Gear4Music's New Solid State Amps

Grumpyrocker

So Gear4Music has been plugging its new SubZero solid state guitar amps this morning on Twitter. I know for the price they are most likely gash, but I must admit to being tempted by the "100 Watt" two-channel head for just £129.

As these are just re-badged Chinese mass produced amps I wonder if they are available under other brands already? As there are no video demos of the G4M music versions on YT as yet. 

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar_Amps/SubZero/2018

Musicman20

Grumpyrocker said:

So Gear4Music has been plugging its new SubZero solid state guitar amps this morning on Twitter. I know for the price they are most likely gash, but I must admit to being tempted by the "100 Watt" two-channel head for just £129.

As these are just re-badged Chinese mass produced amps I wonder if they are available under other brands already? As there are no video demos of the G4M music versions on YT as yet. 

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar_Amps/SubZero/2018

How on earth are they make them so cheap?! 

Grumpyrocker

Probably made of stale biscuits and straw. But I'm definitely interested in hearing the head.

ecc83

The main thing I would be worried about is low load/SC protection. For that money I cannot think it is very sophisticated?

To be fair, for that money if they are any good at all (e.g. do they honestly meet the power claim?) they would be worth a busy band buying one as a backup amp. Love to see a handbook and a proper spec.

Had I still the place to do it I would buy one and check it out including a "destruction" test!

Dave.

Modulus_Amps

Musicman20 said:

Grumpyrocker said:

So Gear4Music has been plugging its new SubZero solid state guitar amps this morning on Twitter. I know for the price they are most likely gash, but I must admit to being tempted by the "100 Watt" two-channel head for just £129.

As these are just re-badged Chinese mass produced amps I wonder if they are available under other brands already? As there are no video demos of the G4M music versions on YT as yet. 

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar_Amps/SubZero/2018

How on earth are they make them so cheap?! 

  Shipping one direct from China would cost more than that, mad to think that has retail mark up and VAT on it too.

Grumpyrocker

G4M just told me on Twitter there would be demos of these on their YT channel soon. 

ICBM

Musicman20 said:

How on earth are they make them so cheap?! 

The same way that Jet City and Harley Benton are so cheap - by making them in China and cutting out several of the stages in the usual distribution/markup chain.

If a Jet City 20W valve amp is just over £200, it doesn't surprise me at all that a 100W solid-state head can be £129.

ecc83 said:

The main thing I would be worried about is low load/SC protection.

Very few others do either! Other than at best, an output fuse or power rail fuses.

ecc83 said:

To be fair, for that money if they are any good at all (e.g. do they honestly meet the power claim?) they would be worth a busy band buying one as a backup amp.

Exactly. Given modern stage volumes they don't even have to be that much of a genuine 100W - although I don't see any reason they can't be, with modern power modules it's pretty easy to get that sort of power.

p90fool

ecc83 said:

The main thing I would be worried about is low load/SC protection. For that money I cannot think it is very sophisticated?

To be fair, for that money if they are any good at all (e.g. do they honestly meet the power claim?) they would be worth a busy band buying one as a backup amp. Love to see a handbook and a proper spec.

Had I still the place to do it I would buy one and check it out including a "destruction" test!

Dave.

The 100w Katana is regarded as a good quality amp, but that only consumes 77w so I can't imagine the power claims are much more unrealistic than that. 

I had a Sub Zero vintage style practice amp for a few years which sounded surprisingly good, especially for the £62 it cost me. It had a fairly rich and warm dirt channel and an almost Princeton like clean channel. 

It died in the end, but had some seriise abuse on the way, including being used as a bass amp. 

Dopesick

It'd be an awesome present for a beginner that's for sure.

Sporky

ICBM said:

Exactly. Given modern stage volumes they don't even have to be that much of a genuine 100W - although I don't see any reason they can't be, with modern power modules it's pretty easy to get that sort of power.

The back panel says 125W max, so with a class D (or similar) topology there's no reason it can't kick out 100W continuous.

