POWER AMPS MATTER! - 5150 Preamp through 20 different power amps!
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- čas přidán 13. 10. 2023
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Timestamps for quick comparisons
4:25 Stock Sylvania 6L6
5:03 Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier 100w 6L6
5:44 VHT Pittbull 50w E34L
6:27 Bogner Uberschall 150w KT88
7:03 Soldano SLO-100 100w 5881
7:42 EVH 5150 IIIS 100w EL34
8:20 Splawn 100w 6550
8:57 Omega Granophyre 100w EL34
9:35 Bogner Ecstasy 20th Anniversary 100w 6L6
10:14 Friedman BE-100 100w EL34
10:52 Marshall JCM900 w/ JMP xformer 100w EL34
11:30 Diezel Hagen 100w KT77
12:10 Engl Powerball II 100w 6L6
12:48 Rhodes KSR Orthos 100w 6L6
13:24 Revv Generator 120 100w KT88/6L6
14:02 Mesa Boogie Mark IV 100w 6L6
14:40 Peavey Invective 120 6L6
15:16 Peavey JSX 100w EL34
15:50 Seymour Duncan Powerstage 200 Class D Solid State
16:27 Blackstar Amped 1 100w Class D Solid State
17:03 Mesa Boogie Strategy 400 200w 6L6/EL34
So, nothing an eq pedal can't do.
The power section is why people love their rectifiers and AC30s. While other companies left costumers without an option to change power section characteristics, VOX and Mesa made it the feature of their amps.
The Blackstar pedal 😮👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Just goes to show the tones are limitless by mixing preamps and power amps. Awesome video Kyle!
That little white pedal amp suprised me!
It all matters. Every part of the signal chain - it’s just some matter more than others - this is a cool experiment, and the differences are there - I really liked the KT88 sound with the 5150. But at the end of the day in a mix this is probably pretty negligible - likely more a fun thing to do in a room than something to worry much about consistently. Thanks for the cool video!
Agreed, and IMO different high gain amps with attempts to eq a bit similarly will also likely sound more similar in a good mix.
The 5881 section of the SLO was God Tier. Super defined, still enough mid squank without becoming too over saturated, and the cab resonance was actually perfect. I bet double tracking that left and right would give an incredible 3D low end.
That Blackstar CRUSHED holy crap!
For me this just proves how the stock power amp is the perfect one for the 5150. There are some great tones here but stock it just has that magic midrange
What a gem of a video Kyle! It´s an amazing reference for the sound signature all these amps have.
What a great video Kyle! JSX won for me, however I’m shocked on how good the Amped 1 was compared to the tube poweramps. Blackstar did their homework! Cheers!
Yeh man, it totally annihilated the SD Powerstage.
I appreciate you sharing this experiment. It was fascinating to hear just what a difference the power amp alone really makes. It seems to play a larger role in determining the voice of an amplifier than the preamp does, in a lot of ways.
Love these types of vids! Thanks Kyle!
The guitar tone on Metallica's Black Album was created by slaving a Mesa Boogie through the power amp of a Marshall. I wish amp sim companies would model the pre-amp and power amp seperately, so you could combine different amp sims together (the plugins from Brainworx can do this, btw)
There has to be a more woke way to talk about the master slave relationship in amps
@@Ottophil Oh, my bad. Of course I meant to say "Mesa Boogie committed a hate crime against Marshall".
Was it? I remember Kirk Hammet said in an interview that it was more like playing the signal through few very different amps and then blending their sound together to produce the final tone.
@@ondrejkauzal8969yea no it wasn’t. Metallica has never slaved a Mesa into a Marshall, at least not for rhythm tones. this is the most common metallica myth. James’ tone on TBA was Kirk’s Mark IIC+, a Mark IV, Bob Rocks Jose Arredondo Marshall SLP, and an ADA MP 1 into a Strategy 400 power amp. All amps went to 1960BVs, and were blended together.
@@DennisTrovato 🤣
I dug the tone through the KT88, the Soldano 5881 and the Marshall with the JMP output transformer. All different but to my old ears sounded great.
