VH Fools through a stock Epiphone amp and a Weber attentuator

[Nitro Express]

Watching that little amp crap out it's delightful magic drives it home a lot to do with Eddie's original sound was speaker distortion. That's over looked. In the studio Ed used old 25 watt Celestians. Live he used the higher rated speakers so they wouldn't blow. But a lot of his sound is those low rated Celestians being pushed into distortion. You can hear it on that little Epiphone amp. Same vibe.

[Nitro Express]

A 4x12 cab with greenbacks is rated for 100 watts. Ed dimed his amp full up. Tube amps of the day were rated for the average output of a clean signal and not a clipped one. When pushed full blast a Marshall plexi could put out 50% more peak power making the amp hit peaks of 150 watts or even more.

Those peaks would overload the speakers in the cab and make them distort. Not constantly but at the peak of the power curve. That's the sound we all dig.

[Eddie's Booze]

Originally posted by Nitro Express
A 4x12 cab with greenbacks is rated for 100 watts. Ed dimed his amp full up. Tube amps of the day were rated for the average output of a clean signal and not a clipped one. When pushed full blast a Marshall plexi could put out 50% more peak power making the amp hit peaks of 150 watts or even more.

Those peaks would overload the speakers in the cab and make them distort. Not constantly but at the peak of the power curve. That's the sound we all dig.

We all dig that sound but for me it's annoying having crank the amp all the way up to get that "sound" we all love.

[Nitro Express]

Originally posted by Eddie's Booze
We all dig that sound but for me it's annoying having crank the amp all the way up to get that "sound" we all love.

That's why Mike Soldano while modding people's Marshall came up with the idea of trying to emulate power tube distortion in the preamp. The tubes are cheaper, no expensive transformers to blow. In other words, the sound of an amp comming apart but not doing so in reality. It's a trade off. Obviousely he was onto something because everyone copied his circuit design.

Does it sound like a plexi dimed? No, but you have the balls and warmth without constantly replacing the output transformer and tubes. So that's the trade-off. I can live with it.