Title: Hughes and Kettner half-rack amps Post by: Tone Control on October 16, 2010, 09:25:57 AM In the 80s, H&K sold 4 half-rack real valve amps, with built-in dummy load and speaker sim.
They are guitar amplifiers, built in miniature. They contain 2 valves each, mostly with pre-amp and output-amp valve stages, and output transformers, They have many outputs: Speaker, line-level Clean, line-level "Valved", line-level valved+speaker simulation. If you output them into a 4x12, you get a low-power guitar amp, Crunch Master aka "Blues Master" (EL84, load, spk sim) - Contains an ECC83 and an EL84, run to give crunch, with speaker simulation built-in. 3 eq bands. Bass Master (EL84, load, no spk sim, gain,tone, master and TMB boosts - Contains an ECC83, and an EL84, clean sounds with no speaker simulator. Cream Machine (ECC82 "power" tube + spk sim - The Cream Machine contains an ECC83, and an ECC82 run as a 1W power amp valve. The lowest distortion on this unit is still firmly in Jimi-Hendrix territory. Metal Shredder aka "Metal Master" (no power tube or load; has spk sim) - The Metal Master has no output valve, but it uses two ECC83s to get an 80s rock sound (speaker simulation built-in). 3 eq bands My question is: Can similar units be built economically? e.g. a DZ30 preamp, with a single-ended one-EL84 output valve, run at a much lower level than normal. there would be a massive saving on transformer and power valve costs. I assume a basic sag simulator could be included At present all the low-power amps I own have very basic preamps. They are either 50s retro or 2 tube models. (one ECC83, one el84 usually). I've had 2 upgraded with tube rectifiers, and bias tweaks, new OT, etc. I even had one BH5 set up with a mix between el84 and 6L6, that sounds good! However, these all have quite basic preamps. Could I not have an amp with a DZ30 preamp, or a BM HRM preamp and a basic class A 5w power amp? Can Nik make a modern, better speaker sim |