r/amplifiers

I've been a long time bedroom guitarist and have recently joined my first band. We've rehearsed together a few times and are gearing up to play live shows. After lugging my 100W Boss Katana several times to my bandmate's house, I started looking in to floor modeler units to have something more portable. This raised a million questions I had never considered having never done live performance.

After some research I've come to a few conclusions and I want to verify if I'm thinking about this the right way before investing money into a piece of gear

1. There is no setup that will replicate the feeling of sitting in a studio with a high quality tube amp and cab. The "amp in the room" feel will require an amp in the room.

2. When listening through the same cab, speaker, headphones, or PA system, a quality amp modeler will be nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.

3. The final "output device" the listener is hearing from has the largest effect on the quality and nature of the sound. A mic'd up tube amp played through a shitty phone speaker will sound like a shitty phone speaker. An amp modeler through a quality speaker will sound like a quality speaker.

The place where I get confused is this: I see many people talking about using their modelers with FRFR speakers or through a cab. Is there a benefit to this for live performance? Why mic up an FRFR speaker when it's just going to the venue PA anyway? Is there any reason to not just go direct to PA, so long as you or the venue has a way to monitor (e.g. wedge, in-ears, etc)? Even if you had a high quality tube amp, the audience is likely hearing it mic'd up through the PA speakers as well. What kind of setup would provide a substantial enough benefit to your live sound that would justify lugging around such heavy gear?

TL;DR - Is there any scenario where the ideal setup for live performance is not simply an amp modeler direct to FOH?

I live in the UK and recently purchased a Violectric HPA V550 amplifier from Audio Emotion. I have no issues whatsoever with either the retailer or the amplifier itself. It sounds wonderful, and I'm very happy with the purchase.

One of the factors that attracted me to Violectric in the first place was their 5-year manufacturer's warranty on their amplifiers. A warranty of that length is reassuring, especially on such an expensive product and shows they are willing to back up the reliability of the product and give customers peace of mind should a fault develop over time.

However, while reading the printed manual that came with my V550, I noticed that the warranty page (page 33) states that the amplifier is covered by only a 2-year warranty. When viewing an online version of the V550 manual, it shows on page 29 that it has a 5 year warranty:

https://preview.redd.it/oghdcj9u9nbh1.jpg?width=4981&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d843bf3f808ab425f0aec33fbd73f063e95b9912

I contacted my retailer. They initially confirmed that the V550 was covered by a 5-year warranty. However, after I sent them a photo of the warranty page from my printed manual, they contacted Violectric directly.

According to the retailer, Violectric confirmed that the warranty is 2 years, but they did not provide any explanation for the discrepancy between the printed manual, the older PDF manual, and the information that has been widely published online.

I found this quite disappointing, not simply because the warranty has apparently been reduced by three years, but because the V550 is a premium amplifier costing over £2000. A 5-year warranty was one of the things that gave me confidence in making such a significant purchase.

Right now, there are other retailers still advertising Violectric amplifiers as having a 5 year warranty such as this one (see top of page)

https://preview.redd.it/qiyzw0gx9nbh1.png?width=2506&format=png&auto=webp&s=df778baf79e19941b3bd0aadc13486462d2ecbdc

I'm curious whether anyone else who has purchased a recent V550 (or any recent Violectric amplifier) has noticed the same change. Does your printed manual state a 2-year or a 5-year warranty? Has anyone received any official explanation from Violectric as to when or why this change was made?

I have emailed Lake People as I would like a clear explanation to why this has changed. I am very disappointed but the amplifier itself is great.

Just wanted thoughts on this setup.

Using the Johnson, if unfamiliar is an early modeling amp (late 90’s). I’ve tried about 10 amps (Randall, Fender, Peavey, Behringer, Ampeg, Marshall) and this is my favorite.

I run a full stack of V30’s and absolutely love it for more grunge and hardcore tones. I find with the Swamp Thang 412 it feels a little thin.

My thoughts are that at 125W of solid state power simply isn’t enough to really push these speakers (currently wired to 16 ohms). They’re also currently in a slightly oversized early 90’s Ampeg cab (V412BE), I bought the Peavey cab to get an oversized cab without paying the price of a Mesa OS412).

I kind of want something more geared towards doom. I could also used the setup for my 4x15 to run that as well.

Just curious if anyone has done anything similar. Eventually I’ll post pics when it’s all set up.

I want to rewire it

All of a sudden now, my remote can only turn volume up or down in increments.

Before I could be at say, Volume: -10dB ..

Hold the volume up button and raise it smoothly to say, Volume: -5dB ..

Now when I do it. At -10, holding up, it goes to say -8, and then stops. And I have repeatedly tap the up button to get to -5 ... (Like e.g. I have to press it 5 times to raise it 2 steps.)

I have the original remote, google TV remote calibrated for NAD T758, and logitech elite with the companion remote.. So can't be a remote issue, they all produce the same result. Even when I hold the remotes directly infront of the newly cleaned window on the NAD directly infront of where the ir-sensor is..

What can I do to fix this?

I want to buy my first electric guitar(Grg121dx) and I don’t know what amp should i get. I live in Romania and my budget is 100$(500 RON) but if necessary I can go max. 150$(750-800 RON). I will primarily play metal in my bedroom with headphones cause I live in an apartment, so i don’t need a big speaker. Thanks in advance.

Wassup everyone, I recently purchased 2 12in Rockford Fosgate P2D4 & was looking for what amp would be the best to use with the subs. I will be running an Epicenter as well. Thanks in advance!

I’ve been playing acoustic for a while now and want to get into the world of electric.

For guitar, I settled on finding one of the many used Silver Sky’s from Reverb. Love the style and read great things, plus the price is reasonable.

For an amp however I’m able to go a little pricier. I was looking at the Fillmore 25 as something I’ll play at home, in the garage, or with my friend and his bass guitar.

Budget is ~$1500 though i don’t have to spend that much. Used or new. Just want a nice amp that sounds good at low volume practicing at night but also able to crank it up if needed and one that I can keep for some time.

If it matters I’ll be playing artists like Petty, Beatles, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd. The usual suspects.

What would you recommend for something can cover many sounds as I venture out in the coming year(s)?

Love to hear people’s thoughts and open to exploring. Yes, I also plan to go to GC and test amps.

Hi guys, today I was at a thrift store and I decided to get this Yamaha A-700 for $25, since I’ve wanted to upgrade my current record player speaker setup for a while, and this seems like a sign to start. So I hooked up some cheap speakers I had laying around and, for a while, there wasn’t any sound, until I started messing with the volume knob and it sent full volume through the speakers and the only way to stop it was to shut off the power. What’s going on? Is it something with my quick setup or the amp? Where should I start troubleshooting? Sorry if this isn’t the right place to post this.

What can this be? I have 2/0 welding cable all around, it just started out of no where! Setup it 2 skar vxf 15s on a 1500 skar rp! I also have line driver and epicenter installed! Grounded to seatbelt bolt! The door amp stays on but sub amp cuts off