Monday, August 18, 2014

Basic Overview Of Jazz Guitar Amplifiers

By Tanisha Berg


The final volume to be achieved with an amplifier is dependent on other factors. A crucial factor is the efficiency of a speaker and the construction of housing. An increase in efficiency by 6 dB is achieved through a higher sound pressure level than the doubling of the power of jazz guitar amplifiers and can also significantly influence the change of frequency response dynamics, and tonal character. A speaker with 10 dB higher efficiency roughly doubles the perceived loudness.

Guitar speakers typically have pronounced resonances; the speakers are hung tough and are less attenuated by the high source resistance of tube amplifiers. In contrast, hi-fi speakers convey music signals but do not have their own sound. The resonance behavior of the often open-back wooden housing is another reason for the lower attenuation and the warm sound with pronounced mid-shift. The output stages of tube guitar amplifiers operate mainly in AB mode, that is, it uses one tube to amplify the positive or negative half-wave (push-pull).

The signal flow and arrangement of components and adjusting elements becomes clear. The individual components of a guitar amp are the input (signal input), mostly realized by a connection with a 6.35-mm mono jack, preamp with volume control, tone control (equalizer) to boost or cut individual frequency ranges (bass, middle, treble and linear distortion), output amplifier, speaker system and power supply (PSU).

This can be achieved for example with an EL84 5W output power, while the two EL84 in push-pull mode is typically capable of 15 W. Often several tubes are connected in parallel to increase the overall performance. Power of 100 W or more can be achieved for example with multiple EL34 parallel push-pull operations.

On the other hand, there are amplifiers that combine the sound characteristics of the A-operation by parallel connection of power tubes with higher performance. A disadvantage of the A operation is the constant, relatively high power consumption. Swapping the power tube changes sound behavior significantly. Often, the power tubes are not re-measured.

Variations in sound may also occur when tubes from different manufacturers are used. They produce different sound, even though their nominal data is identical. This is caused by technical tolerances. Another variation is the hybrid amplifier. Since the eighties, the variant is common in the pre-amp tubes. Hybrid amplifiers can unite transistor preamp and tube power amp.

This construction was popular in the seventies, when transistor output stages with the sturdiness of best tube amps were still difficult to achieve, but enabled greater flexibility in the input and tone control stages. However, tube amps are more expensive than transistor amplifiers with the same output because of required transformers.

In some cases, digital signal processors (DSPs) are used to simulate the behavior of tube amplifiers on mathematical models. They are also known as modeling amps. Nowadays, there are numerous guitar amplifiers that use this method of sound production. Because of greater flexibility and range of sounds, this amp is replacing the classic guitar amps. Since 2006, a new generation of guitar amp simulators provides many musicians with advanced acoustic capabilities. Some equipment employ high quality analog-to-digital converters, and processors of high computing power. The dynamics of classic guitar amp is simulated with the help of fractal algorithms.




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