Amp Breakup... Tube vs. Solid State

[Nimitz]

So I have a question for the big brains here...

I recently picked up a Peavey Bandit 112 Combo Old School Teal Stripe 80w with a Sheffield 1230 speaker and it has amazing wonderful sustain on clean or distortion channels. Awesome.

So naturally when I went back and played my Peavey Ultra 120 Tube amp it was amazing how much less sustain it had compared to the Solid State amp with the same exact guitar... break up was about 5 times faster.

...is this normal?

My tubes all seem to be operating properly... went through the usual test... just wondering what could be going on?

[Nightbat]

[DonP]

So I have a question for the big brains here...

I recently picked up a Peavey Bandit 112 Combo Old School Teal Stripe 80w with a Sheffield 1230 speaker and it has amazing wonderful sustain on clean or distortion channels. Awesome.

So naturally when I went back and played my Peavey Ultra 120 Tube amp it was amazing how much less sustain it had compared to the Solid State amp with the same exact guitar... break up was about 5 times faster.

...is this normal?

My tubes all seem to be operating properly... went through the usual test... just wondering what could be going on?

They are two completely different amps, so yes it is normal that they won't sound the same.

[Nimitz]

They are two completely different amps, so yes it is normal that they won't sound the same.

I bought some new preamp tubes and the sustain has increased quite a bit... SOVTEK 12AX7-LPS V1 & V2
JJ ECC803S V3
JJ ECC81/ 12AT7 V4

Putting the 12AT7 in the V4 Phase Inverter slot really smoothed everything out and tamed all the fizz.

[Nimitz]

I ,eamt sustain... breakup is something differeent I guess IDK shit really lol

[Unforeseen88]

Two totally different amps. Funny before I read further the first ss amp I thought of and the only one I'm familiar with is the old peavey backstage. I played one for years throughout high school at a buddy's place. That thing had a ton of gain! Pretty good for what it was.

I imagine a lot of tube amps need to be opened up to sound their best and are designed that way. Good tubes don't hurt lol. Sounds like you figured that out. Enjoy them both.

[Vez]

Many tube amps can be tweeked/modded a lot more that SS amps.

[Nimitz]

So I think I figured out what's going on... my first description of the problem wasn't good.

What it sounds like is going on is that notes and chords are way out of intonation even though the guitars check out. Happens with every guitar.

Cause... through research it sounds like a capacitor is going out which is causing the waving or wavy sound.