This content is great. Especially as a modeler user that uses a power amp and guitar cab. Power amp shootouts are very hard to find. Thank you.
Great vid, I know a lot of work and time goes into putting something like this together.
Epic video, great job Kyle!
I love this stuff! My favorite was the Uber Ultra with the Diezel closely behind. The Blackstar hangs right along with the rest too!
Excellent episode Kyle thanks 😊 👍 congrats on 2nd channel and u success bro.🎉
Great vid! Your collection is impressive.
The VHT and the Omega were my favorite. Love how tight those amps are.
Excellent Video! Thank you for doing this! You rule, Kyle!!🤘
WOW, this was a real eye opener.
I didn't expect that, but JSX was just perfect. Cool, thanks for the comparison
You can get impulse responses of power amp sections.
i use an impulse response of a 6l6 tube amp with my mooer x2 preamp as it only has preamp profiles in it as i go into solid state power amp(powerstage170) , the power amp impulse adds so much more 'realism' and depth to the signal thats missing when only using a preamp.
Another good nerdy comparison. Nice.
I always love and trust your reviews
Amazing how much more Marshally it sounded through the JCM with JMP.
Very balanced through the Revv.
Went way in the Metallica direction through that Mk2.
Very cool experiment.
Love that riff, Kyle. Has a great groove to it, and sounds nasty at the same time.
I was listening through my phone speakers and the differences were very noticeable. I think this is a discussion worth expanding upon as it could revitalize the physical amp market, as well as make future modelers and plugins more unique.
Great vid man. Really liked the Blackstar power amp…keep up the great work man!
It's honestly a great little power amp
Interesting idea with different power amps.
Good job. 🎉
Amazing demo. I've insisted for years to people how power amp makes a huge difference espically with the new modelers and preamps.
Great video! Goes to show how much the character of each of those amps is down to the power amp design. A huge part of the power amp is how it interacts with each specific cab, I think it’s good to think of the poweramp and cabinet together as their own part of the chain as the interaction works in both directions.
BE100 poweramp sounded massive here, enjoyed that one a lot.
How did you set presence and global master volume (if the amps had them)?
Hey Kyle! I know this isn't supposed to be "Scientific" but in tests with speakers, power sections or different amplifiers, You should run a loop of the same performance through them so eliminate that as a variable. Still an amazing video.
I’m an oldie. I’ll tell you about the 80s and early 90s. In the 80s it was “You want a Marshall, a Boogie or one of these fancy ADA-MP1s?” Most of us were broke kids so a Marshall combo it was. If you were really broke you got the loudest Peavey combo you could afford.
Then you worked some summer jobs and got your first real amp with a head and a cab. It was a life or death decision. This was going to be your sound because you didn’t have two more summers of high school to work and start over if you picked wrong.
Then you’d get a couple pedals like a chorus and a delay if you were into Rush. Lol. If not, you bought whatever distortion pedal the advertisement promised would melt faces.
For getting sounds we didn’t have much of a way to record anything except boomboxes or a 4 track cassette machine if you had $$$. So all we heard was what was in the room at practice or the bar. With your head down in front of your cab you could try to guess what the audience “might” hear, or if you had a long enough guitar cord to stand out front, if you got a sound check. That’s how we got sounds.
Everything was geared to being heard or at least able to hear yourself at band practice in the basement and live at the bar. The only PA gear a lot of guys had was some kind of Peavey setup with an SM58 for the singer. Forget about micing drums or cabs. That was voodoo, high dollar stuff that the “professional” sound guy at the bar would hopefully have enough mics to do. If not, you hoped he’d at least have a couple of stage monitors for the drummer and singer.
It was bush league, primitive times dragging your gear around in a pickuo and hoping it didn’t rain on way. Fun as hell though.
When the 5150 original flavor came out it was a miracle amp. I still have mine.
