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Ahem... the last vacuum tube product? http://www.samsung.com/us/2012-vacuum-tube-amplifier/ http://www.samsung.com/us/2012-vacuum-tube-amplifier/

by j_baker 12y ago

adestefan 12y ago
They're also very common in linear RF amplifies.
ori_b 12y ago
The last useful vacuum tube product. Tube amps distort the sound more, and clip more gradually. This basically means that a digital amplifier can perfectly emulate a vacuum tube amplifier as long as you aren't maxing out the range and clipping the digital amplifier. (You may need a slightly higher rating on the digital amplifier to achieve the same volume.)
- ska 12y ago
  The whole point of the continued popularity of tube amps is to drive them too hard and get interesting noises ... people have been trying to duplicated that in digital for decades, and failed.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    They keep failing because they keep creating integrated "modeling amp" products which put the original amount of wattage in the back end, and that destroys the model at volume: you start hearing the break up of the back-end amplifier. They are doing that to save costs: real tube amplifiers continue to be posed as higher end at higher prices. A decently modeling amplifier would probably need several hundred watts, if not into the thousands, just to replicate a 50W tube combo at volume. The speaker cabinet and drivers would have to be different: high fidelity units, not guitar speakers. I think people do get good results when they plug their modern amp modeling digital signal processors directly into a loud PA system, where the models find a decent amount of headroom and fidelity to reproduce what they are doing at loud volume.
  - ArkyBeagle 12y ago
    People report good results with the AxeFx rigs. If you just want "interesting noises" the VST plugin FuncShaper from Met-RS works great for adding distortion. It's a lifesaver on direct bass tracks. Pipe that thru a convolution of a good impulse response from a nice amp and you can't tell the difference easily.
  - tripzilch 12y ago
    > people have been trying to duplicated that in digital for decades, and failed. Because decades ago we simply didn't have the processing power to that kind of DSP. Today, however, you carry that kind of processing power in your pocket. It used to be really hard, because (amongst other things) the oversampling required to avoid digital aliasing. This is not really a big deal anymore, today. Also, it so happens to be the kind of calculation that parallelises very nicely. I can really recommend this video to dispel the myths about what we supposedly can't to today in the digital domain: http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml (the guy also presents the matter really well, I found it very enjoyable to watch, even if I already knew over half the things he explains). To really make his case, he feeds signals to both a digital and an analogue frequency analyser.
- kazinator 12y ago
  According to (some) tube afficinados, you can simulate pre-amplifier can emulate a tube pre-amplifier: small-signal elements based on tubes can be substituted with silicon. However, you probably can't emulate that big signal stuff that goes on between the tube power amp, its output transformer and a speaker, and the sound that ultimately emerges. That is to say, not in the same amount of wattage, and with the same speaker. Maybe a 5,000 watt rig (amplifier and speakers) could faithfully emulate what comes out of a fully cranked 50W tube amplifier, its output transformer, and a specific 50W loud speaker. As a related illustration of the idea, it is common to see microphones in front of small tube amplifiers, which then feed into a large PA system. The small amplifier acts as the "signal processor" which produces the tone, and the PA just makes it bigger. It has the headroom to do that. In that scenario, the tube amplifier with a microphone in front of it can be replaced by digital modeling: something which produces the same transfer function as what occurs between the signal from the instrument, and the signal going into the console's microphone input.
  - mikeytown2 12y ago
    A Class T amplifier[1] is the closest you can get to a tube. One of the amplifiers, the TA2020 (1998), was named one of the twenty-five chips that 'shook the world" by the IEEE Spectrum magazine.[2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_T_amplifier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_T_amplifier [2] http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/25-microchips-that-shook-the-world/0 http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/25-microc...
- morganvachon 12y ago
  I take it you're not a guitarist. Tube amps can generate tones and sounds that are impossible to emulate accurately via solid state. I've owned some really nice solid state amps that can do amazing things, but even a shitty tube amp can do overdriven fuzz better than any solid state amp.
  - kyllo 12y ago
    Exactly, when the tube gets warmed up and you crank up the pre-amp gain you get a warm-sounding natural distortion that afaik is impossible to emulate with a digital amp. I used to have a Marshall JCM 2000 Dual Super Lead, that thing sounded amazing.
    - Johnythree 12y ago
      > afaik is impossible to emulate with a digital amp Absolutely not impossible. If you can define it you can design it.
  - driverdan 12y ago
    > impossible Not impossible. Hard, expensive, or currently not available but not impossible.
    - xellisx 12y ago
      Line 6 does a pretty good job at it.
      - morganvachon 12y ago
        True, but for some people "pretty good" isn't enough. As I said before, I've had some very nice solid state amps that I loved playing through. It's just that there are some sounds that have yet to be emulated properly via modern circuitry. Granted, it's all subjective; why does a Fender sound better or worse than a Gibson for a particular style of music? It all comes down to what kind of sound the musician wants to get out of his equipment, and if a solid state amp doesn't give him what he wants but a tube amp does, then I'd say the tube amp is still relevant.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

