Help Me Explain Power Cables to my Guitar Friends

Piezo, I think you missed my point. Like it or not, many classic guitar amp sounds are the result of imperfection and happy accidents. Consider the classic Marshall, Fender, and Vox amps as examples.

That doesn't mean that you can't build a premium amp that also sounds very good. I didn't mention it above, but I also have a mid 90's Matchless HC-30. It's a cathode biased EL84 amp, based of the Vox AC30 design and tuned for great power amp distortion. It has hand wound transformers and point to point wiring. I love it for rhythm work - it has a greasy, buttery distortion that really augments your playing. However I also like preamp distortion for solo work - there's something magic about having tons of controlled, well articulated sustain at your fingertips.

The Groove Tubes Solo 75 is a compromise - it can do nice preamp distortion and wicked power amp distortion. You can select Class AB, grid biased Class A or Cathode biased Class A for the output stage from rear panel switches.

For awhile I had a rack mount processor from ADA called the Ampulator. The purpose of this thing was to simulate big amp power tube distortion using a 12AX7. It gave the user front panel control over bias, amp class (A, AB), feedback, tube balance, and power supply hum leakage. Playing with these controls was very instructive - for example the sounds of some classic amps depend on some hum leakage for the rough, false note tones they can generate. I came to appreciate how much imperfection, cheap parts, and design limitations influenced the classic amp tones.

Let's not forget speaker distortion. A Celestion 30 sounds very different from an EV-12M at 100 watts.

My Matchless simply doesn't get some of those really raunchy early rock tones, though it's a wonderful amp on its own terms. THere's more than one approach to interesting guitar tone.

Hey Crazy4blues An interesting situation that you have. My suggestion when one of these musicians says that they must see scope measurements, I'd throw them a fast ball smack damb directly back at them. Ask them why the "H" do they use a TUBE based amp when a SOLID STATE amp likely measures better.

Furthermore, most well-built solid state and tube amps will measure quite well in terms of the standard measurements used to rate amplifiers. As that is the case, why would a musician 99 times out of 100 use the tube amp over the solid state amp? Hell, with the solid stater there are no tubes to fail, they cost less, etc.

As an aside, I've nerver heard of a musician with much understanding of an oscilliscope. Given that a musician wants to use a 'scope to verify that one cord cannot be better than another, I'd be very curious what specifically they wish to observe on a 'scope that provides a definitive answer.

Tubes108 - If you ask the question and the guitar guys are on the ball, they will probably note (pun intended) that high magnitude second order harmonics are similar to reverb, and probably similar to room reflections in indoor listening environments.

If the power supply and power cord in your friends guitar amplifier is appropriately designed and sized then I am afraid your friends are most probably right.

Cool thread. It is pretty funny as I would think your friends would be open to to this. I play the guitar (or at least I try to) but I have two friends in a band who are very serious about their "tone" as it makes them unique sounding.

They have actually re-wired a lot of their gear with Audience and Audioquest wire, and done other improvments. They also insist on running choice NOS tubes in their amps.

I recently saw DADA live in Falls Church, VA and I have never heard a Fender Strat sound like Mike Gurley's.It was absolutely amazing! I talked to a friend of mine who has actually played with him and he as gone to great extremes (Nos Tubes, Re-Wiring, Effects) to get that sound. Not to mention, he will not share his setup with anyone.

Even Audience now offers guitar cables which I have yet to try but they are now on their website. I guess it depends on being open minded and willing to experiment..

Chris