best sounding high gain solid state guitar amps for metal?

[Hemisaurus]

OK, something just clicked here, when we were talking about  bass and guitar and speakers.

Your 2x12 has Eminence Governor's right? From the Eminence website:

Specification
Nominal Basket Diameter   12", 304.8mm
Nominal Impedance*   8 ohms
Power Rating**
Watts   75W
Music Program   N/A
Resonance   101Hz
Usable Frequency Range   70Hz - 5kHz

OK, see the last bit 70Hz - 5KHz

Now you say your tuning down, from E which is 82.41Hz, to the G below it which is 49Hz, you see the problem?

The speakers in your 2x12 cannot produce the fundamental tone of your guitar, the amp wastes a lot of energy pumping it out, and it probably just makes the speakers kind of farty, you'll be able to hear the note as the speakers will play the harmonics just fine.

Your wasting your amps energy, and your speakers work, trying to hear something that isn't there.

I'd go back to my last post, and think about some way of thinning out the signal going to those 12's. There may be 12's which go a bit lower, but not many that go below 50Hz, unless you start looking at proper woofers, rather than guitar speakers.



I used the 10" versions of those Goldwoods, in a 4x10, and they worked great for years until I ran them at way over their power handling and blew the snot out of two of them.

[stormzsystem]

Fender Metalhead MH500 is one of the meanest and warmest solid state amps I've ever used.

[liquidsmoke]

Yes Eminence Governors.
Rather than castrating my guitar signal I'd rather get speakers that can handle the lows better. One of the Eminence 15" models goes down to 50Hz and I think most 15" bass speakers also go down about that low too.

[liquidsmoke]

Hemisaurus, something doesn't seem right about this whole frequency issue. If G is 49Hz that means that even an E tuned bass isn't right for some bass speakers because some of them have a usable frequency range that begins at around 48Hz. What is the frequency of the low B on a 5 string bass(or my 4 string that is tuned in B)? How about those crazy 8 string basses that go even lower? What speakers are you supposed to use for those?

[moose23]

Hemisaurus, something doesn't seem right about this whole frequency issue. If G is 49Hz that means that even an E tuned bass isn't right for some bass speakers because some of them have a usable frequency range that begins at around 48Hz. What is the frequency of the low B on a 5 string bass(or my 4 string that is tuned in B)? How about those crazy 8 string basses that go even lower? What speakers are you supposed to use for those?

Bassically you just don't worry about amplifying the fundamental as the harmonics will trick your ears into thinking you can hear it prefectly fine anyway. Well either that or start using PA subs, which not many people do..

[Hemisaurus]

I do. Easy test, like we suggested ages ago in the Tech Thread, play an E-tuned guitar through it, do you have the same problems?

[liquidsmoke]

My Gibson SG tuned in E with stock pups does have the same problem however it's not as bad and sounds more normal up to a certain point although if I was playing high gain metal in E I would have thicker wound strings for a more beefy tone ala Ironsword, Cauldron Born, etc.. That SG is my rock axe


So when playing bass it's okay if you can't hear all of those low frequencies but when playing guitar it's not okay because the speakers aren't designed for it?

I'm leaning towards trying to get a single cab with the right 15" guitar speaker in it and if it rules all then get one more and then just use the 2x12 for rock playing only.

[Hemisaurus]

Nope, when playing a guitar tuned to the range of a bass, don't be surprised if your amp and cab start farting out. Your asking too much of them. Unless your Lemmy, who turns the bass down, and the mid's up, don't expect much out of even 100W tube amp, and he uses a 4x15 and a 4x12 per amp, lots of speakers, lots of air moving.

Google for musical note frequencies to get the table of note to frequency mapping.

[liquidsmoke]

Nope, when playing a guitar tuned to the range of a bass, don't be surprised if your amp and cab start farting out. Your asking too much of them. Unless your Lemmy, who turns the bass down, and the mid's up, don't expect much out of even 100W tube amp, and he uses a 4x15 and a 4x12 per amp, lots of speakers, lots of air moving.

Sounds like Lemmy is using too much speaker though, as per what we were talking about before.. sending 10 or so watts each to speakers that can handle much much more but it works well for him. I need to see Motorhead again sometime.

Google for musical note frequencies to get the table of note to frequency mapping.

Will do.

[moose23]

Nope, when playing a guitar tuned to the range of a bass, don't be surprised if your amp and cab start farting out. Your asking too much of them. Unless your Lemmy, who turns the bass down, and the mid's up, don't expect much out of even 100W tube amp, and he uses a 4x15 and a 4x12 per amp, lots of speakers, lots of air moving.

Sounds like Lemmy is using too much speaker though, as per what we were talking about before.. sending 10 or so watts each to speakers that can handle much much more but it works well for him. I need to see Motorhead again sometime.

