I know fuckall about point-to-point wiring, but aren’t you also relying on the expertise and creativity and experience of whoever laid out the circuit? You start with a circuit on paper and end up with all the components wired, it seems like there’s multiple ways to get there in the layout.
My understanding is PCB gets a bad rap because companies skimp on the quality of the circuit board, which affects reliability over the long haul, where a solid, well made PCB will have better performance and the same reliability as point-to-point. Again, an argument I’ve read, not an argument I’m making.
So I’m not familiar with the company, but a) I seriously doubt their amps are EU power only, and b) their “Tube 5 Celestion” and “Tube 15 Celestion” (and perhaps others) look very much like rebranded Monoprice amps here and here, which definitely run on your local power. I don’t vouch for either of the Monoprice amps, but I’d bet the 5 watt is a Fender Champ circuit, and the 15 is some variation of a Blues Junior circuit or similar.
Hmm, I didn’t look at all of them, but the ones I did look at had a big warning on them that they were made for 230v and would require a transformer to operate on US current.
I have two basses - a Fender Jazz 4-string and a Rogue* 6-string. The Fender, of course, has the standard 34" scale length, but the Rogue is 35". Definite difference in feel, beyond having the extra strings there. If I’ve been playing the Fender and then switch to the Rogue, it takes a couple songs to adjust, and until I’ve adjusted it’s best to not venture past the 5th fret because if I’m not looking at my fingers I’m probably going to come up just short of where I was aiming. Or overshoot, if I’m switching in the opposite direction.
Rogue is Musician’s Friend’s house brand. This bass is what clued me in that there are some outstanding instruments available for very low prices these days. $250 for a 6-string, active bass is insane, but it’s the most solidly-built, best-playing, best-sounding bass I’ve owned.
Wow 35? Huh. Does it feel deeper or more articulate than the 34" bass? I know little about basses, but 34" scale is the gold standard for tone, I’m wondering what happens with a bit more length. I’d guess the middle register is where you’d notice this most, but what do I know?
It’s mainly for the benefit of the low B string, to tighten it up a bit. At 34", the B string can be kind of floppy and lose definition.
A “best of all worlds” solution would be fanned frets.
Looks like that site is basically just their catalog. HB is Thomann Music’s house brand, and is only sold through the Thomann site and their store in Germany. On that site, with “U.S” selected at the top right, the warning appears. Changing that to a European country (I picked Great Britain) makes the warning go away because it doesn’t apply there.
Relatively low wattage (10W to 20W) combo* amps with vacuum tubes have risen in popularity among gigging guitarists in recent years due to low weight for easy carrying, more reliance on PA systems with mic’d amps sometimes with in ear monitors even at small venues, trends toward lower stage volume and likewise tube-driven distortion at lower volume, and more options for high quality amps in this power range. They do well as practice amps, too.
Speaker sensitivity, speaker direction**, and room dynamics influence overall volume more than tube amp watts. More tube watts = more clean headroom (louder non-distorted or little distorted tone) and more oomph in the tone.
Tube amp power is typically stated in terms of watts RMS (root mean square)
Solid state amp power is typically stated in terms of peak wattage, so that’s why there’s a distinction for ‘tube watts’.
Hand-wired point-to-point turret board circuit amps are easier to service, modify, and repair. If done well, hand-wired is considered more reliable and road worthy for gigs. Some people will argue that tone is better with hand-wired, that discussion is a long rabbit hole of physics and electrical engineering. Printed circuit board (PCB) tubes amps can be great, but the worst of them have power tube sockets soldered directly to the PCB which is just asking for problems with thermal damage.
The $1699 price tag is not outrageous if well built.
NOTES
*‘combo amps’ have both amp and speaker in the same enclosure
**although lower frequencies in bass guitar and sub-woofer range are more omni-directional than mids/highs heard in trebly electric guitar
Sigh. That’s why I started my reply with the qualifier: American-made. Chinese or Korean or Mexican instruments are not being discussed here.
Back in the early 1990’s when I was starting to play bass, I got advice from seasoned pro musicians: buy a used American-made Fender bass, and you can go all the way to Michael Jackson sessions with it, unlike with a crappy 200-dollar bass.
Pretty much all of your post is what I was thinking as I made my way down the thread, but this part is especially true. I’ve got lots of tube/SS amps. One of my 100W PCB tube amps has had the traces in the power section rebuilt several times by a local tech, and it could probably use it again. I’m not going to bother this time, I think. It’s a great amp, but not that great. I can get a 50W silver or blackface Bassman for the money I’ve spent having that thing worked on.
OTOH, my 300W Super Bassman is PCB, and hasn’t cost me anything but a few power tubes in its first 4-5 years. So, a PCB tube amp can be durable.
The only other thing I have to add is: watts are a terrible way to bench race how loud an amp is, even if they’re both tube amps. The watts rating depends on the THD level they measured it at, and everyone seems to do it a different level. Throw in differences in speaker efficiency, and it’s a crapshoot.
you can get a decent guitar for $200 , take a look here . These are not bad guitars . For a kid starting out these will be fine . Notice I said decent.
