Reverb in combo amp.

StanleyAccrington

I gather that the reverb effect in valve amps is achieved with springs somewhere in the circuit to the speaker. Is reverb in non valved combo amp achieved with a chip/circuitboard?

BowynMadley

No. You can get spring reverb in solid state amps too. It depends on the driver for it. As far as I'm aware there is three types of reverb. Valve driven, solid state driven or digital.

robinbowes

StanleyAccrington said:

I gather that the reverb effect in valve amps is achieved with springs somewhere in the circuit to the speaker. Is reverb in non valved combo amp achieved with a chip/circuitboard?

Not quite.

Leaving aside newer amps with digital stuff in the, reverb in both valve and non-valve amps is done with a reverb tank (the thing containing the springs) but it's not in the circuit to the speaker. The amps send the signal through the tank somewhere in the preamp circuit (usually at the end, before the power amp).

R.

ICBM

No, the reverb is completely independent of the speaker - most solid-state amps with reverb also use springs. Quite a few modern amps - both valve and solid-state - now use digital units though, since they're smaller, cheaper (which wasn't true until recently) and more reliable.

The only amp I know of where the reverb is connected to the speaker circuit is the Fender Champ 12, which is a very odd way of doing it and needs fine-tuning with a trimmer to stop it feeding back on itself.

jpfamps

ICBM said:

No, the reverb is completely independent of the speaker - most solid-state amps with reverb also use springs. Quite a few modern amps - both valve and solid-state - now use digital units though, since they're smaller, cheaper (which wasn't true until recently) and more reliable.

The only amp I know of where the reverb is connected to the speaker circuit is the Fender Champ 12, which is a very odd way of doing it and needs fine-tuning with a trimmer to stop it feeding back on itself.

Hammond organs such as the A100 and M100 also drive the reverb tank from the speaker out.

The reverb return goes to a dedicated amp and speaker, which will reduce feedback issues.

There is also a clever light bulb based limiter to attenuate the drive to the reverb tank at higher volumes.