if not tubes or solid state, then what

A

ArtieAndTheFish

New Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2018
Messages
24
It is almost 2024 and I have been wondering if there isn't another technology that can be used for amps other than tubes or the current solid state designs. Aren't amps basically taking an electric current and boosting it then delivering it to a speaker? I am wondering if something can be adopted from another industry, like aerospace, computers or electric cars.

New for 2024, the PRS Flywheel amplifier! (kidding)
 
I find myself asking if you ask this question because you genuinely don't know, or if you know and want to sit back and munch popcorn!

Assuming the former: guitar amplification is about so much more than making a small signal large and putting it through speakers. Every guitar amp ever has introduced some amount of distortion of the original signal. Originally that was due to technological limitations of 1930's electronic technology. Then certain kinds of distortion got to be considered desirable, and guitar amps were refined more and more to enhance the distortion and gain available. Of course, some players wanted more, some players wanted less. In about the 1960s, builders started trying to replace vacuum tubes in the guitar amps with transistors, which were the new miracle electronics technology. The results were... bad and players started caring about tube vs. solid state amps. Tubes won out in the market of public opinion. But guitar amp technology kept getting refined on both sides of that split. Today the choice isn't as simple as "tube vs. solid state" because there are 1.) amps with elements of both, 2.) digitally-controlled amps with analog signal paths, 3.) digital modeling of vacuum tube amps, and 4.) digital power amps. Plus I'm sure there are variations I haven't thought to mention here. One of my favorite guitar-noise things is the Fractal series of digital modelers, and if I remember correctly, that was created by a guy who came from a sonar data processing background.

Small moons worth of electrons, barrels of ink, and probably no small amount of blood have been spilled on the topic of which of these things are "best," but I won't go there. My take: we've kind of got all of the above these days. Except maybe the electric car parts.
 
Herr Squid said:
I find myself asking if you ask this question because you genuinely don't know, or if you know and want to sit back and munch popcorn!

Assuming the former: guitar amplification is about so much more than making a small signal large and putting it through speakers. Every guitar amp ever has introduced some amount of distortion of the original signal. Originally that was due to technological limitations of 1930's electronic technology. Then certain kinds of distortion got to be considered desirable, and guitar amps were refined more and more to enhance the distortion and gain available. Of course, some players wanted more, some players wanted less. In about the 1960s, builders started trying to replace vacuum tubes in the guitar amps with transistors, which were the new miracle electronics technology. The results were... bad and players started caring about tube vs. solid state amps. Tubes won out in the market of public opinion. But guitar amp technology kept getting refined on both sides of that split. Today the choice isn't as simple as "tube vs. solid state" because there are 1.) amps with elements of both, 2.) digitally-controlled amps with analog signal paths, 3.) digital modeling of vacuum tube amps, and 4.) digital power amps. Plus I'm sure there are variations I haven't thought to mention here. One of my favorite guitar-noise things is the Fractal series of digital modelers, and if I remember correctly, that was created by a guy who came from a sonar data processing background.

Small moons worth of electrons, barrels of ink, and probably no small amount of blood have been spilled on the topic of which of these things are "best," but I won't go there. My take: we've kind of got all of the above these days. Except maybe the electric car parts.
Click to expand...

Munch popcorn. :)

I understand all the current (pun intended) tech. Just wondering out loud if anyone out there is looking at a new, clean sheet of paper design. Would be an interesting challenge for engineering students--build an amp that does not use tubes or the current solid state tech. I come from an industry where you have to innovate or die. The guitar biz seems to be stay the same, paint it a different color and call it NEW!
 
Herr Squid said:
I find myself asking if you ask this question because you genuinely don't know, or if you know and want to sit back and munch popcorn!