Ahem... the last vacuum tube product? http://www.samsung.com/us/2012-vacuum-tube-amplifier/ http://www.samsung.com/us/2012-vacuum-tube-amplifier/

by j_baker 12y ago

Ahem... the last vacuum tube product? http://www.samsung.com/us/2012-vacuum-tube-amplifier/ http://www.samsung.com/us/2012-vacuum-tube-amplifier/

adestefan 12y ago

They're also very common in linear RF amplifies.

ori_b 12y ago

The last useful vacuum tube product. Tube amps distort the sound more, and clip more gradually. This basically means that a digital amplifier can perfectly emulate a vacuum tube amplifier as long as you aren't maxing out the range and clipping the digital amplifier. (You may need a slightly higher rating on the digital amplifier to achieve the same volume.)

ska 12y ago
The whole point of the continued popularity of tube amps is to drive them too hard and get interesting noises ... people have been trying to duplicated that in digital for decades, and failed.
- kazinator 12y ago
  They keep failing because they keep creating integrated "modeling amp" products which put the original amount of wattage in the back end, and that destroys the model at volume: you start hearing the break up of the back-end amplifier. They are doing that to save costs: real tube amplifiers continue to be posed as higher end at higher prices. A decently modeling amplifier would probably need several hundred watts, if not into the thousands, just to replicate a 50W tube combo at volume. The speaker cabinet and drivers would have to be different: high fidelity units, not guitar speakers. I think people do get good results when they plug their modern amp modeling digital signal processors directly into a loud PA system, where the models find a decent amount of headroom and fidelity to reproduce what they are doing at loud volume.
- ArkyBeagle 12y ago
  People report good results with the AxeFx rigs. If you just want "interesting noises" the VST plugin FuncShaper from Met-RS works great for adding distortion. It's a lifesaver on direct bass tracks. Pipe that thru a convolution of a good impulse response from a nice amp and you can't tell the difference easily.
- tripzilch 12y ago
  > people have been trying to duplicated that in digital for decades, and failed. Because decades ago we simply didn't have the processing power to that kind of DSP. Today, however, you carry that kind of processing power in your pocket. It used to be really hard, because (amongst other things) the oversampling required to avoid digital aliasing. This is not really a big deal anymore, today. Also, it so happens to be the kind of calculation that parallelises very nicely. I can really recommend this video to dispel the myths about what we supposedly can't to today in the digital domain: http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml (the guy also presents the matter really well, I found it very enjoyable to watch, even if I already knew over half the things he explains). To really make his case, he feeds signals to both a digital and an analogue frequency analyser.
kazinator 12y ago
According to (some) tube afficinados, you can simulate pre-amplifier can emulate a tube pre-amplifier: small-signal elements based on tubes can be substituted with silicon. However, you probably can't emulate that big signal stuff that goes on between the tube power amp, its output transformer and a speaker, and the sound that ultimately emerges. That is to say, not in the same amount of wattage, and with the same speaker. Maybe a 5,000 watt rig (amplifier and speakers) could faithfully emulate what comes out of a fully cranked 50W tube amplifier, its output transformer, and a specific 50W loud speaker. As a related illustration of the idea, it is common to see microphones in front of small tube amplifiers, which then feed into a large PA system. The small amplifier acts as the "signal processor" which produces the tone, and the PA just makes it bigger. It has the headroom to do that. In that scenario, the tube amplifier with a microphone in front of it can be replaced by digital modeling: something which produces the same transfer function as what occurs between the signal from the instrument, and the signal going into the console's microphone input.
- mikeytown2 12y ago
  A Class T amplifier[1] is the closest you can get to a tube. One of the amplifiers, the TA2020 (1998), was named one of the twenty-five chips that 'shook the world" by the IEEE Spectrum magazine.[2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_T_amplifier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_T_amplifier [2] http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/25-microchips-that-shook-the-world/0 http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/25-microc...
morganvachon 12y ago
I take it you're not a guitarist. Tube amps can generate tones and sounds that are impossible to emulate accurately via solid state. I've owned some really nice solid state amps that can do amazing things, but even a shitty tube amp can do overdriven fuzz better than any solid state amp.
- kyllo 12y ago
  Exactly, when the tube gets warmed up and you crank up the pre-amp gain you get a warm-sounding natural distortion that afaik is impossible to emulate with a digital amp. I used to have a Marshall JCM 2000 Dual Super Lead, that thing sounded amazing.
  - Johnythree 12y ago
    > afaik is impossible to emulate with a digital amp Absolutely not impossible. If you can define it you can design it.
- driverdan 12y ago
  > impossible Not impossible. Hard, expensive, or currently not available but not impossible.
  - xellisx 12y ago
    Line 6 does a pretty good job at it.
    - morganvachon 12y ago
      True, but for some people "pretty good" isn't enough. As I said before, I've had some very nice solid state amps that I loved playing through. It's just that there are some sounds that have yet to be emulated properly via modern circuitry. Granted, it's all subjective; why does a Fender sound better or worse than a Gibson for a particular style of music? It all comes down to what kind of sound the musician wants to get out of his equipment, and if a solid state amp doesn't give him what he wants but a tube amp does, then I'd say the tube amp is still relevant.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]