Great stories and thought I’m in my 30s not only do I prefer lugging tube amps and cabs but I had a 4 of 8 channels working on an ancient peavey pa head and 2 for $100 at the time pa cabs. Sm58 as advertised and since it was the late 00s I had a 16 track zoom that would burn cds wish I never sold it because I have no idea how to use studio one or launch GGD metal kit. I’m computer illiterate. The 16 track I never figured out editing or overdubs so… don’t screw up or we start again. Miss those times playing guitar for hours a day not hours a month 😞
Wholy shit, the low end on that Invective!!! Remember they are known for "weak" low end? Right....
The Bogner with KT88, alonside the EVH EL34 , and the Diezel with KT77, all sound amazing!!
I liked most 100w 6L6 power amps, I was underwhelmed by the SLO100 power amp, sounded muffled...
The biggest disappoinment was the dual rec, made the 5150 sound like a pedal...
Very intersting!!! It is cool to hear how the different power tubes are featured here. The 6L6 amps all seem to sound very similar: creamy, silky, smooth. Except for the Rhodes amp. That one has some EL34 characteristic: that lower mid hump, on palm mutes and certain notes. Amazing also: the DIEZEL still sounds like a DIEZEL and the BOOGIE Mk IV still has its character. Very cool!!!
Btw.: I just checked the preamp schematics of the SLO100 and the older Rectifier circuit, from 93. Yes, you can definitely see where the Rectifier derives from. But, there are also some differences. The gain staging with its coupling is built very alike. There is more filtering after the first gain stage inside the Rectifier. The gain pots have different values. The EQ is very different. Also, the SLO seemed to have its FX-Loop before the EQ, with some extra buffering. So, they are not the same amps!
The stock sounds great! I also loved the JCM900 tone - quite different than the rest and really great!!!
Great video and very true that a lot people ignore power amps. I think a de-esser plug in would help your voice sound better in your video, just a suggestion and it's a detail so no biggie.
Great video. I run my evh stealth in stereo sometimes, slaving it to the power amp of my peavey xxx. It’s a very different sound and gives a wider tone.
That Friedman amp sounded killer in this video! Good job Kyle! I love these types of videos!
Hi! I have a Stealth and XXX too! I'd like to try a stereo setup for fun. How did you set the levels on the Peavey's send and return? Thanks!
@@roguewillot63 probably all the way up. It’s just the return being used in this case. I used a boss harmonist pedal as the last pedal in the loop of the 5150. Main output of the harmonist sends to the return of the 5150, and the other output of the harmonist goes into the return of the xxx. This way, all the tones from the preamp, and fx in the loop of the 5150 are being sent to the power amp on the 5150 and the power amp of the xxx. The xxx power amp is very different sounding. Even with the harmonist pedal off, everything is still going through both amps. Killer tone, and can run two full stacks.
@@ScottFuckinRitchie thanks! I'll try this out ASAP. Hope the XXX's poweramp will match with the other amp's preamp tone
Don't let Glenn Fricker see this 🤣
Real eye opener! Bigger difference than expected. A bit bummed that the duncan power stage clips, wanted to maybe go the preamp+power amp route. Thanks for the good vid!
You'll have a lot more headroom if you put it through a 4 ohm cab
I like the idea behind this.
Here's one I'd LOVE to see explored more than I'm able here with my gear...
I've found some success with splitting my guitar-out signal using a single-input/dual-output pedal (mine happens to be the Boss tuner that literally almost everyone has) and piping both of those into two, different and independent amps at once.
The blended abilities of a Triple Crown and a JVM has proven pretty dang Brutus-Maximus, if I do say so myself!
Fryette Poweramps definitely still reign supreme.
The second channel of yours has fire content. Keep up the good work
From my experience the tube "goodness" or analog warmth comes from the power amp.
It's also something I've never heard in a recording recording
I think my favorites (besides the Peavey’s own power amp) were the Marshall and the Engl. I love the snarl of the Marshall, and the Engl sounded really balanced with aggressive highs, and rounded, percussive lows. These were the two amps that had the most clearly defined personalities to me.
