The Kustom K200A (the one with 4 knobs on each side) sounds great on both bass and guitar (through cabinets designed for each). It really wants 4 ohms though.

brownreasontolive wrote: I own a handful of late 70's Yamaha solid state amps which I think are awesome.

eephus wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 7:50 pm I don't prefer it over my main amp or anything (old Super Reverb)...but the clean sound is very credible, and there's a certain kind of nasty top end you can get out of a SS amp with the right pedals that tube amps don't have--the tubes sorta scrub off the spikes or something. I'll use it on a record sometime, no doubt.

My Twentyfive112 seems to love a Harmonic Percolator.

eephus wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 7:50 pm The speakers in the combo versions suck, though--must replace. And the onboard distortion is no good.

I'm surprised to hear your thoughts on the stock speakers! The ones with the freq. response chart on the back of the magnets?
All mine have the stock drivers and I've found them to be exceptional.

The distortion is definitely not useful as a "dirty channel".
However, I like to click the distortion just past the "on/off" detent. The tone doesn't really change but the amp takes boost/low gain OD pedals in a slightly more "amp-like" way. Slams the clipping stage instead of just a simple volume increase like you might normally get with a clean boost into a solid state amp.

Also, pretty rare VT "Vibration Technologies" amps from Scarborough Ontario in the 70s are all sorts of weird and awesome. Often controls geared to lap steel, phasers etc. They're going to get blown up popularity-wise someday because they look great, sound great, the name 'Vibration Technologies', and people definitely got knocked up because of them.

I don't usually go for trebley but I imagine many of these ideas could do mid rich as well.

I could also imagine having an "always on" drive pedal, barely saturated to warm up the clean a little as a first stop on the signal chain.

losthighway wrote: Tue Mar 15, 2022 9:20 pm I could also imagine having an "always on" drive pedal, barely saturated to warm up the clean a little as a first stop on the signal chain.

Yeah. If the amp is extra lifeless, try an always on somewhat saturated fuzz setting and back the volume off the guitar for the normal sound (a treble bleed and taper helps a lot).

I keep the treble on about 3, mids at 7, bass around 5, bright switch on with the Concert Lead. Usually play in middle position with neck volume and tone at about half, bridge full out. Nice and chunky. Hit the bridge position if I wanna go crazy and spwee.

A Rat goes a long way to tame those highs if you desire. I think Buzzo recorded the first Melvins album with a Concert Lead and I assume a Rat for distortion. That guitar sound is so pleasantly gross.

Alright, so it sounds like we need to start working on the PRF solid state design. Probably need a good power amp to base it on. A while ago I messed with trying to make my own TS-15 power amp, because it's super simple, but I never got very far. Should revisit.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Wed Mar 16, 2022 9:33 am Alright, so it sounds like we need to start working on the PRF solid state design. Probably need a good power amp to base it on. A while ago I messed with trying to make my own TS-15 power amp, because it's super simple, but I never got very far. Should revisit.

Make the 90s channel switching amp that should have been: the 3 channels are Traynor, Acoustic and Sunn.

I kid: that sounds overly complex. Plus you really need four so you can have both the Beta Lead and Concert Lead.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Wed Mar 16, 2022 9:33 am Alright, so it sounds like we need to start working on the PRF solid state design. Probably need a good power amp to base it on. A while ago I messed with trying to make my own TS-15 power amp, because it's super simple, but I never got very far. Should revisit.

Guessing you mean more for guitar, as the Rusty Box/power amp scenario for bass is pretty tried and true at this point. That works for guitar too (along with the Boxidizer) but honestly I didn't love the results when I tried it.

Those old Traynor PM power amps are pretty cool. Maybe not quite as stiff sounding as higher powered "bass" power amps but that could also be due to.. not being as high powered.

Would definitely be interesting to go back to some of those older SS power designs like the Sunn stuff and see what makes them sound good (in addition to the preamp). Seems like there would definitely be an opening for "vintage" style SS power designs vs. the lightweight Class D stuff that most folks focus on currently.