Endless slaving headache.

[TJB]

All the opinions about what power amp is best is purely a matter of taste. Tube power amps are built for clean headroom for the most part, just as much as solid state IMO. As a matter of fact, I bought a Velocity 300 power amp and then tried out a Mesa simul 2:90 and the improvement was hands down in favor of the Mesa. Much bigger, bolder and with clearer more sparkly clean sound. The Velocity 300 sounded flat and week in comparison.
The only reason I would consider solid state would be just for tube abuse on the road but I think I would invest in a good shock rack instead.
Tube life in a power amp should last a very long time as your basically running it on the cool side. I think I went (5) years before re-tubing and I could have gone longer.
I would just be sure your slave is connected to the output of your first amp before it goes thru the load box.
The set up Mark came up with should work fine but I would go with 6550's biased normal and not the lower voltage on that amp.
One thing you may want to keep in mind when running multiple amps running different speakers is speaker phase issues. Depending on your set up, you may have to run some speakers out of phase. You'll know if your sound seems to get real thin when playing live in a band situation.

[vanhalen5150]

No, I understand that but was just wondering if the order of loads played a role in how the Pwr Trans and tubes sound/feel. In other words two pairs of speakers at 32 ohms or two pairs at 8 ohms. Ultimately, we know the total is 16 ohms but?

I'm no expert but I'd say no, it doesn't matter.

[jnew]

Speakers out of phase? what's this all about. I've never tried it with guitar cab but out of phase has always sounded weak and hollow to me.

[dirtycooter]

If you are usin a slave amp it should have to be in phase with the head or you'll get a thin crappy sound. Most of the time this isn't a problem though but makes a definite difference.
also note you cannot have dry analog to digital converted dry runnin with unprocessed analog dry. Digital latency mixed with analog sounds like total ass. Fx are fine but no digitized dry. Unless the whole tone is digitized.

But te above remark concluding solid state cannot keep up by merely using a rocktron velocity power amp.... its biased as this amp in particular i have had and it is colored oddly and no where as optimum as some other solid state choices. The velocity series sucks. Sorry if someone owns one but its no HH, randall, or matrix-these are on another level.
For every 100 tube watts you need 400-500 solid state to begin to match it. Cab to cab.
If the wet cab doesn't sound like the dry then its that particular ss power amp. Get the right one running correctly and the way its supposed to sound and you won't go back to tubes in this application. You won't be able to say its lifeless then cause that would mean the dry head driven sound is lifeless too.
you have to have lots of wattage, mosfet, hi dampening factor so it has push and pull control of the cone, and able to drive at least 100 clean watts at 16 ohms. Very few ss amps fit this profile. They might pump 250 watts at 4 ohms but lose it quick at 16ohms.

[jnew]

Wait, are we talking about speakers in the cab being in or out of phase? Or are we talking about the head and slave amp being in or out of phase?

And for the time being, there are no effects. Only trying to get the "head to cab tone" under volume control.

[TJB]

Not trying to hijack this post but if anyone thinks that tube power amps can't hold up to power amps like H&H I'm sorry to respectfully disagree with you but you may want to reconsider a second look. As I said, it all depends on your particular application and how you set it up.
I'm pretty sure there are well known guys that use or have used the mesa 2:90 like Nuno Bettencourt and John P. from Dream Theatre.
All I can say is mine works great and sounds fantastic! Not blurry or unfocussed at all. The best thing is to find the second amp that you think sounds good to your ears.
As for speaker phasing, I'm talking about the dry side being out of phase with the wet or slave side.
The only reason I mentioned speaker phasing is that it can happen and to be aware of it, that's all. It may not apply in your case but if it does to watch out for it.
I always wondered why Jose' wired the speaker jacks on my 50 watt (1) in phase and (1) out of phase and now I know why!

[dirtycooter]

Not arguing that people use tube power amps. They do. But if you want all cabs "congruent" (key to the whole debate)sounding in full wdw as it can be only ss nails it. Tube power section into another tube power section will always end up different than dry cab everytime. Again as you said preference. Not arguing that. But as you noticed the rocktron ain't got the cajonies. Its already under rated for power requirement you woulda needed and funkily voiced.
Remember marshall is opposite phase of the amp they copied which was the fender bassman. So if you were to use a bassman as a slave then your secondary cab or cabs could be out of phase. And hard tellin what other amps out there may be different than marshall. Its just handy to incorporate it into the line out box on a switch and flip it to where it needs be and its no worries or another thought about it.
It may not even be an issue of phase though but its one thing to look into.

