Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum

Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Bird on October 21, 2005, 10:51:48 PM

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: Bird on October 21, 2005, 10:51:48 PM

Anyone tried this one out? Supposed to sound quite good for a solidstate amp, and it's affordable, about $1000 Cdn for the head. I would've tried it out but a few too many people in there on weekends.  :oops:

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: WITH FULL DISTORTION on October 22, 2005, 12:54:17 AM

i´m interested in some reviews and possible soundclips of it

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: Matt on October 22, 2005, 09:58:11 AM

Guitarist (UK mag) reviewed it. sorry i cant scan it in. But they liked it enough, 550 watts into 2 ohms could be pretty devastating! looks cool also.

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: willo on October 22, 2005, 10:07:55 AM

i dont understand at a ll why you would need that much power?

using a hammer to crack a nut...

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: Peterku on October 22, 2005, 10:23:49 AM

Quote from: willo

i dont understand at a ll why you would need that much power?

It's about headroom, not really power, I think. A clipping SS power section sounds really ugly...

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: HJM on October 22, 2005, 11:14:45 AM

Useful rule of thumb.....when we were designing the Matamp varipower, one thing that became apparent in real world scenarios is that you need to work in factors of 10.

What I mean is, to be twice as loud as a 1w RMS amp  you need a 10w RMS amp, to get twice as loud as that 10w amp you're going to need 100w. And to get twice the perceived  volume of a 100w amp you need to throw 1000w at it.......works very well for PAs too. We did this completely unscientifically, at gigs and rehearsals, and infront of a room of players in a blind fold test....

So 550 is only twice as loud as 55w!! But as Peterku says, the extra headroom is the most important factor. For powerful grinding metal and clean cleans...you need bags of power - this is the idea behind the 5150, let the preamp create the tone and the poweramp drive the speakers. Lower wattage amps tend to sound softer, and the bass compresses first, so for powerful bass get more watts! :wink:

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: Ratrod on October 22, 2005, 12:21:53 PM

Why doesn't Fender make a tube amps like that?

With all that knowledge and expertise they have they could build an amp that would show all those Mesa's and the likes once and for all.

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: jt on October 22, 2005, 01:58:31 PM

:D +1  on that Ratty

 :D  8)

Title: Fender Metalhead
Post by: Bird on October 22, 2005, 02:51:23 PM

Because it's a solidstate it's only a fraction of the cost of a tube head, and I think they're aiming at a younger age group with this one. And like they said with 550 watts into 2 ohm or 400 into 4 ohms it's more about headroom, it's loud but not as loud as you'd think.