best sounding high gain solid state guitar amps for metal?

[liquidsmoke]

It's got four ohm speakers, or 16 ohm speakers...

4 ohm drivers for 16 ohms:
Series 4 + 4 = 8
Series 4 + 4 = 8
Series 8 + 8 = 16

16 ohm drivers for 16 ohms:
Parallel 16 + 16 = 8
Parallel 16 + 16 = 8
Series 8 + 8 = 16

4 ohm drivers for 4 ohms:
Series 4 + 4 = 8
Series 4 + 4 = 8
Parallel 8 + 8 = 4

16 ohm drivers for 4 ohms:
Parallel 16 + 16 = 8
Parallel 16 + 16 = 8
Parallel 8 + 8 = 4

Easy enough?

I don't really get it but the good news is that it's doable and my Laney can run 4 ohms too.

[liquidsmoke]

Would my Laney sound any different running through my 2x12 at 4 ohms is another question however. Anyone?

[At_Giza]

Can it push four ohms and are the speakers in your 2x12 different than the cab you usually run it through?

[liquidsmoke]

Can it push four ohms and are the speakers in your 2x12 different than the cab you usually run it through?

My Laney does have an output vagina labeled 4 ohms. The speakers in my 2x12 are the speakers that are always in my 2x12 and it's my only cab although I have access to 2 15" bass cabs at the moment.








So yesterday morning I played my buddy's Peavey 5150 through my cab one more time before I had to give it back to him and then I hooked my Laney back up. Wow. The 5150 is capable of producing thicker heavier tones but it's more mushy and shitty sounding. The Laney is tight and clear yet still very warm sounding in comparison. My AB test earlier was with bass cabs which made the amps sound pretty much exactly the same which kind of sucks. Guitar speakers let amps really sing. There is no way in hell any solid state amp will be able to in come close to touching quality of tones the GH50L can produce. Now I'm thinking I should get a GH100L or the Tony Iommi variation so I can get the same sweet metal crunch but with more headroom although the 120 watt 5150 would also distort excessively at high volumes but not as soon. Part of it could be my G tuned Epiphone Junior just being too thick toned... but the thing was only $88 brand new so how could that be? Isn't the wood probably shit? I have no idea what it's made out of. Some of the reviews online are stellar though.


I realize that lately I've probably seemed like a special ed kid who just got into playing guitar but I haven't really played a lot of different guitars and amps and what not. I have my gear, do my thing and just get lost in my music. I also have a really shitty memory admittingly.

[Hemisaurus]

Have you thought of just adding a power amp, and using the Slave Out on your GH50L? Something like GH50L and 2x12 and Slave Out to power amp and other cabs.

On a tube amp, it's impedance matched, so you should hear no difference rewiring your cab, so don't bother.

Also if a 2x12 is your only cab, I don't think you need more amp, you need more cab. Even a 50W tube amp is capable of driving a full stack.

[bitter]

Also if a 2x12 is your only cab, I don't think you need more amp, you need more cab. Even a 50W tube amp is capable of driving a full stack.

I think you would be wise to add another cab. 2x12 or 4x12. Also, you may want to find a nice transparent overdrive like a tubescreamer variant. Boss SD1 or digitech bad monkeys are good bets and cheap. At the very least, they could help you get that extra push from the amp w/out having to crank all of the controls.

[liquidsmoke]

Have you thought of just adding a power amp, and using the Slave Out on your GH50L? Something like GH50L and 2x12 and Slave Out to power amp and other cabs.

On a tube amp, it's impedance matched, so you should hear no difference rewiring your cab, so don't bother.

Also if a 2x12 is your only cab, I don't think you need more amp, you need more cab. Even a 50W tube amp is capable of driving a full stack.

I never thought about it but I can use my band mate's Sunn Slave head, I just don't know how many ohms it puts out. It has 2 speaker outputs and says it's 200 watts. It also says "class 2" but I have no idea what that means. The front of the unit is white and black and I think it's from the '70s. It looks like this one- http://www.krazykatmusic.com/?p=1521

I'm assuming I would run the Laney's slave out into the Sunn's line in jack in the front. Would my Laney also need to be plugged into a cab or is that not necessary when slaving it out?

Regarding rewiring my cab(16 ohms), that would be to use it with a solid state amp that isn't 16. I would still want to use it with my Laney directly to play heavy rock type stuff though.

