Using a tiny tube stereo as a guitar amp

[mathias]

Has anyone tried this? It's about the size of a ZVex nano head, but it costs 1/3 the cost, and perfect for playing into headphones.

http://headphonesamplifier.com/little-d ... erpre-amp/


I know it isn't going to get gain like a guitar amp, especially Vex's little nano head, but I thought maybe someone had something like this around (musicians tend to overlap with audiophiles, though not the majority in my experience) and has tried it. What is it like? Worth trying? (I've used a tube mic preamp as a headphone amp before, but that had clipping protection so the headroom was really low & shut off when it started to distort.)

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

i have the little dot ii++, i run lots of shit thru them, mostly samples off vinyl, and line level stuff. never tried a guitar or mic. its my secret weapon, oozes a beautiful sound.
i dunno how the stock tubes sound, but part of hte fun is rollin tubes. i have some mullards in mine at the current moment, def experiment if u can!
u can really push it and i've never really heard it distort. it has a very nice frequency response and available headroom. u can really drive those tubes w/ your input source.

gets a little hot to the touch when running, u can warm your hands around it on a cold snowy afternoon!

from what i've seen little dot as a company is one of the more respected and is more active/better customer service than most of hte other chinese tube amp makers, one of hte reasons i went w/ a little dot. dude was super helpful and friendly. maybe shoot him an email if u haven't already

[dubkitty]

i'll bet that would be tits to run into a mixer for playing in a home studio too.

[mathias]

i'll bet that would be tits to run into a mixer for playing in a home studio too.

For mixing the sound & warming up the sound during recording, or mixing music after recording? I'd think it'd be deceptive if used for mixing.

[dubkitty]

guitar->headphone pre->mixer, just to noodle around. reverb in the effects loop.

[univalve]

i have a bigger one (two el84) for my hifi setup in the living room. i love it. these (hifi) amps are set up for ultra liniear play back though. but tubes cranked always tend to distort

[oldangelmidnight]

I've got one of these: http://www.hi-end.on9mart.com/cart/MENG%206P1%20sv.html
I've been meaning to run my guitar through it but haven't yet. I'll report back.

[mathias]

Yeah, I understand you're not going to get THE BRUTALZ on it. But you guys know that loud, clean jazzy-sound that guitarists got out of early tube amps in the jazz age? There's some distortion (in the physics sense) going on in the sense that it is warming up the signal and making it sparkle. That's a sweet sound that I wouldn't mind having once and awhile.

[rfurtkamp]

Problem is the EQ range and shelving for the hifi vs. a guitar amp. Yes, the little bugger will produce sound, but not necesarily or likely to be something tailored to what you want.

It'll be more like plugging into a keyboard amp or straight into the PA with no DI box than using a guitar amp.

You may like it, it may have occasional good use, etc., but it's not going to produce what most people think of when they even think of "clean" guitar tone (containing a lot of distortion relatively speaking) which is a lot different than hifi's much more absolute clean.

[Mike]

From the product description:

Input Impedance: 50K ohms

That's going to be too low for a guitar. Most amps have an input impedance of 470K - 1M. It will likely load your pickups down and shave off an unacceptable amount of trouble. You would have to use a buffer before the amp, preferably < 5K ohms output impedance.

Why not look into Rick/Frequencycentral's Murder One? Submini tube amp, 1590B enclosure, designed for guitars, hand-built, and in the $2XX range.

Mike

[mathias]

I was just curious if anyone had tried it; I'm not actually picking one up. Rather, I've been looking at hifi stereo gear online and saw this thing, and wondered if anyone had tried it. I didn't take the input impedance into account. That makes sense, thanks.

I would love to have one of those tiny amp heads for practice, however, it's doubtful I'll be able to afford one anytime soon.

[rfurtkamp]

Did it back in the day with a tube stereo to see if it sounded better than the el cheapo Crate or Peavey whatever it was. Wasn't because the amp was tube, it's because it was in the garage and we could get away with it.

It didn't sound real hot, but that may have just been the wall of cheap $20 pedals too.