Assuming the former: guitar amplification is about so much more than making a small signal large and putting it through speakers. Every guitar amp ever has introduced some amount of distortion of the original signal. Originally that was due to technological limitations of 1930's electronic technology. Then certain kinds of distortion got to be considered desirable, and guitar amps were refined more and more to enhance the distortion and gain available. Of course, some players wanted more, some players wanted less. In about the 1960s, builders started trying to replace vacuum tubes in the guitar amps with transistors, which were the new miracle electronics technology. The results were... bad and players started caring about tube vs. solid state amps. Tubes won out in the market of public opinion. But guitar amp technology kept getting refined on both sides of that split. Today the choice isn't as simple as "tube vs. solid state" because there are 1.) amps with elements of both, 2.) digitally-controlled amps with analog signal paths, 3.) digital modeling of vacuum tube amps, and 4.) digital power amps. Plus I'm sure there are variations I haven't thought to mention here. One of my favorite guitar-noise things is the Fractal series of digital modelers, and if I remember correctly, that was created by a guy who came from a sonar data processing background.

Small moons worth of electrons, barrels of ink, and probably no small amount of blood have been spilled on the topic of which of these things are "best," but I won't go there. My take: we've kind of got all of the above these days. Except maybe the electric car parts.
Click to expand...
Well stated.
 
Eric Miller said:
Munch popcorn. :)

I understand all the current (pun intended) tech. Just wondering out loud if anyone out there is looking at a new, clean sheet of paper design. Would be an interesting challenge for engineering students--build an amp that does not use tubes or the current solid state tech. I come from an industry where you have to innovate or die. The guitar biz seems to be stay the same, paint it a different color and call it NEW!
Click to expand...
Plain old solid state can be made to sound GREAT. The problem is, to make great stuff costs a lot of money, and people won't pay "tube amp money" for a solid state amp. This has been said, and sort of proven, by the higher end solid state amp and pre-amp designers over the last 30 years or so.

So... not really a challenge for engineering students to do it, as it's been "around" for decades. If you're talking computer engineering students and some advance in digital technology, that seems to come a little at a time with each new technological, or modeling/profiling/etc. breakthrough.
 
Eric Miller said:
Munch popcorn. :)

I understand all the current (pun intended) tech. Just wondering out loud if anyone out there is looking at a new, clean sheet of paper design. Would be an interesting challenge for engineering students--build an amp that does not use tubes or the current solid state tech. I come from an industry where you have to innovate or die. The guitar biz seems to be stay the same, paint it a different color and call it NEW!
Click to expand...
It's related to the need, really. Innovation obviously isn't required when the "standard" and most popular designs of a guitar amp are using 100+ year old tech. Guitar design is much the same, and even older from a tech standpoint when considering the base acoustic versions. Small variations are often trumpeted as the new thing, but it's more evolution than revolution in the industry, and that's exactly the way the buying market likes it. Musicians haven't proved very open to innovation, as a group.

The current technology in modelers is a relatively new take, and is using much of the "new way of doing it" thinking that you speak of, even if it isn't doing anything that changes the end result of "tube amp sound into a speaker" platform. But the routing, sound possibilities, and ways of mixing things have taken a significant step forward. This has been the focus, as far as I can see. Beyond this, packaging this prescription in varying strengths has been the norm.

If necessity is the mother of invention, your desire to see something new is essentially motherless. There's no innovation in that direction because there's no money in it... and Business 101 says that before you have anything else, you have to have a customer. Innovation away from tube amps is ferociously fought against in the guitar community with religious fervor. The most passable innovation is mimicking the analog with digital, not into inventing something "new." And, if that's what people like, that's what they buy. And there is, of course, not a single thing wrong with that.

TL: DR version: There's no market for innovation when people are loving what they have. The small markets for "doing what we have a better way" are already doing that (Fractal Audio, Kemper, Fender, etc). I'm curious about what's next, but I've been curious for 50 years and the amps that were brand new when I started wondering that are still hot sellers to this day. That pretty much explains guitar players as a generality, if anything does!
 
Guitarists are traditional at heart. Most stringed instrument innovation seems to be in the realm of bass guitars. However, amplification is either tube, class D, SS, or hybrid. There seems to be a lot of innovation in bass speakers/cabs also.
 
This subject has been festering in my head for some time and I recently posted a bit on another forum on the topic. Here is my take.

