Why do tubes last longer in home stereos and radios than guitar amps?
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1tumbleweed
Kozmik Kowboy
Happy trails,
Larry B.
ConradH
Lunatic Member
They often run in clipping and the average level is high because you've got sustain or compression. Thus, current is higher. Some people like to bias them higher. More often than not you've got the vibration of the speaker- I hate combos because sooner or later part leads fatigue and they go intermittent. Most amps are way heavier than they need to be and get handled roughly. Ventilation is often lousy. They get stored in filthy rodent infested places, or at least a lot of the ones I used to work on.
ggizzy
EMI extraordinaire
There are so many response vectors.
-Guitar players are not generally tech people. Matching valves for push pull application or changing out a red plater isn't gonna peg on their do-it list.
-A lot of guitar amps I've seen are run ragged. Not too many clean players around anymore, and most buy a valve amp to overdrive it. This is stressful on the output stages. Couple this with poor maintenance.
-Guitar valve amps are not built to same quality as hifi. The frequency response of the OT and speakers don't need to be as wide for something like a tape/sound reproduction amp. The intentional use of overdrive, breakup, and all those other descriptors used by the guitar-playing, commercialised consumer is engineered into some of these designs. Example- Plug your guitar into a cheap tube amp and it sounds not too shabby. Run your record player through the same amp and it sounds like garbage.
I could go on and on, but the first bullet point is, I think, the greatest culprit. Most people are simply too ignorant and more importantly, too lazy, to take thirty minutes or an hour to actually sitdown and read or research something. Thus they are either stuck with poor equipment, high maintenance bils for their equipment, or if really encumbered with stupidity- both.
Bah humbug and all that.
^ Conrad hits on some other points. Popcorn is right!
-Guitar players are not generally tech people. Matching valves for push pull application or changing out a red plater isn't gonna peg on their do-it list.
-A lot of guitar amps I've seen are run ragged. Not too many clean players around anymore, and most buy a valve amp to overdrive it. This is stressful on the output stages. Couple this with poor maintenance.
-Guitar valve amps are not built to same quality as hifi. The frequency response of the OT and speakers don't need to be as wide for something like a tape/sound reproduction amp. The intentional use of overdrive, breakup, and all those other descriptors used by the guitar-playing, commercialised consumer is engineered into some of these designs. Example- Plug your guitar into a cheap tube amp and it sounds not too shabby. Run your record player through the same amp and it sounds like garbage.
I could go on and on, but the first bullet point is, I think, the greatest culprit. Most people are simply too ignorant and more importantly, too lazy, to take thirty minutes or an hour to actually sitdown and read or research something. Thus they are either stuck with poor equipment, high maintenance bils for their equipment, or if really encumbered with stupidity- both.
Bah humbug and all that.
^ Conrad hits on some other points. Popcorn is right!
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sheltie dave
Addicted Member
How do you get distortion in a guitar tube amp? By over driving the circuit, way over the top.
On the other hand, you try to never over drive a home stereo amp, unless you are drinking.
Voila la difference.
On the other hand, you try to never over drive a home stereo amp, unless you are drinking.
Voila la difference.
Or you have a teenager that loves the volume @ 11 and pushes it everyday.
Ross6860
Super Member
Wow!
Isn't that pushing a 6V6 a little hard? I thought it was nominally a 6-watt tube? Maybe 8-watts running really hard.
FWIW - I have a '74 SF Champ, nice little amp. A circa-1950s 12-watt Valco (2 - 6V6 push-pull), and a 1960s Silvertone (single 6V6) round out my "real" vintage amp collection. Also have a Cox 5E3 clone, and a modded BF Deluxe Reverb to round out the Fender side of the world.
The coolest little amp I have is a Vintage '47 Oahu Suitcase clone. This is the 5-watt Valco circuit (6SL7 pre-amp tube) with switchable OD and tone caps added.
If I ever finish it, I have a little 5F1, too. Too many other projects...
As pointed out above, for pretty much the same reasons that a car driven hard on a race track will wear out the same brand and model of tire a lot faster than a street-driven car. Unless you drive like a maniac on the street, of course. My brother ate up a set of new rear tires in 3000 miles on his 5.0 Mustang in his wild days.
knockbill
Lunatic Member
This is a 5F1 clone... 14W is max dissipation, not signal output, according to RCA manual... Lots of different takes on the original schem, I rewired the driver for 12AT7, too much gain with teh AX7, and tried it from 320Vp up to 385Vp, where it is now... Kinda wants to be here!!!!
Ross6860
Super Member
Thanks, that may help if I ever get around to actually building mine.
So you're running 36 mA at idle?
It is a distortion thing and all the reasons for shorter tube life are on the money. In my year younger days I melted the base on an old 6l6ga in a amp made for a 6l6gc and giving it a couple hundred volts more than it wanted to see. Sounded funny after a while thank goodness and I went to see why.
You can think about it like this, one is for music reproduction and the other is for music creation. One uses tubes and the other uses them up. Remember too that mains voltages have gone up by a dozen volts or so since the classic guitar amp circuits were created. Those designs often already were pushing tubes as hard as they could.
-D
You can think about it like this, one is for music reproduction and the other is for music creation. One uses tubes and the other uses them up. Remember too that mains voltages have gone up by a dozen volts or so since the classic guitar amp circuits were created. Those designs often already were pushing tubes as hard as they could.
-D
KentTeffeteller
Gimpus Stereophilus!
Guitar amplifiers eschew stability and reliability (and conservative circuitry) for ultimate volume and tone and running output tubes hard. Today's elevated line voltages have exacerbated this. Save precious NOS with no industrial substitute for HiFi or critical industrial.
BobbyBluz
Super Member
My main gig amp is a 65 reissue Fender Super Reverb. I rarely turn it up above 3 on the volume pot. I don't use any outboard effects either. The loudest I've ever had it was on 6 at Buddy Guy's "Legends" in Chicago mic'd with plexi shields muting the output off the stage. No need to play loud if you can play well.
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