ICBM

Sporky said:

The back panel says 125W max, so with a class D (or similar) topology there's no reason it can't kick out 100W continuous.

Good spot. Even if the output is Class AB it's probably not too far off if it has a SMPS. And considerably more believable than some other amps too...

Although I do wonder how accurate these figures are anyway - my Ampeg Micro VR claims to draw 150W and put out 200W (hmmm), but in reality it draws 288W!

Sporky

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

The back panel says 125W max, so with a class D (or similar) topology there's no reason it can't kick out 100W continuous.

Good spot. Even if the output is Class AB it's probably not too far off if it has a SMPS. And considerably more believable than some other amps too...

That's interesting - I'd not thought AB could get that efficient.

I think I started getting confused when I read about classes G and H...

ICBM

Sporky said:

That's interesting - I'd not thought AB could get that efficient.

Class AB should be able to get up to about 75% if it's biased as close as possible to Class B, I think. Still not quite enough to give a true continuous 100W clean output, but you know how guitar amp makers bugger around with the figures .

What really surprised me was my Ampeg drawing far more power than stated - I assumed that would be against regulations.

DJH83004

I used to occasionally buy Gear4Music Sub Zero valve amps that were either damaged in transit or just not working, they never bothered to look at them or return them, just moved them on as damaged stock, but in fairness once sorted (usually the output TX) they were half decent amps with spring reverb and EHX valves. 

earwighoney

The Sub Zero SS amps seem reasonably similar to the Orange Crush amps with a few things added/taken away, the 100w one in particular.  

The 60w combo seems an ok deal for an amp with a FX loop for a pretty good price but it's seems to not a huge amount less than the Boss Katana 50. 

jpfamps

ICBM said:

Sporky said:

That's interesting - I'd not thought AB could get that efficient.

Class AB should be able to get up to about 75% if it's biased as close as possible to Class B, I think. Still not quite enough to give a true continuous 100W clean output, but you know how guitar amp makers bugger around with the figures .

What really surprised me was my Ampeg drawing far more power than stated - I assumed that would be against regulations.

I think the current draw, from memory, is measured a 1/3 power, the assumption being that for music if the peaks are clipping the average power is much less than peak power (10% is the usual rule of thumb).

ICBM

jpfamps said:

I think the current draw, from memory, is measured a 1/3 power, the assumption being that for music if the peaks are clipping the average power is much less than peak power (10% is the usual rule of thumb).

They're obviously going by 'programme' music power and not an overdriven musical instrument amp.

This is one of the reasons many modern solid-state guitar amps fall down so badly on real-world volume compared to valve amps of 'the same' power. A valve amp pushed well into clipping and sustaining a held note or a continuous crunch rhythm part will be putting out near enough double the rated clean power.

Blackstar seem to be one of the few, or possibly the only, companies that actually gets this, and is why the ID series is actually twice as powerful as claimed - and hence really is nearly 'as loud as valve'. It's unfortunate that I just don't like the sound of them...

ecc83

"Blackstar seem to be one of the few, or possibly the only, companies that actually gets this, and is why the ID series is actually twice as powerful as claimed - and hence really is nearly 'as loud as valve'. It's unfortunate that I just don't like the sound of them... "

They also spec at 230V (or V of country of destination) which is conservative since most of us get around 240V.

Yes, class AB transistor is fairly efficient when driven hard and the biggest efficency gain would be a SM power supply. Blackstar did not go that route and I can only assume for reasons of cost..Big ones! Whether designing in house from scratch or buying in from a custom maker the initial investment would be huge and ICBM et al would NOT like fixing them!

BTW. In "another place" a guy was informally comparing a Vox AC30 with a TVP60. He said the TVP was close but no cigar. I asked him if the 60 was comparable at all in final volume delivery (AC 30s being know to be "quite loud") .

His reply was that both amps were SO loud that he could not stand to push them to their limit!

Dave.