...Okay now I understand why you like that Blackstar pedal amp so much as a power amp. Really kept up with the tube amps in terms of girth. They should make a power amp only ersion of that.
I'm shocked at how little low end the Recto and Mesa Strategy had though.
Great video
The SLO 5881, the Splawn 6550, and all of the EL34 power amps sounded great. The Bogner KT88 was a bit spongy on palm mutes for me, and the KT77 sounded dead, but the Revv KT88/6L6 hybrid circuit was amazing. I've always liked EL34 and I always say it sounds more aggressive. Recto/Mark Series from Mesa and 5150 type amps from Peavey and EVH/Fender are the ones besides Engl that can make a high gain 6L6 circuit sound good by itself, IMO, and even then I still prefer the EL34 variant. 5150 III EL34, 6534+, Marshall/Friedman, Laney, and Orange, all day, every day. Otherwise, SLO is pretty cool. The Mesa Mk IV actually also stood out as really aggressive and biting on the high end in a good way to me. Strategy 400 also had a nice sound.
The 150 Watt KT88s crushed everything. Such sick tone.
Kyle I liked the Engel the best. IMO the output tranformers also make a huge difference. Its the whole package that change the tone.
I really liked the mids of both the VHT and the SLO.
The best tone I've ever heard was TWO 5150's through a Mesa Boogie Strategy 400 and four Vintage 30 cabinets.
I fuggin LOVE this channel!!! So nerdy w the shit!! Thanks man!!
Love reading these comments. Always cracks me up. Sweet video as usual Kyle.
Very interesting, thanks
preferred the stock 5150, invective, and the boogie mark for the power section tones. the old 5150 block letter really is a beast on it's own. glad i got one here :D
Very cool comparison. I wish he would have considered presence and depth controls on the power amps that had those controls, since their settings would also make a difference.
Mesa 400 at the end is just ridiculous. Markedly cleaner than any of the rest. Could probably peel paint with it.
5150 through it's own Poweramp sounds best in my opinion. I really like the KT88 of the Bogner aswell and also the Blackstar Amped...damn that little thing surprised me.
Really good comparison Kyle thanks ❤
I think I prefer the stock 6L6 in this case. Best solid state power amp I've tried (and kept after going through a whole bunch) is a Rocktron Velocity 300 with the Reactance control at about 2 o' clock and Definition at noon.
Man.....your amp collection is SIIIIIIIIICK!!!! 🤘🤘🤘. I preferred the VHT Pitbull. It just sounded “bigger” without being significantly mid-scooped or boosted compared to the others. VHT/Fryette power amps are so coveted for a reason! Cool video!
Only like 20 seconds into the video. But he's so right. I love the preamp of my evh 5153 50 watt into my bugera 1990s poweramp.
Wow those are interesting results! No clear winners although the difference between more mid forward ones and more scooped ones in the order of amps definitely made for a few "ugh nope" moments, that I had to skip back and forth to compare with others to fully get if I really didn't like a certain amp or if it was just because it came after a mid-heavy one. Best example was the Mesa Mark coming after the Revv, big "ugh where are the mids" even though I didn't like the Revv that much.
Standouts for me were the Engl, Bogner... Ubershall I think? The KT88 one, EVH, JSX, and of course the big Mesa fridge at the end.
Not impressed by the Omega or Invective at all 😖 or the solid state ones obviously. I was surprised I liked the Recto more than the Mark, though I'm guessing the 5 band EQ works on the power section? 700 all the way down like this remind me too much of AJFA, and maybe that's more tailored to the Mark preamps anyway 😅
Surprised to see how much of a difference these made!
My favs are the Uberschall, the SLO, the Mark IV, and the Omega. That's just me, but there it is.
That guitar has to be one of my favorite looking ones youve used in a while!
Call me crazy but I really liked the JCM900 power amp here, not sure if it's because of the JMP output transformer but I really liked it. Not a lot of low end content, but very midrangy and surprisingly smooth treble compared to some of the others. I also really enjoyed the Strategy 400 Stereo at the very end, it had probably the least amount of low end out of all of them, but the midrange was there in spades (to the point of being a little nasally, which most people hate but I personally really like).