About needing more cab, my 2x12 is plenty loud and I am also running a bass combo to add more crushing lows to the band's sound because we are a 2 piece. I really don't want to be lugging a zillion cabs around for live gigs. I should not need to ever be louder than the drums on stage at a gig but if I do the 2x12 is fine for that. I do want more clarity though, my Laney starts to break up(beyond the preamp distortion levels I use for a heavy metal tone) between 2 and 3 on the master volume. At 6 or 7 it's Weedeater on crack. If that Sunn Slave is clear with lots of headroom I can see it working out quite well with my Laney's preamp.

[Hemisaurus]

If it is indeed a concert slave.

As it's solid state, the lower the impedance the more power, so a 4 ohm cab would be best, but an 8 ohm cab is fine, and even a 16 ohm will probably be plenty loud.

You must ALWAYS connect a tube head to a speaker cab before turning it on  

The only way around this would be to open the amp and pull out ALL the power tubes, or use a load resistor (giant brick thing), or have the amp mod'd to cut the B+ supply to the power tubes.

[liquidsmoke]

I think you would be wise to add another cab. 2x12 or 4x12.

For more volume or so that each speaker receives less watts and doesn't break up as much? I'm good on volume.

Also, you may want to find a nice transparent overdrive like a tubescreamer variant. Boss SD1 or digitech bad monkeys are good bets and cheap. At the very least, they could help you get that extra push from the amp w/out having to crank all of the controls.

I'm not sure what the difference between using both of the Laney's distortion knobs on or near 10 vs an overdrive pedal and somewhat less Laney distortion. My assumption is that the problem is mainly the power tubes causing excessive break up. I can also get the amp to break up while not using as much preamp distortion but it doesn't sound metal enough, it sounds more heavy rock. With a fuzz in front that breakup sound godly when I'm going for that type of tone.

[liquidsmoke]

If it is indeed a concert slave.

As it's solid state, the lower the impedance the more power, so a 4 ohm cab would be best, but an 8 ohm cab is fine, and even a 16 ohm will probably be plenty loud.

You must ALWAYS connect a tube head to a speaker cab before turning it on  

The only way around this would be to open the amp and pull out ALL the power tubes, or use a load resistor (giant brick thing), or have the amp mod'd to cut the B+ supply to the power tubes.

Ah okay. So would the master volume knob on the Laney effect the tone going through the Sunn Slave? Because of how I don't like how the Laney breaks up at high volumes I would have it a lot more quiet than the Sunn which would render the cab the Laney would be hooked up to more or less useless, well I guess it would keep the Laney from blowing up but that's it. If I only wanted to use the Laney for this metal band and the Sunn thing was to work out well I'd probably just remove the power tubes but because I also like using it for heavy rock sometimes I would not want to do that. Unless I'm not understanding any of this.

[liquidsmoke]

The Sunn Slave at my place right now looks somewhat different from this one and says 200 watts on the back.

[VOLVO)))]

Same name, different slave. 200@2ohms, about 140 into 4 ohms.

If you're looking for more headroom, less "FUCKIN' CRANKED" sound, less farty hissy distortion, you ought to add a bass cab into the mix, ditch that combo, and use the slave from the Laney to the slave/bass cab, but run something between the slave out and the input of the slave. A Sansamp bass/Para DI or something.

We need to hear the Laney, I think you may truly have a weird issue going on. Find a comparison on a song or something? My AOR sounded like my 800, only shittier, with slightly more gain, and a worthless bass boost. Dragonaut was a Laney. Shit, most of Holy Mountain was a Laney AOR...

[Hemisaurus]

Later Concert Slaves would do 200W into 2 ohms, you probably have a later one.

More speakers might mean more volume when your amp is at 2 or 3, which would mean you have your headroom, or more sensitive speakers, it's something to think about.

The Slave has it's own front panel gain knob, which means you can leave the Laney on 2 or 3 and turn the Sunn up. You could also use it to help analyse your 'do I need a 100W amp' issue, if the Laney through the Sunn still breaks up at the same settings that the Laney on it's own, then you're dealing with preamp distortion, you need to put smoother preamp tubes (less gainy) in your Laney. If you can crank the Laney way past where it normally breaks up, and the speakers connected to the Sunn don't break up, then yes you had hit power tube distortion and a 100W amp might help you.

Yes, if you want to run just the Sunn amp connected to your 2x12 and use the Laney as a preamp, please pull out those power tubes, if it's easy for you to do. Later on I'd suggest a load box, or a B+ mod, just so you have the option of switching back to the Laney as a backup (or you could carry those tubes with you everywhere).

