2015-03-11



Guide to Solid-State Amplifier

Simply put, these amps use transistors (small electronic device) instead of tubes for their preamp and power sections of the amp.

The feedback from most guitarists is that these amplifiers provide a very clean tone. Some of them may even come with “distortion” channels as well.

They are sturdy and seldom need repairs. That explains the popularity of Solid-State Amplifier among guitar players for gigs/touring.

If you are a beginner guitar player, you may consider a solid-state (semiconductor) circuit based amp as they tend be cheaper and cleaner…so it’s suitable for the beginning guitar player.

But if you want warmer overdrive/distortion then you may consider solid-state amps that have tubes in the preamp stage or probably go in for tube amps.

You can also read here for more on solid-state vs tube amps.

Who Uses These?

Professional guitarists, especially the ones playing electric guitars, prefer vacuum tube amplifiers because of the better distortion sounds. That’s the reason probably high-end and more expensive solid-state amplifiers are less common.

But if you play the acoustic guitar or play jazz, you may like solid-state guitar amps more than tube amps because of the cleaner sound and the fact that the sounds do not get colored.

Here’s a video showing the demo of a Solid-State guitar amplifier, and as you can hear the sound quality is very good.

Personal Preferences

At the end of the day, personal preferences do matter, and what you like would also depend on what kind of music you like to play. For instance, some may find tubes to be too loud, and prefer the sparkling clean solid state sound.

Then there are others who think that “tubes are obsolete”, which actually is far from true.

What you need to remember is that just as their guitars, people can develop a relationship with their amplifier as well, and that is why there are many who just prefer to use tube amps.

The good thing about good solid state guitar amps is that the gain can be very linear, which means if the high strings give a good distorted sound, even the low strings would do the same. Tube amps (some of them) respond to how you press the strings, so some of them will sound great at a given setting (or for power chords) but may sound thinner when played differently or if you use some other chord.



There are many who have moved away from the pricey tube amps, and are quite happy about their decisions. But there surely are guitar players out there who want a big tube stack with half a dozen individual pedals on a board.

So, it does come down to the player and what’s being played. Use whatever suits you, over the years your preference of gear will also change as you playing improves.

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