What’s the difference between a tube and a solid state guitar amplifier?

Posted by  in Friday, November 13th 2009   
Topics: Pro Audio    
tube amplifiers14 Whats the difference between a tube and a solid state guitar amplifier? on Audiograveyard.info
the beatles asked:


I know tube sounds better.

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3 Comments

dk said in November 14th, 2009 at 11:15 am    

Technical information aside, while many guitarists prefer the sound of a tube amp, the tubes themselves must be replaced periodically when they burn out. Solid state amps are much lower maintenance.

amondriscoll said in November 16th, 2009 at 2:43 pm    

The best way I can explain it is that with tube type, there are actual small glass tubes with fillaments(basically small light bulbs) that current runs through to keep too much current from getting through and blowing something up inside the amp. With solid state, condensers and regulators are used to reduce current. Basically Tube type is old school, made before the technology was available to use anything else.

Ken C said in November 17th, 2009 at 5:05 pm    

I’m probably going to get a little technical here, but stay with me.

First, you can’t make a blanket statement that “tubes sound better”. I’ve heard some very good solid state amps in my day, and some really horrid tube amps. So, just because an amp has a tube in it doesn’t automatically make it a tone machine.

I’m going to assume that you question is asking “What’s the difference in the tone of a tube and solid state amp”, so that’s the avenue I’m going down.

For the most part, tube and solid state amps will behave much the same way while they are being operated in their linear region, which is a fancy way of saying that you haven’t turned it up loud enough to distort. Tube amps, in general, have a higher input impedance than solid state which tends to load your guitar pickups less (and thus will sound a little different).

The real difference comes when you start turning up the signal level to the amps, and how they handle the overload.

A solid state amp will keep amplifying a signal right up to the point to where the amplification device (transistor, op amp, FET, etc) runs out of headroom. And at that point, it abruptly stops. This results in a clipped waveform (think square wave) that contains predominately odd number harmonics. Our ears perceive this kind of distortion as abrasive, or non-musical. It’s the way a lot of fuzz and distortion pedals work.

A tube, on the other hand, does not behave like this. As you turn up the signal level to a tube, it’s starts to compress the signal. As you turn it up further, the tube does not clip the signal as abruptly…it’s more of a limited signal than clipped. Combined with the output transformer in the circuit the signal consists of predominately even numbered harmonics, which our ears perceive as musical.

Tubes (power tubes specifically) can have a very large dynamic range…much larger than solid state devices. This contributes to how a guitarist can back the volume on his/her guitar down a bit and clean up the sound.

OK…probably way more info than you wanted, but there you go.

Greetings from Austin, TX

Ken

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