[sdiy] (OT) Differences between SS AB Guitar Amps & SS AB Hi-Fi Amps?

[Tom Wiltshire]

Hi Justin,

I'd say that the biggest difference is approach.

If you're designing a hi-fi amp, the idea is to reproduce the input signal as faithfully as possible, with minimum distortion. It's a purely technical challenge in that sense.

If you're designing a guitar amp, the idea is to make a great guitar tone. That can include as much distortion to the signal and its frequency response as you see fit. In that regard, there's a lot more room for "taste". The Marshall amps that are so famous include a healthy dose of offset in the audio path, which means one polarity of the signal is more clipped than the other at high levels. This encourages second harmonic distortion, rather than the third order and odd products that you'd get if the amp was more technically correct. The Fender power supply sag providing a heavy compression effect is another example. Both of these examples are tube-based, but the principles still apply.

But you're right, many of the differences will be further back in the signal path, in the preamp stages, tone controls, etc.

HTH,
Tom


On 21 Sep 2012, at 14:13, Justin Owen wrote:

> Hope nobody minds me asking this here - I don't frequent any guitar/hi-fi forums and my searches so far have turned up a lot of answers that I know aren't necessarily correct.
> 
> So - apart from the fact that one is stereo - what are some of the main differences between a solid-state (all tranny) guitar amp - let's say 50W and a solid-state 50W hi-fi amp?
> 
> I'm mainly referring to the structure of the AB amp itself - as opposed to pre-amps, tone controls, I/O impedance etc. - although if those *are* the main differences - please say so.
> 
> General question - answers as general as you like.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Justin
> 
> 
> 
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