Rockman Power Soak with Marshall AVT275

[SwirlJem]

Anyone ever tried one of these with the avt275? I'm assuming I would need 2 as this is a stereo combo. Does it help to "Crank Up" a solid state power amp?

[Polaris20]

Originally Posted by terra9

Anyone ever tried one of these with the avt275? I'm assuming I would need 2 as this is a stereo combo. Does it help to "Crank Up" a solid state power amp?

not really. You're wasting your money.

[bammbamm]

The idea behind the power soak is to get the output tube saturation that is musically more pleasing. SS amps don't need to be cranked to obtain that sound. Thusly, the volume control on your amp will suffice.

Bamm

[SwirlJem]

Thanks for the input

[microdmitry]

Worse yet, you can burn your output transistors by running it wide open into this thing.

[CrossingStar]

I have to disagree on this one. I bought a SS Randall head & Power Soak at the same time back in 1983 and used them in tandem for many years. Just like a tube head, the low end gets beefier when it's cranked, at least on the head I had. At a certain point the distortion and low end got ugly sounding, so I wouldn't crank it all the way to 10. But cranking it through the Soak does have an affect on the sound. Also, on the instructions that are stickered on the back on the Power Soak it has SS amps listed, and switch settings for them as well as tube amps.

[microdmitry]

I can't see why this would happen (I mean high-frequency roll-off), because in tube amps this happens due to transformer core saturation and there's no such thing as output transformer in SS amps. Maybe the device itself affects the frequency response in certain way, but it's not because of the effects usually associated with an amp running wide open (power tube distortion, OT core saturation).

In other words, an increased coupling capacitor somewhere in the guts of the SS amp could have done a better job increasing the bottom end.