Amp Families

[Glitchyghost]

KRANK!!!!

[RAGER]

Marshall-Narb, Park, Kitchen

Fender-Plush, Earth

[Ayek]

Splawn for the Marshall section

[Mr. Foxen]

Aren't Mesa mostly Fender with more gain stages?

Carlsbro made good valve amps (see for sale section), but didn't do endorsement, so wasters like that Hendrix guy couldn't blag them for free. They only went shitty with solid state stuff in the 80s. Pre is pretty Fendery, although sometimes with a fixed mid.

My Italian Mac is pretty AC30 style.

Vampower are pretty much their own thing. Although not traced out the circuit because I'm not that techy, the bite control does something different.

MKIV Sound City are their own thing, not much in common with Hiwatts except component brand.

Little Rock are post Burman

White should head to Matamp family, although not as closely linked as people selling them make out.

Didn't take apart my Thor but seems like its own thing too.

Simms-Watts, another one I have no clue about cause I've not had one, some ran ultralinear power sections though, sort of unusual.

Champ (as in Chambonino) have unique stuff, and Mammothsounds should be a branch thereof, although that totally is a guy who has made half a dozen amps.

[Chovie D]

everything is a fender basically 

[At_Giza]

All thanks to the basic Bassman circuit I guess.

[Hemisaurus]

Which came from the RCA manual.

I'm only bothering with the big names, if someone else wants to organise all the other crap, go ahead

[Mr. Foxen]

Ways of identifying circuit styles would be handy too. Like setting all tone controls on a Sound City pre to 0 giving no sound tells you its the active pre. And the extra transformer wires that show an UL power section. Fender style tone controls being flat at min treble and bass, max mid is another one, if you can recognise flat (playing recorded music through stuff with a known flat cab is about the only way).

[El Zombre]

Wonder if we could do this - we put up an google spreadsheet categorizing major amp models by features - and also if you're really sure of it - predecessor circuit (Marshall <-- Bassman). There're software out there for making up a likely evolutionary tree given a set of features. Given that designing amp isn't exactly like natural selection we could end up with a big mess, but hey.

columns could be like : # of inputs, gain stage 1 circuit type, gs1 tube type, gs2 circuit type, gs2 tube type, gs3,.., tone stack type, phase inverter type, master volume circuit type, output tube circuit, output tube type, additional features - probably a few more columns for these.

So that's my bright idea, but I don't know enough about circuitry to fill most of the columns out by eyeballing the schematics.

[SoupKitchen]

Vox family: Vox AC15/AC30, Matchless DC30, Trainwreck Liverpool/Rocket

Peavey Classic family: Classic 30/50 (Ampeg input jack circuit/Fenderish preamp with extra gain/cathodyne PI/EL84 output/solid state recto)

Mullard family: Sunn 200S/2000S/Sonaro, Dr. Z Route 66 (purportedly)

I know that with these amps we're entering blues lawyer territory, but someone mentioned the Dumbles we all play our '59 Bursts and TS-808s through. Maybe we're getting a little esoteric and outside the genre.

[The Shocker]

Randall been mentioned?

[Volume]

Engl?

[Mr. Foxen]

Just grabbed my Nolan back from tech, he says circuit is more Marshall, although partridge iron and Hiwatt styling. So call it a Laney, ha.

[moose23]

Just grabbed my Nolan back from tech, he says circuit is more Marshall, although partridge iron and Hiwatt styling. So call it a Laney, ha.

Nolan's are all over the place, some very Marshall like, others more Fender and Hiwatt.

[Mr. Foxen]

Add Triumph to Vampower link, actually predecessor.

[spookstrickland]

what family is Sunn in?

[Hemisaurus]

I don't think it is, they were based on hi-fi amps.

My idea of starting the thread was to just save people spending stupid money on Amp B, when it was just a copy of Amp A, which is also available brand new as Amp C at a fairly reasonable price.

Of course people now want to turn it into a bedtime masturbation thread

[Mr. Foxen]

what family is Sunn in?

Model T is pretty Bassman I think. Can't really generalise whole brands that made stuff for that long.

[dunwichamps]

the 200s/2000s/Sorado type amps have Dynaco style output sections with simple 2 stage preamps I believe

[Hemisaurus]

Even the two Sunn Model T's (not the Fender) have big differences, the furst one is an FMR tonestack, the second a Baxandall with the mid in a separate stage of the preamp

[bitter]

FMR? or FMV

[Mr. Foxen]

the second a Baxandall with the mid in a separate stage of the preamp

That make it ampeg family?

[Hemisaurus]

FMR? or FMV

Where did I get R from

[bitter]

I just thought I was missing something for a second.

[dunwichamps]

yea in the Gen 2 Model Ts they had a inductor/cap active mid range control on the cathode of a dual rail design gain stage, as well as a Bax/James Stack