The peavey transtube thing...

[Steben]

to make things clear: isn't it just a (way off simplicity yet) limiter/compressor circuit?

[DDD]

They say it's not any kind of compressor.
Moreover, the 2005-2006 P@@vey Catalogue says the "Tr@@s Tube (R)" technology produces vacuum tubes' sound.
It will be interesting to look at the schematic.

[black mariah]

Ignore it. I had a Supreme. Garbage.

[zachomega]

Peavey never even came close to emulating tube sounds with transistors...Nor did Marshall with their "Valvestate" amps. 

Peavey's idea of making it sound like tubes was to make it muddy and Marshall's idea was thin and brittle. 

-Zach Omega

[jrc4558]

Why emulate tubes with transistors? Isn't it the tubes that sound like tubes? Always puzzled me...

[The Tone God]

If you do some searching around you can find the patent for the transtube technology. From what I remember it was nothing special. The concept seem to involve clip each side of the waveform individually.

Andrew

[markm]

It seems to me that Engineering departments of some of the big companies  have been trying to make Transistors sound like Tubes since the dawn of the transistor age.
Strange isn't it. 

[PaulC]

     One of the things that make tubes sound like tubes is the fact that their operating points can shift around big time with signals.  This bias shift can be "stored" by parts of the circuit for a short time effecting how the tube stages react to inputs signals, and also how they release the signals.  What the trans tube circuit is about is to be able to get the operating point shifts out of transistors like what you'd have in a tube.  


    They used darlingtons with diodes on the inputs in their dirty dog pedal.  The diodes are not just there to clip the input signal - they are their to act like grid clamps and to produce a DC offset that will shift the bias of the darlingtons when the diode kicks in.  The coupling cap going into the diode along with any series and shunt resistors will set up a time constent holding this DC offset for a bit untill it can drain away once the diodes stop conducting.  They went with darlingtons because they wanted to get plenty of gain out of the stages so they could get enough shift.

I think the clipping stages in their dirty dog pedal are great, but the pedal itself sounded pretty bad.  It wasn't voiced right at all imho.  I've played around with just the clipping stages, and they are pretty cool.

Later, PaulC

[DDD]

The guy from the Russian gtlab.net Forum reports that there's some kind of the BJT cascode stage int he Dirty Dog as well as the 9-to-12 Volts converter to supply the circuitry with the higher voltage.

[PaulC]

The dirty dog uses darlington pairs running at 24vdc from a max1771.   The lower gain side has two stages, and the higher gain side uses 3. 

[boogietube]

...Nor did Marshall with their "Valvestate" amps.

I disagree. The Valvestate 2 series do a good job indeed. I play a VS100 half stack. If you keep the gains down a little and turn it up to the level of jamming with a drummer, it reacts closely to a tube amp. It cleans up when you reduce volume and is very touch reactive. Of course, there is one 12ax7 in the preamp section. It is not exactly like a tube amp, but really close. The guitarist in my girlfriend's girl band       
http://www.revvengine.com/le-garage3/jenn.jpg   An aside: she's pretty hot!
uses a Silver Jubilee 100 watt head and a 412 cab and it is very close to that. I've played both extensively.
Sean

[JonFrum]

...Nor did Marshall with their "Valvestate" amps.

I disagree. The Valvestate 2 series do a good job indeed. I play a VS100 half stack. If you keep the gains down a little and turn it up to the level of jamming with a drummer, it reacts closely to a tube amp. It cleans up when you reduce volume and is very touch reactive. Of course, there is one 12ax7 in the preamp section. It is not exactly like a tube amp, but really close. The guitarist in my girlfriend's girl band       
http://www.revvengine.com/le-garage3/jenn.jpg   An aside: she's pretty hot!
uses a Silver Jubilee 100 watt head and a 412 cab and it is very close to that. I've played both extensively.
Sean

No comment on the amp, but the chick is definitely hot.   More rock chicks please...

[boogietube]

No comment on the amp, but the chick is definitely hot.   More rock chicks please...icon_mrgreen

They're all pretty hot in their own ways: Here's another link:
http://www.revvengine.com/rainbow/revv-engine.jpg
Sorry to derail this thread. My VS100 is in this pic too...

[joegagan]

more derailment:

[puretube]

No comment on the amp, but the chick is definitely hot.   More rock chicks please...

rockchicksgallery
galsnguitars

[rocket]

Paul could you please draw a schaeic of the Darlington/diode gain stage?

Thanks

[rocket]

SCHEMATIC

[mattpocket]

If you could make tranny's sound like tubes then we'd all be getting great amps at great prices! Saying that, it's never going to happen.

I have a Peavey Rage 15w practice amp and its a nice little amp, but only for practicing. It has served it's purpose. I have now inherited a Marshall MG100DFX. The digital effects are terrible and have never ever been turned on. I use this amp at gigs and it does the job. I play in a pop punk band so a bit too much treble isnt a bad thing, and I have seymour duncan invader's so I can get a half decent sound. I like the harshness of solid state amps, if I was playing blues or something I'd hate it.

[mac]

I would pay the extra bucks and buy a valveking.

There are a lot of new low cost tube amps out there, on the 5w to 30w range and many are ok. And with some low cost tweaks they can sound very good. I believe that they are discriminated. When I was robbed all my stuff some years ago I panic. I had to replace a les paul and a j900. As many guitarists I had the wrong concept that if it is not a vintage all-tube marshall or fender THEN it is just crap, if it is not a les paul or strat THEN it sux. Tone icons.
Though I regret the loss, this incident opened my ears to new possibilities. I bought a Laney LC30 & LC15R and I'm very happy with them and I do not miss the j900 at all. My next choice is a small epiphone VJ.

Let me add that I 'interviewed" a lot of SS amps and some sound decent, but the fxs are in general bad. SS valve-emulation tech is so complicated that I think that all the componentes used sux the final tone. Possibly a very simple high voltage 3-fets-stages preamp like those at ROG and a simple power amp will sound better than those transtube or VS. Instead of emulating I would try to get the best of SS guts as they really are, dispite the odd or even harmonics.

BTW,... you are in a pub, your table is full of empty bottles, and a girls band is playing using vs2000 marshals... well, your brain priority would be your eyes not your ears, so that vs2000 or transtube or valvetech or cosm or whatever will sound "brown" 

mac

[Mark Hammer]

Whether you believe in it philosophically or not, whether you appreciate it aesthetically or not, and whether you have experienced it or not, ever since the beginning of the company, Peavey has made reliability and affordability of their gear a priority.  Their "Trans-tube" thing may not package the tube magic cheaply and conveniently (by their own admission, I suppose not, since they themselves produce lots of tube amps), but if it moves the users' tone in a little more tube-ey direction at low cost, in a consistently obtainable manner, in a package you don't mind hoisting into the van or even carrying on the city bus, why not.

Hartley may have truly scary eyebrows, but he has been a consistent innovator, an excellent and thoughtful businessman, and has had an open ear for user feedback for a LONG time.  See his letter to DEVICE magazine back in 1979.  See his marvelous submissions to INC magazine.