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it's a gawd damns innervations!







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The problems that plague combo amps and facilitate their tube guzzling habits are well known among competent builders and techs.
But I believe they're attributed to heat retention more than vibration.
Combos where the power amp is on the bottom, with tubes inserted top-down (upright), allowing heat to rise up out of the chassis seem to prevent or delay many of the issues that......arise.
As a general rule I've found tubes go microphonic in combos much sooner than heads, but (as another general rule) the 2 biggest variable are circuit+user.

There's no question isolation plays a role in the end sound, but the topic raises new questions of "how much?" "is it desirable?" etc.
In Hi-Fi and studio applications, isolation from source to translation medium is necessary.
A turntable will pick up rumble or not even track if it's atop or in close proximity to drivers.
But what is desirable in the home/studio/quiet environments might not be desirable (or be practical) on stage...
And the goal of (most) instrument amplifiers is far from ultra-linear performance.

Is there something to it? Yes. Does it matter? YMMV.
As someone who is prone to overthinking this kind of shit, I tell my brain to "shut up and trust your ears".

aen wrote:Actually, tube amps color the FUCK out of your sound. Plug your guitar direct into an audio interface, or hi-fi stereo and you will hear what an electric guitar actually sounds like. Shit. That's why we have tube amps. To make guitars sound good.

Everything colors sound...especially converters. The very act of amplifying an acoustic instrument colors its sound.
Uncolored sound doesn't exist afaic...but acoustic instruments are probably the closest to its concept.

It's just a matter of finding your favorite color.

hey there, fag butts!

As I've mentioned elsewhere on this forum, I don't know anything about tube amps so bear with me. I've been search on the forum for a answer to my question to no avail, so this seemed like the best thread to revive.

Do any of y'all run a particularly long cord from your amp head to the cab? Like, across the room? Any costs/benefits to this idea? Thinking about home use particularly, rather than stage.

Speaker wire doesn't degrade the signal over long runs like a guitar cable will, not until you get into the 100+ feet range. So if you want your head on one end of the room, and the cab on the other, just run a long speaker cable and you'll hear no difference. If you go from say a 8ft to 25th guitar lead, you likely would hear a difference.

started setting my head on the ground next to the cab but not for vibration, I am only running a 1x10 with my Randall diavlo now and it looked stupid as a stack plus I run the line out to the house and kick the cab back so I have a good reference monitor.

Not sure it has improved tone or tube life, but I like running it like this
downside being that to adjust anything on the amp completely sucks
thinking about building a case for everything that would angle the cab and have a place higher up for the head to sit


as far as the speaker cable question above, not sure a long speaker cable would ever make any difference.

Oh this was a fun thread.