The guitar amplifier was built to do one thing initially, amplify the sound of the guitar. Unfortunately (IMO), the technology of the time inserted other nuances that influenced the sound beyond pure amplification. As a result, the industry ended up with what can only be described as effects boxes as far as I am concerned that also amplify the sound level. The changes to the tone are NOT amplification, they are a consequence of the technologies used to amplify the signal. One of the hot topics with Fractal Audio Systems (a major player in the modeling industry) of the past couple of weeks have been the authenticity of amps and how they directly reflect what the classic analog versions did to the extent of even duplicating flaws in the original designs. I think this is a unjustified waste of time, but there is some demand for it and FAS is doing an incredible job of making their offerings as exact as possible, duplicates in the digital world of those museum pieces, flaws intact. What I want from FAS and other modelers is the future of guitar effects and pure, clean, no influence amplification. As far as I am concerned, the amplifier should do nothing more than amplify the sound, all else is effects you can add before or after the amplification.

So to answer the question of "if not tubes or solid state, what then?" my answer to the industry would be, stop looking at the amp as a sound influencer and find/build the purest no-effects amplification of the sound as possible. Add effects to taste before and after but find a way to give us amplification without it imparting any influence on the sound other than volume level ;~)) Now the speakers are a whole different story!!!
 
Last edited:
Eric Miller said:
Munch popcorn. :)

I understand all the current (pun intended) tech. Just wondering out loud if anyone out there is looking at a new, clean sheet of paper design. Would be an interesting challenge for engineering students--build an amp that does not use tubes or the current solid state tech. I come from an industry where you have to innovate or die. The guitar biz seems to be stay the same, paint it a different color and call it NEW!
Click to expand...

That's an interesting challenge for engineering graduates with experience in the field! I think the bottom line is that the guitar biz does not reward innovation so there's very little reason to start with a clean sheet. The closest I can think of to that is the Quilter amps (hey @Moondog Wily, any interest in those?). Now that Fender has put out a modeler I think the market has said modeling is pretty much the de facto not-tubes standard. If something truly disruptive and new comes along, I think it'll be from a start-up we don't know anything about yet.
 
Herr Squid said:
That's an interesting challenge for engineering graduates with experience in the field! I think the bottom line is that the guitar biz does not reward innovation so there's very little reason to start with a clean sheet. The closest I can think of to that is the Quilter amps (hey @Moondog Wily, any interest in those?). Now that Fender has put out a modeler I think the market has said modeling is pretty much the de facto not-tubes standard. If something truly disruptive and new comes along, I think it'll be from a start-up we don't know anything about yet.
Click to expand...
Never heard of them but just did a search! Sounds like they have some good things going on paper, but I would have to hear them in person before I could muster any real interest in them. If my stars were to align financially, I would get a couple of Meyer sound wedges and call it a day!! Currently play mostly through headphones but occasionally set up my JBL PA speakers when I want to fill the house with noise ;~)) Thanks for the Quilter idea, I will keep my eye on them!!!
 
Eric Miller said:
It is almost 2024 and I have been wondering if there isn't another technology that can be used for amps other than tubes or the current solid state designs. Aren't amps basically taking an electric current and boosting it then delivering it to a speaker? I am wondering if something can be adopted from another industry, like aerospace, computers or electric cars.

New for 2024, the PRS Flywheel amplifier! (kidding)
Click to expand...
You first, what is your idea that's not a solid state technology or based on a vacuum environment?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

E
Dispelling Tube Amp Myths
2 3 4
Replies
66
Views
4K
John F
John F
László
The Elegance Of Tube Amplification.
2
Replies
35
Views
1K
dmatthews
dmatthews
Kiwi
The Single Coil Manifesto: February 1998
Replies
5
Views
557
bodia
bodia
S
The Ultimate Clean Amps & Circuits, Other than PRS
Replies
19
Views
9K
prsrocker1988
P
László
Cables, Tone, Pickups, Buffers, Amps, Etc., or "It Ain't Always About The Pickup."
2
Replies
25
Views
3K
Boogie
Boogie
Back
Top