Played a Spider Valve JD100 MKII in pawn shop today

[talltxguy]

I played an ADA MP-1 back in the 90s and loved it. It was my first tube preamp, and none of my digital stuff - to include the GSP 2101 - could touch its tone. I ended up trading that little beauty to a friend of mine who was getting into guitar.

Since my first tube preamp, I've had the opportunity to play lots of tube stuff. I even picked up an MP-1 a couple of years ago - just for old times' sake. It sounded as I remembered it, but it didn't feel as good. I felt the same way about a JMP-1 that I played. It sounded great but didn't feel that great. Seems to me like the ADA MP-1 & the JMP-1 lack a certain organic feel that I must have when playing. It's not a shortcoming of the equipment but rather my shortcoming, I think.

For what it's worth, I'm the same way at the target range. Give me a revolver and I can shoot the lights out, but a pistol in my hands is like a blind man shooting in the dark.

 

[SonicProvocateur]

What are some examples of Analog solid state / tube hybrids!?? JCM900?

Some tube purists argued against our Mesa's for just that reason.

The day I bought my Mark from phyrexia, we plugged it in and were dialing it in and a customer comes in (this really old tubesnob) and declares that he can hear the solid state front end. He swore up and down that he could hear the MOSFET's and the silicon diodes clipping in the gain signal circuitry (which granted, I hadn't dailed in a impressive tone yet, but by no means did it sound plastic and canned), and even when I flipped the chassis over to show him it was just caps and resistors and no IC's, he quickly pointed out the few diodes on the board and balked them for the Boogie tone lol.

That's those hardcore Fender guys for you.

 

[Gtr_Pkr]

I had a late 60's Vox Berkeley III. While it was a solid state amp, you would get a very close "tube" tone out of it. An yes, that amp sounded loads better than a solid state or modeling amp from today.

 

[glassjaw7]

I don't understand why L6 would use the awful sounding Spider modeling technology for these amps... Having Bogner design a tube power section for the worst sounding models doesn't make sense. You can't polish a turd!

FWIW, the Flextone amps are much better sounding even without tubes, due to the better modeling front end. A Pod HD sounds miles better through the fx return of any decent tube amp also.

As far as digital vs solid state goes, digital has come a long way, and is much closer to emulating the "real thing" than solid state transistors, etc alone. Units like the Fractal Axe 1 and 2 destroy any solid state attempt at emulating tube tone. Even the HD pods are getting close. The Spider Valves...not so much