collision has a Sixty-Five 112 combo that is pretty rock solid... but it's a non-12AX7 version... It's needed minimal maintenance over the years. Our 212 One-Thirty combo the studio is a little "delicate" and has had a coupla bad and weird problems over the years...

I've also had yet another buddy with a 210 One-Thirty... that for the most part was ok... but still did "weird" things from time to time. I never worked on it so I don't know the full story.

FWIW, our Sixty-Five head has just developed an issue... I think a input device has gone bad... channel 1 is low volume with tons of noise.... 2 is fine. Probably just need to replace an op-amp.

Remember these are OLD amps... I say, just replace the electrolytics and make sure all your voltages are good... adjust bias to spec and you should be good for another 40 years.

[llllllllllllllllllllllll]

board member pepper is going to borrow (with intent to buy) a old Traynor... I am excited...

Cool, what kind? I just got in a beat to hell Traynor TS-10. It sounds really cool.

[skoz]

70's and early 80's Gallien Krueger guitar amps are pretty awesome. I think Jeff from Arab on Radar played a GMT 600M on there short-lived reunion tour.

[yaledelay]

board member pepper is going to borrow (with intent to buy) a old Traynor... I am excited...

Cool, what kind? I just got in a beat to hell Traynor TS-10. It sounds really cool.

to quote pepper "a Traynor TS-140 that somebody turned into a head (the original combo weighed more than a twin). It's like the "deluxe" Traynor TS series amp"

[deadfate]

i've heard some really good things about zt amps, expecially for the club, light, powerful and reliable. how is your opinion?

[garthplinko]

With Musicman amps they are pretty rugged except for the two speaker combos which seemed to be a bit buggy.

+1

I can say this has absolutely not been the case for mine.

But now you guys got me freaked. Love this amp and have come to look at it as a good old dependable friend.

Is yours a 12AX7 version?

My guitar payer in Champion Collision has a Sixty-Five 112 combo that is pretty rock solid... but it's a non-12AX7 version... It's needed minimal maintenance over the years. Our 212 One-Thirty combo the studio is a little "delicate" and has had a coupla bad and weird problems over the years...

I've also had yet another buddy with a 210 One-Thirty... that for the most part was ok... but still did "weird" things from time to time. I never worked on it so I don't know the full story.

FWIW, our Sixty-Five head has just developed an issue... I think a input device has gone bad... channel 1 is low volume with tons of noise.... 2 is fine. Probably just need to replace an op-amp.

Remember these are OLD amps... I say, just replace the electrolytics and make sure all your voltages are good... adjust bias to spec and you should be good for another 40 years.

Mine does have a 12AX7. It's a script logo one-thirty in 2x12" combo format. So far this thing has been a complete tank having traveled a fair amount the past couple years and used extensively in practice/recording - trem and reverb sound great too. I've had it for at least 15 years now and never a single hint of surprise or flakiness.

Probably going to have to let it ride for the time being as we have a lot of shows coming up and little time/money to take it in for maintenance - and I'm hesitant to do the work myself at this point on our "breadwinner."

[four_oclocker_2]

I recently found somebody selling a Traynor TS-15 for $75 (the one with 2-8" speakers.) Has anyone used one of these?

It seems like it could be a nice little practice/small gig amp, but it also looks a little too cute and it has one of those master volume switches. Any thoughts?

It looks like this:

[garthplinko]

For $75 I can't see how it wouldn't be worth the risk.

[llllllllllllllllllllllll]

I recently found somebody selling a Traynor TS-15 for $75 (the one with 2-8" speakers.) Has anyone used one of these?

It seems like it could be a nice little practice/small gig amp, but it also looks a little too cute and it has one of those master volume switches. Any thoughts?

It looks like this:

I have one, and I would recommend that you get either a TS-10 or a TS-25, either of which you can find for about the same price. Those master volume switches are what kill it for me.

[llllllllllllllllllllllll]

board member pepper is going to borrow (with intent to buy) a old Traynor... I am excited...

Cool, what kind? I just got in a beat to hell Traynor TS-10. It sounds really cool.

to quote pepper "a Traynor TS-140 that somebody turned into a head (the original combo weighed more than a twin). It's like the "deluxe" Traynor TS series amp"

Awesome! Love that style of amp, I know I'll find one of the higher wattage one one day.

[benadrian]

to quote pepper "a Traynor TS-140 that somebody turned into a head (the original combo weighed more than a twin). It's like the "deluxe" Traynor TS series amp"

Any new thoughts, Chris?

Also, what tube amps have you blow up? Well made tube amps CAN take abuse, and the parts that will die on a well maintained, high quality tube amp are the same parts that will die on a solid state amp.

I remember you having a modern Ampeg "old looking" amp, which are kind of junk.

[japmn]

I used to be a die hard tube amp guy, but recently, Low watt (35-50) solid state bass amps into single 15" cabs has been my jam. Love it.

[garthplinko]

I used to be a die hard tube amp guy, but recently, Low watt (35-50) solid state bass amps into single 15" cabs has been my jam. Love it.

For guitar?

[subprime]

What is it about the traynor solid state amps that lets them distort so well, where with other solid state amps if its distorting it means youre fucking it up.

[benadrian]

A lot of solid state amps from the late 70s and early 80s are designed similarly to tube amps. Instead of tube gain stages, there are discreet transistors. The distortion came from actually overloading the transistor gain stages. Occasionally, there would be an op amp or a clipping diode., but all the volume controls and tone shaping were done passively, just like a tube amp. It just so happened that a lot of the transistors and FETs sounded pretty good when distorting, and the preamp would distort before the power amp would distort, and the power amp distortion almost universally sounds bad with solid state amps.

As the 80s progressed, solid state amps became almost all op-amp based. Volume controls went from passive controls to actively controlling negative feedback in a gain stage. Tone controls went from passive to active. Distortion became fully diode based, like a stompbox pedal. The older solid state amps would kind of ease into distortion, like a tube amp. The newer solid state amps were meant to be clean, or they were meant to distort like a distortion or overdrive pedal. If the clean channel ever got overloaded, it sounded horrible, and the distortion channel usually sounded like a crummy pedal.

Now, amp companies tried to fight this by putting a preamp tube or two into the preamp. GK, for instance, puts one FET in the 400RB and 800 RB, right after the boost control. You can tell that they knew the amp distorted terribly, so they compensated by choosing the one solid state device that clips most pleasingly, put it in the area that will most likely distort, and made everything else run cleanly.

It's not as though it's difficult to design a good solid state amp nowadays, it's just a matter of cost. Tube amps can get made in Mexico or China and sell for $300 or less. A really good, well designed, well researched solid state amp is going to cost more than that, and it just won't sell to the average customer. There are a number of very good sounding, very expensive solid state amps aimed at jazz guys and acoustic instrument players. The average player will always choose a tube amp over a similarly priced SS amp with the same feature set.

In short, old Traynors, Randalls, Sunns, Music Man (SS preamps!) and some others are more-or-less reworked tube circuits using solid stated devices. Later SS amps are generally not, and sound differnt.

Cheers!

edit: proofread it

[subprime]

This is like the responses I get from justin whenever I ask him shit over email. You should like, write things for money. Good explainerers are rare.

(and by this I mean a very long well written response that gives me the information I asked for + a bunch of other interesting stuff)

[benadrian]

I've actually though about writing a book. It would be something like "Understanding your gear: explaining musical electronics for the diy/curious musician."

It sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I can get an advance from Hal Leonard to lube the gears?