I agree the 4100 sounded great amplifying the 5150 preamp. I like the 4100 a lot, it’s certainly different from the 2203/4 but it gets a lot of undue hate. The preamp circuits of the 2203/4 and the 4100 are so wildly different they shouldn’t even be compared to one another and it’s unfortunate the jcm900 series gets so much shit
My top 3 were: Omega Granophyre 100w EL34, Diezel Hagen 100w KT77, Peavey Invective 120 6L6.
The Omega to me was the better EL34 power section with the peavey 5150 preamp. Had a good balance of chugging lows, & cut through highs.
Diezel Hagan's KT77's were a nice taste, also enough low end, & perhaps a little bit less highs than the Omega (but this is down to internal design more than the power tubes themselves perhaps). Still a good flavour
Invective's 6L6 with the 5150 pre, damn - never knew a 5150 could sound much more open, & the power in the low end just clear roar.
Honorable mention goes to Boogie Mark IV. Beefy!!
I like how the Captor is moving because of the vibration :D
KSR/Rhodes was my favorite and seemed perfectly balanced. Uber Ultra and JSX were great too
This is the nerdy (slightly esoteric) corner I’ve been digging.
Hell yeah good nerdy shit & sick demonstration
Sounded killer though the kt88's🤘🏻
Stock 5150 poweramp sounds the best in this comparison to my ears.
I liked the jcm900 for those classic mids, the Jsx is close but a bit more balanced and tight, Engl was tight and focused with the right amount of mids, Rhodes is similar but a bit more middy and open maybe, Mesa IV was the more scooped/dark but very tight.
they all sound great…
They all seemed to have their own voice but the invective and mesa mark sounded identical
Honestly, the JMP and stock are my favorites !
It's not just the poweramp voicing. It has also a lot to do with ths output transformer as well. The OT is that which drives the speakers afterall.
Amazing video, thanks! Only if you could have added an EL84 too... I was hoping for that when seeing the thumbnail.
The EL34 clips were overall the best ones imo.
There's a few reasons some power amps sound tighter and punchier, while others do not. One is sag, i.e., the voltage supply not keeping up with demand, but the other is the damping inherent in the output transformer design and how it interacts with the speaker. It's called damping factor, or DF. Some OTs are faster to damp than others, i.e., the speaker stops producing sound sooner than it would if the OT has slower damping. The result is the speaker stops moving sooner, which tends to sound tighter. Slow damping allows the speaker to breath more and perhaps have more old school character so to speak, but it will keep moving a little after you stop playing, resulting in what seems like less tightness. Then there's all the grey areas in between, plus the whole thing about speaker response curves and efficiency etc. Like most guitar tone things, it tends to be a trade off and a matter of finding the sweet spots that suit your style and please the ears etc.
P.S. The other main way tightness is achieved is by using high pass filtering to get rid of lows that can cause gain stages to flub out. It can be done in the preamp, a pedal, or both. It can also be applied in post or mixing. It's another trade off though. Dump lows and the higher strings can tend to get thin sounding when soloing. Fatter for soloing but still with decent muting may not be tight enough for some folks and their mega caveman chugs, hehe (chug is the new shred -- shred was the big thing when I was a kid and it began to all sound a bit same, same -- chug is getting like that too -- the result for us when folks got sick of '80s shred was that grunge and thrash happened -- maybe something new will emerge when folks get bored with the chugga chug -- something that actually uses all six or seven strings of the guitar haha).
My favorite was the Engl
I've read Strung Out used an "original 5150" and a Marshall Valvestate on Twisted By Design. I've also read Ryan Greene used the Dual Recifier power section. I see why, that was one of my favorite combos. I also liked the 5150III, which is not surprising.
