The Sunn solid state amps hold their own against tube amps, and they are very loud. I've had several of the Betas and a Concert Lead. Loud as hell. They take pedals well and have a nice distorted tone as well (the Betas). Hilbish Design has been making clones in preamp, amp and pedal form for years. If you've seen the Melvins live, you are hearing the Sunn Beta preamp through a Crown Power amp, with some pedals in front of course. What I like about the Betas is the ability to easily mix the two tones together. They sound good clean.
Thanks for the crib notes!For the tube amps, the design isn't far from any other brand. The biggest thing I can see on the schematics is the output tube screen grids. There are extra wires from the output transformer windings for the tube screens instead of the usual resistor from the plates. This is "Hi-fi" practice for reduced distortion rarely seen in guitar amps. I suppose this means most amp distortion will be in the preamp stages and mostly even harmonics. Those transformers will be expensive!
Statistics: Posted by bitflip — Fri Mar 01, 2024 11:12 am