Matamp vs Electric. someone explain.

[the_brow]

Gather around children, it's story time with uncle Nick.

[benjuro]

...there used to be a lot of fun, painful to read things on stonerrock from Joel about the incident... which have been lost to the sands of time.

I remember this stuff, and also the disappearing/reappearing act. I tried to get in touch with the guy a few times ready to order an amp and talk about timelines...with no response. Some other folks with the same experience show up on that forum, wondering if he had packed up shop...and presto, he's back, telling everyone it's business as usual.

Looking forward to a story, Uncle Nick...

[new05002]

i kind of sort of know the story, but not really. when i've looked on the internet places where you learn about things like this, you find some history, but mostly people talk about it as though everyone already knows. but i don't really know. i feel like you hear bad things about electric USA, but it's been a while and i don't remember what they are and some people seem to love them. educate me!

Electronically let me cover a few things between Matamp and Electric Amp. I sometimes get a question along the lines of "Are Electric Amp clones of a Matamp?". The answer to this is yes and no. Assumption that some have regarding this is that EA simple takes GT120 schematics and clones it with a EA name badge on it. That is not true. Now EA has a few models that offer for sale, Power, MV, and NMV units. As of now I know the schems for the MV and NMV units. The NMV units are close to the GT120s. The basic scheme is there except that Boost is not a NFB control (from the pictures of the units I have seen internally) but rather a modification on the EQ which makes it less lossy (ie less signal lost to the EQ) and thus more signal out to the phase inverter. There are a few small changes to component values overall but its generally the same type of scheme as the GT120. As far as the MV units go there is a lot of changes from the GT120 scheme. First off the EQ is no longer bax/james but is now a FMV. Secondly the EQ is cathode driven like a Marshall. On the MV units the mid control of the FMV is labelled Boost. Although it is a cathode driven FMV the wiring is a mix of the Marshall and Fender types (small differences). The amp also has a PPIMV and the Presence control is like a reverse wired Vox Hi Cut control. So what exactly does all of this stuff about the MV unit mean? For one it is not a clone of the GT120 but it is also not a wholly unique amp. Simply subbing in a new EQ into the amp and making it cathode driven does not designate a completely unique and novel idea for an amp. The phase inverter, first gain stage, Depth control ect are all still nearly or identical to the GT120. So its somewhere between a direct clone and a newish idea. The biggest thing sonically that you will hear in the MV units is that they are gainer than a regular GT120 because cathode driving the FMV results in a lot less EQ loss and thus way more signal slamming into the phase inverter. As a converse example, if I swap a james/bax into a 2203 its not exactly a brand new novel amp idea but its also no longer a direct 2203 clone.

Now another thing some people ask me is which of the 2 are built better. That too has a muddy answer. Now I have only teched 2 modern era Matamp GT120s (made in 2009 or so) and I have never even seen a EA amp in person. So for one things its going to be a bit of apples to oranges. Another thing is that Matamps have been built half a dozen ways where as EA has been built 1 way more or less for the entire time they have built amps. Of the Matamps I have teched, I have been quite disappointed in what I saw. For one thing the amps were built way too small. Tubes to close to each other, iron to close to the tubes. Everything loved to mutually self heat and the back panel warped as a result. Secondly both units ate power tubes all the time, blew fuses for no particular reason ect. Internally the layout was okay but not incredibly impressive. For the EA gut shots I have seen which are pretty good but still stuff I dont exactly love. They are however spaced out nicely to avoid mutual heating. Some of the early units lacked grommet on the iron thru holes but it seems that was remedied. FYI Joel does not wire those amps, John McNeese does and he is the guy behind Diabolical Amps. So overall its not exactly clear which is better built than the other. Joel makes only a small # of amps and Matamp has changed so often its difficult to make a clear and accurate comparison.

Regarding the history you can always read Joel's thoughts here

http://www.matamp.com/mat-mathias.html

As to the exact history its tough to say since Matamp does not address this.

A lot of the bad rap on EA is mostly about Joel's behavior, the long wait times with no exact build dates, and things along this nature rather than his amps have maintenance issues.

Regarding the often repeated but AFAIK never verified story about EA stuffing KT88s into a El34 amp and claiming it was 200W and it blowing up. You see this does not make a whole ton of sense to be honest. Even if you claimed it was 200W (obv not getting that power) it would not exactly explode simply because Kt88s were in it. For example consider that many many US bound Marshall's had 6550s instead of EL34s. No one claims they are explosion prone simply because of this. Putting Kt88s in an amp design to be El34 is just inefficient waste of KT88s. Marshall has a Kerry King model of a 2203 which does that exactly and I have not heard it is a problem amp.

[D.o.S.]

... I expected more nudity.

[AxAxSxS]

Good read nick, thanks.

[misterstomach]

thanks, nick. that was a way better and more thorough answer than i expected when i started the thread.

[dub]

Nice technical info.

Now I'm really curious about the similarities between my GT1 and the Electric MV. It has a three band EQ section (plus a presense), but I don't think it's entirely marshall based. Particularly the interactive way Matamp describe it (turning the bass up lowers treble and vice versa...)

I never heard the tube swap rumour. I remember matamp were pissed that people were playing bass through the amps though. I'm guessing low notes+tubes running super hot+maximum output resulted in a few meltdowns. Electric were claiming that the amps were being built out of old orange stock and whatever was at hand. Which is possible. Matamp have used all sorts of stuff over the years. I remember people were wary of their transformers at one stage. They downgraded their Retro and Gt1 to 80 watts for a while until they found a better supplier.

[new05002]

No clue on the GT1. I dont know the scheme. However I usually doubt fancy descriptions about EQs. 9 times out of 10 its just another FMV.

[benjuro]

Thanks Nick, super informative with none of the drama...

[new05002]

your welcome.

[sardinista]

For what it's worth, the build quality on my Matamp GT2 (recently made) is stunningly good -- both inside and out. And I've encountered no issues whatsoever with overheating.

[new05002]

For what it's worth, the build quality on my Matamp GT2 (recently made) is stunningly good -- both inside and out. And I've encountered no issues whatsoever with overheating.

yea that is an entirely new head so I dont really know. Matamp has changed a lot over the past idk 10 years that some the things I pointed out could have been fixed or adjusted. Totally possible

[Greenfuz]

are there any demos of electric amps that aren't drop-tuned/doom? I don't play doom and I want to compare the sound of these to like an orange rockerverb

[new05002]

AFAIK no but I dont think they will sound anything like a RV. RVs sound modded Marshalls to my ears.

[Greenfuz]

yeah I meant the more classic orange sounding amp, rockerverb was just what popped into my head. or100h?