High wattage solid state amp with poweramp limiter schematic.

[R3van]

Hello folks.

I'm looking to get a mojotone gibson ga-5 combo cab/chassis and build a special amp into it for my purposes I don't work with electronics other than the odd solder and am posting up just to discuss/troubleshoot and see if anyone would like to have a crack at a draft schematic.

The non academic idea behind it is this, I feel that somewhere after 1/4 of the way up or so, solid state amp signal starts to distort "badly" as we know so I guess if I wanted a 100 watt amp, I would need 400 watts rated transformer/parts use a voltage restrictor of some sort linked with the volume potentiometer to allow the amp to be turned "all the way up" with plenty of headroom remaining to retain a great solid state guitar tone, this in theory would give me 100watts of solid state signal non clipping with plenty of headroom.

Quite frankly I have no problem making this thing loud as all heck for it's small size, 500-1000w would be fine however Jensen does make a 10" 100 watt rated speaker which is a nice usa speaker that would go with the whole aesthetic mojo of the ga-5 style cabinet, so I believe somewhere around 400-500 watts, but we'll see.

I have passive tone controls on my guitar that remove both bass and treble frequencies and I would not like any EQ on this amp, just a single volume knob and an internal trimpot for the gain, which leads me to the preamp circuit, just single channel with a transparent OD like a klon centaur is what I'm thinking, I do not like blackface amps with their flabby bass and scooped mids, I love the tight bass and prominant mids of a marshall tone.

When I write it all out like this it sounds like alot, but it should not be much more complex than a ruby/champ schematic, just with high power components, I guess one could say that in a way this would almost be like a boutique solid state amp for blues/jazz and classic rock players.. most unique thing is the poweramp limiting, can it be done with a mere pot or is there way more to it?

Cheers.

[PRR]

> somewhere after 1/4 of the way up or so, solid state amp signal starts to distort "badly" .. if I wanted a 100 watt amp, I would need 400 watts rated transformer/parts use a voltage restrictor of some sort linked with the volume potentiometer to allow the amp to be turned "all the way up" with plenty of headroom remaining to retain a great solid state guitar tone, this in theory would give me 100watts of solid state signal non clipping with plenty of headroom.

Huh?

If you get an inky dinky and weak guitar, you can turn any amp "all the way up" and not distort.

Gain is NOT power. Power is NOT gain.

If you want endless headroom, learn how loud the amp will play at the edge of "badly", and don't go that far. Conversely, to always overwhelm your band-mates, learn how many kilowatts you need to out-shout them, buy a little more, and don't go all the way.

(Note that distortion IS cheaper than Watts: 50W dirty can out-shout 200W clean.)