[VOLVO)))]

The Slave has it's own front panel gain knob, which means you can leave the Laney on 2 or 3 and turn the Sunn up. You could also use it to help analyse your 'do I need a 100W amp' issue, if the Laney through the Sunn still breaks up at the same settings that the Laney on it's own, then you're dealing with preamp distortion, you need to put smoother preamp tubes (less gainy) in your Laney.

12AT7/12AU7, but the AU may be too low gain for you...

[Hemisaurus]

Oh, and at Sunn, he might have a line in on the combo, that he can connect to the Slave Out of the Laney, I'm guessing right now he just splits the signal elsewhere Even a combo run with flat EQ and set for active bass would be a fair approximation.

You also want to ascertain whether that slave out is line or low level before you hook it into a pedal.

[VOLVO)))]

Oh, and at Sunn, he might have a line in on the combo, that he can connect to the Slave Out of the Laney, I'm guessing right now he just splits the signal elsewhere Even a combo run with flat EQ and set for active bass would be a fair approximation.

You also want to ascertain whether that slave out is line or low level before you hook it into a pedal.

Works fine from the DI of the 800, it was an experiment, it had pretty pleasing results...

[Hemisaurus]

LH50 is switchable level, Marshall's are low level only which is no good for rack FX unfortunately.

Still, lets try and figure out whether the preamp is too high gain, or the amp is too quiet when clean.

I can relate to not wanting to lug too many cabs, but after a bunch of shows where you get frustratedby your sound, or volume, sometimes you realize you just need to drag all that shit to be happy.

I've been thinking about doing the next tour on bicycle, and converting my EV cab into a bike trailer

[liquidsmoke]

Thanks for the info and ideas guys.

Right now I'm using an ABY type splitter box to sent signals to my Laney/2x12 and my Fender 15" 100 watt SS combo.

Tomorrow afternoon I will run my Laney at 8 ohms into one of the bass cabs while also slaving out it's signal to the Sunn which I will have hooked up to my 2x12, assuming it's safe to run that Sunn at 16 ohms. I will try various tones, levels of Laney distortion and volume levels and just see how it goes. I will also mess around more with the Laney into the 2x12 at lower distortion levels again just to refresh my memory as to what the breakup sounds like and at what point it happens.

Time for a movie.

[Hemisaurus]

Perfectly safe, you can run the Sunn with no speaker attached (infinite impedance) all the way down to 2 ohms.

[liquidsmoke]

Okay,

the Laney's slave out doesn't actually send a signal out(so I'm not sure what the hell it does) but the effects out does and works great for this purpose. Weird. I found this out late in my session however. After I couldn't get the slave out to do anything I proceeded to mess around with the Laney and the Sunn through my 2x12 and a 15" bass cab. The Sunn does not seem as loud as my Laney but that could be because it doesn't have it's own preamp. It sounds good with a muff clone into a Sansamp unit with bass and guitar, not necessarily better than my Fender bass combo but somewhat different. Played the Laney through both cabs and at all volume and distortion levels again. Turning down the preamp distortion just makes it sound more rock and less metal although I can scale it back somewhat and still get more or less the tone I want but it still breaks up crazy bad past 5 or so on the master volume with either cab(worse through the 2x12) but that's really not a big deal I guess. I do have the Laney's bass knob all the way up all the time and prefer it this way, it does increase the breaking up. Typical high gain heavy metal guitar tone does have a shitty quality to it from a certain perspective but what would Candlemass or Metallica be without it? Well I guess they would be heavy rock or stoner or sludge in a way although Iron Man, Orodruin and some other very heavy very METAL bands do have a thicker more sludgy guitar tone. I just turn the mids and treble down to reduce some of the ice picking but not so much that I'm sounding guitar tone knob on 0 kind of like Spirit Caravan(although I love them and Wino's tone is awesome).

By the time I figured out that I could use the Laney's effects out to send a slave signal my ears were already pretty fried and everything was just sounding loud but I didn't notice much difference of tone between the Laney on it's own and the Sunn whilst receiving the Laney slave signal though my 2x12 although it was perhaps more stable. I will continue to experiment with the Sunn Slave amp in the coming days. I'm quite sure it's loud enough for practice and gigging. The next time I play I think I'll be able to compare the tones through my 2x12 much better.