Google for musical note frequencies to get the table of note to frequency mapping.

Will do.

I think you missed something there, Lemmy has one cab per head which sounds about right to me. Bought 25watts per speaker not ten.

[moose23]

and that's tube amps so they'll putting out a lot more than 25 watts when they're in over driven territory.

Another thing you could/should look into is the world of ports on bass cabs and how they're tuned for lower frequencies. Only really learning the basics of this stuff myself so not much help with explain it to you. Here's a good start, although pretty basic info wise:

http://www.tunemybass.com/bass_amps/bass_cabinet_guide.html

Bit more detail on ports:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bass_reflex

[Hemisaurus]

 

Ideal ported box 40"x16"x24" for two governors.

[liquidsmoke]

Thanks for the links moose23.


Played the Laney slaved out to the Sunn Slave unit more today. It's not nearly as loud but does sound more stable through my 2x12 and doesn't seem to break up as much. It does sound more solid state but the tone is acceptable in my opinion. Going to check out that local Randall Century 200 II tomorrow. If I could use that as a slave(assuming it can put out 200 watts mono) it should be louder than the Sunn. edit: that Randall is 120/100 watts 8/4 ohms, not 200.

edit: shop closed today when I went, couldn't play the Randall

[liquidsmoke]

Picked up that Randall Century 200 II yesterday but the inputs are pretty corroded and the sound sometimes cuts in and out, it's going back for return or a clean up. Doesn't sound too bad otherwise although it sounds solid state.

[VOLVO)))]

Go to the shack and get some deoxit, spray a cable male end, and run it in and out of the jack a few times. That'll clean 'er up.

sent from Mortlock's mom's laptop...

[liquidsmoke]

Go to the shack and get some deoxit, spray a cable male end, and run it in and out of the jack a few times. That'll clean 'er up.

sent from Mortlock's mom's laptop...

Thanks for the tip. Took the amp back in and they are going to clean it up no charge.

[liquidsmoke]

This Ibanez SS sounds pretty damn good at least in this youtube clip

[tombhex]

I really like Crate Shockwaves. 350w, dense as fuck, weirdly smooth for a solid state.

[liquidsmoke]

I really like Crate Shockwaves. 350w, dense as fuck, weirdly smooth for a solid state.

350 watts and a guitar amp? I'm guessing it's based on an Ampeg but with a different pre-amp? I'll look into them. I think my 2x12 could handle that much power.

My Laney starts breaking up around 3 or so, I kind of like how it does that but it starts to ruin tight metal tone also so I kind of don't like it. For rock it's awesome.

[mutantcolors]

fried of mine plays a Shockwave, it aint too shabby

[tombhex]

I'm actually thinking about picking one up to use in situations where my V4+rat/V4+HM2/V4+Swollen Pickle isn't tight enough. I still like to play stuff like In Flames and whatnot, so contrary to what some people may think, there are times when clean amp + pedal won't get me there.

[jibberish]

can you run a mono input into that stereo amp, then run + of ch1 to 16ohm spkr and return from spkr to - of ch2? leave any stereo reffects completely off and/or use the "mono" output setting if it has one.

double the amps makes the speaker appear 1/2 impedance.  maybe then you could use both halves of the amp and both halves see 8ohms with your 16ohm cab. like bridging...

i know for home stereos, i have this thing made by great american sound called a bridge. it is for mono-ing up stereo amps from the input side. i have used it on a pair of 100w/ch receivers to run subs at 200w, but you have to double up the speaker impedance to keep the amps seeing their normal impedance, so 4 ohm single speakers are real iffy with a bridged ss receiver seeing 2 ohms

edit: ps, you can run higher impedance speakers into SS amps. the impedance mismatch only limits current, nothing destructive. you only lose volume and maybe some thickness of sound.
ie, an open is 100% safe on a SS output(infinite resistance, nothing burning itself up inside the amp)
there is no such thing as 8ohm dummy loads for ss amps or any of that open circuit avoidance stuff needed for tube outputs.  conversely, you have to watch low impedance on SS amps, as you approach short circuit, the outputs try to push more and more current at the set o/p voltage. eventually they melt.

[mutantcolors]

Same friend with the Shockwave showed me some pretty jerry-rigged way of running this old Randall SS head he used at 2ohm stereo, had to do with plugging some stuff in and leaving something unplugged to the speaker cab...long time ago, can't remember. It was super balls loud though.

[Hemisaurus]

If you're that desperate for power, fling a $200 1500W power amp in the mix

[bitter]

^ I've considered doing something like that, albeit with more reasonable wattage. When it comes to SS and metal, I wish tech21 built a rack unit for their sansamp gt2.