That is a masterpiece of a punk album. One of my all time favoirites. That said, I remember chatting with Rob about guitar stuff after a show in 2000 and he said they used his 5150 and 2 channel triple rec on Twisted. I have read the same as you though about the valvestate. Would love to hear Ryan Greene's take on it.
@@SluggerStark That makes sense. Jake said the 5150 and the Valvestate thing. I'd only heard the slaving thing from one source, so who knows if it's accurate? Also, I asked Dave Nassie (former NUFAN guitarist and my current teacher) about the 5150 and Valvestate thing. He said it sounded right. He also said he had a Diezel and an Epiphone Les Paul with only a fifth string and a third string. They were right beside each other so they could play octaves like normal power chords. Greene was meticulous.
I am really loving this recent content!
Edit: Much to my own surprise, I really liked the solid state power amps
Thanks dude! I feel like this this is the content I really want to make but maybe doesn't quite make sense with my main channel format at this point. Thoughts?
@@kylebull2 It might be my personal bias because I really dig these types of test videos but I feel like it shows. I think I get the sense that you are enjoying what you're doing.
Whether exporting this kind of content to your second channel makes more sense than grouping it in one, I can't really say as I am still quite unfamiliar with the business side of youtube but I guess it could. You might be building two slightly different viewer demographics. Yeah, this might be the more sensible approach. Doesn't make a difference to me as you know I'm here for both.
@@kylebull2I am loving the channel 2 content lately!
Is a good comparison on some of them this is you guys need to have PVC with PVC on the power amp section I think a lot of people you're right lot of people don't realize the power amps have to match up invoicing that's very true
For the most part, remarkably similar. Outliers of course. Without taking a deep dive into schematics, arm chair analysis coming. Power tubes with different sockets would probably have their differences in the noise filtering portions of the circuits. Output transformers are most likely where the largest differences will be.
NB : you can try that ITB with the Two Notes WOS (wall of sound) and Genome plugins, which carries different poweramp sims
I thought the bogner xtc and the engl powerball were the most brutal and clear aounding but honestly the stock 5150 just needed a bit more gain or a boost and it'd sound pretty much good to go. The blackstar did well for a transparent power amp.
All were usable, with the exception of the tiny solid state and the Recto. I would pick the tiny solid state over the recto.
Great video, dude! I did notice two things though. Firstly, on the Mesa Mark IV you had the GEQ engaged, which is located after the FX return. Thus not an accurate representation of it's power amp. Secondly was the Dual Rec. Did you have channel cloning / modern mode engaged? This disables the negative feedback which is a huge part of the "recto" sound, which I frankly didn't hear in the recording.
My top 3 power amps 👇
3- Soldano 5881 🔥
2- Evh El34 🔥🔥
1- Diezel Kt77 🔥🔥🔥
Seriously, the Kt77 is 💣💥🔥
As soon as that Mark IV came on, it was like 80s Metallica. Great video!
I liked the original sound best followed by the Boogie M4 and then 50W solid state thing ... an interesting test for sure. One thing I find with these type of back to back tests is your ears are very much influenced by the tone you hear right before the current one, so a brighter tone will make the one sound darker etc...that's why I tend to mark where each amp changes and jump between different then in different orders and then between the ones I liked best
Yea, the test could have used returning to the reference/base tone after every few ones.
I watched this expecting them to all sound the same because in your side by side comparison of the mesa's I could not tell the difference, but this time, a huge difference. I'm pretty surprised. I think they would all work in a mix tho, except for that boogie amp, which was missing a lot of the higher frequencies. Or maybe it would be better in a mix without the extra high frequencies.
This is a great video. Surprised at how much your results with the Dual Rec were like mine. 2 Questions: #1 how do you slave without noise? I can't seem to get rid of some weird 60 cycle hum type noise when slaving....
#2 did you notice any change in the poweramp section when changing channels on the Dual Rec? I've heard the 2 channel heads activate different parts of the Power Amp. Red channel uses a lowpass filter wired in reverse where the orange channel uses a traditional negative feedback circuit...
you've have to turn presence and depth to min as its an poweramp parameter. or match it between different amps