[TJB]

I'm glad that you brought up the fact that Fender is not phased the same as Marshall. Since Mesa is designed after Fender does that mean they too are opposite Marshall? That would explain a lot for my situation.

I'm using W/D set up. First amp with power break straight to dry cab then slave out of first amp to Ebtech hum eliminator then to Intellifex to channel A power amp and on to stereo 4x12 (one side).
Other side of power amp and stereo cab is used for Digitech 2101 pre amp for clean sounds. I should consider downsizing to a more portable set up but cant seem to break away from 4x12 cabs.

[jnew]

OK. I'm back. Busy ass days lately. So, how would I experiment with the phase issue? Do I do it at the line out gizmo? The output jack of one of the amps? Talk to there fruitcake. (stuck on some old jerky boys clips)

[harddriver]

If the filtering is pretty stiff in the head that you are slaving into, it should be a little more transparent. Use faster diodes in the slave amp like Freds. Still, I think a little colorization from the slave head can be nice. I have this set up using a load and line out box that works beautifully. I use an old lexicon reverb unit between the amps that has an output indicator with little lights, so I know the signal from the load box is in the right range going into the slave head, sounds like one big warm hifi system. Still, there is nothing more intoxicating than playing straight into a dialed in amp and cab. No mods, no pedals, nothin'! The Marshall Power Break, with Ralles little tweak, makes the volume a little more tolerable, but there is still no getting around the necessity to actually move some air to get to the promise land.

I have to agree with Phil here. After slaving exclusively for quite a while my tone missed the part of driving the speakers hard. Only after setting up a W/D/W where my dry cab tone is attenuated(no slaving) I do slave to a stereo power amp for my detune effects but the dry cab punches hard and is dominant in volume and feels real good playing with the speaker interaction attenuated that is not quite there when your slave 100%.

Just my experience but give it a try.

[TJB]

OK. I'm back. Busy ass days lately. So, how would I experiment with the phase issue? Do I do it at the line out gizmo? The output jack of one of the amps? Talk to there fruitcake. (stuck on some old jerky boys clips)

The easy way would be to simply make another speaker cable for your second amp and reverse the positive and negative on one end only so your tip would be negative and sleeve would be positive. If your using all Marshalls you probably won't have a phase issue because the phase should be the same direction for each amp.

It would be good to try though so you can hear the difference.

[dirtycooter]

Exactly. One pair of speakers out of phase will be movin in or out while the others are movin exactly opposite direction so reversin the tip of the pos/neg on the speaker cab end will do the same as a phase switch. You'll have to check it out but when its on a toggle switch in your line out box the difference is immediately discernable.
another thing I notice about mesa stuff is that it seems to always be in 8ohm format. Like the cabs are never 16 ohm and mostly 8ohm

[jnew]

Copy that. Well, sure, I guess it's worth trying. Should be interesting.

[chrisom]

by dirtycooter » Wed Apr 03, 2013 12:57 am I am for sure gettin a matrix. I want a gt1000 but since I am w/d only I will go with the gm50. I don't need stereo.

Interesting that alot of people are starting to go w/d instead of w/d/w these days. I noticed that Pete Thorn was using w/d between two Marshall 4x12's on his 2012 touring rig video on YouTube, and when I saw Jeff Beck a couple years ago (it's already been 2 years?), Beck was using w/d between 2 Marshall halfstacks with a Lexicon Alex for the wet side. Also, in The Song Remains the Same, Page has a separate half-stack for his Echoplex, and one for his theremin/echoplex too. They all sound great. Less complicated too. Guess if it 'aint broke don't fix it...

[jnew]

Tried reversing the phase. No significant change. It's not bad but just doesn't seem to feel and behave quite like straight to the cab. If you haven't heard the clip from the other thread, this is the slave set up currently (at bedroom volume):

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