Also, I'd like a real Les Paul and suspect that some of the darker high wattage handling 15" guitar speakers would probably be ideal for the type of guitar tone I'm going for, perhaps right between 12" guitar speakers and bass speakers. I like the sound of 15" bass speakers for guitar but they do sound a bit muffled and I suspect that 12s would be more open. Of course I am also running a muff/Sansamp signal to a bass combo which does a great job of filling out the frequencies on the low end and balancing the overall stringed instrument side of the band.

[liquidsmoke]

We need to hear the Laney, I think you may truly have a weird issue going on. Find a comparison on a song or something? My AOR sounded like my 800, only shittier, with slightly more gain, and a worthless bass boost. Dragonaut was a Laney. Shit, most of Holy Mountain was a Laney AOR...

I had an AOR and I thought it sounded too fizzy and trashy if that makes sense although I think there were 2 different AOR varieties and I suspect I had the shitty one. The GH is a better amp overall in my opinion, smoother and better for any type of rock tone and also better for mega gain metal or anything in between. Yeah that AOR bass boost is nearly worthless because it produces way too much bass.

Comparison on a song... that's a hard one. To me it sounds like it gets too tube-y so the SS slave amp thing may be just what I need.

[Hemisaurus]

High wattage speakers are a bad idea, unless you are pushing high watts, especially bass speakers. The efficiency of a high wattage speaker is usually way less, than a low wattage speaker, basically you need more watts for the same level of loudness, so watch for that.

Have fun experimenting.

[liquidsmoke]

Still, lets try and figure out whether the preamp is too high gain, or the amp is too quiet when clean.

I never run the amp on clean although it doesn't have a pure clean channel so I doubt it would go as loud cleanish as it does dirty.
The preamp is not too high gain, I need it's gain almost all the way up to get the sound I want without a Ratt(quality) or Metalzone(not a fan, been there done that) type pedal. But preamp tubes don't really get pushed harder as you turn the master volume up do they?

I can relate to not wanting to lug too many cabs, but after a bunch of shows where you get frustratedby your sound, or volume, sometimes you realize you just need to drag all that shit to be happy.

I hear ya but keep in mind that I'm splitting the signal to a guitar side(Laney) and a bass side(Sansamp & bass combo amp for now) if you will and they do compliment each other quite well so I feel like I shouldn't need to run the guitar side through a lot of cabs when the bass side provides all the low end I want but having said that I still want the guitar side to be very heavy and fairly thick sounding on it's own. I don't see any real need to be able to play a lot louder than the drummer at gigs but part of the reason I started this thread was because I do want to be able to really crank and still have good tone if I feel like doing so. I guess men are weird, it doesn't matter how big your dick is you always wish it was bigger. I would like more clarity in the 2.5 to 3 range though.

I've been thinking about doing the next tour on bicycle, and converting my EV cab into a bike trailer

Whoa. I've heard of solo singer songwriter acoustic players doing this but not anyone playing anything electric. I'd be concerned about rain storms and what not, not to mention my knees haha.

[liquidsmoke]

High wattage speakers are a bad idea, unless you are pushing high watts, especially bass speakers. The efficiency of a high wattage speaker is usually way less, than a low wattage speaker, basically you need more watts for the same level of loudness, so watch for that.

Have fun experimenting.

That does make sense although it means that my 2x12 is 100 watts more than it needs to be because it has 2 75 watt speakers and my Laney can only put out 50. My impression is that higher wattage guitar speakers can handle more low end though. Is that generally correct? I'm quite sure that I would blow Greenbacks in a matter of minutes tuning way down to G.

[Hemisaurus]

Sorta. Low frequency requires more power, that's why bass amps are more watts. I play through guitar tube heads, and you'll never get it very loud, for the lows. You're tuning down to G? As in the 3rd fret on a regular tuned basses E string, is your lowest note? You may be wanting too much out of your amp then. I'd be looking at using something to thin your guitar signal as it goes to the Laney, not necessarily a frequency filter, say something like a Boss DS-1, I use a Boss Metallizer as it's horribly thin sounding on it's own, but it's great for passing the high frequencies, and blocking the low, and then I connect that thinned signal to a tube head, and it sounds just fine, not on it's own, but when you blend it with the full range signal going to the bass amp, where the highs are naturally attenuated as the speakers connected to the bass amp can't reproduce the high frequencies.

Anyways, as low frequency takes more power it's more likely to push your amp hard, which in turn pushes your speakers hard, which was the original question, hence you want a bit of leeway,  not necessarily 100W extra.

Is this making some kinda sense?