New at Tube amps. Got myself a HT-5

[nesveiks]

Hey guys,
I am new at tube amps, so got my self an HT-5. Looked up a lot of reviews and forums about this amp and wanted to test it. Never thought that HT-5 would be so loud.
My friend told me that You can hear valve pure sounds only when the amp is cranked and in high volume (but i cant play very loud in my flat because of neighbors). Can You please explain me do I get everything from the amps when I play it on 15-20% of its sound or I just lose all of it's flavor?

[thephantum]

The HT-5 sounds really good at low to moderate volumes. However, the nature of the way tube amps work is the reason why it will sound best at high volume.

Tube amps create distortion in two ways: via the preamp and via the poweramp. When tubes are saturated (a.k.a. - overloaded with a loud signal), it creates distortion. The louder the loaded signal, the more distortion is created. This is where the term "over-drive" comes from...since you are pushing an amps components over their intended threshold.

In the preamp, this is exactly what is happening with the gain knob. As you turn the knob up, it loads more signal into the preamp tubes (or "tube" in the case of the HT-5) creating distortion.

Powertube saturation is created the same way. but to achieve powertube saturation, it has to get loud. The reason for this is that preamp tubes don't amplify the signal too much. They just take the signal from instrument level up to line level. At lower volumes, the power tube is amplifying that signal and adding a little color. But at high volumes, the power tube begins to saturate and you get a warm, chunky overdrive.

If you get a chance, try playing the amp on the clean channel with the volume maxed out. You will hear the amp overdriving....that's power tube saturation.

[nesveiks]

Thank You for such an informative answer!
That is why i think that his amp is so good.. but I am not using it with all of its possibilities and sound flavor
Maybe You could answer me one more question. What about playing with your headphones on? If i crank the sound to maximum it will sound good? My friend told me that headphones are not made to be used with amps, amp speakers are only made to play with guitar and with headphones you won't get the sound it can give.

[thephantum]

What your friend said is essentially correct...in a very strict sense. Without going into a lot of technical details, your guitar, amp and speaker are a system. All three of those components are feeding back to/responding to each other.

• a) The amp feeds electrical signal to the speaker
  b) The speaker induces electrical signal back to the amp
  c) Your guitar is resonating with the sound waves that the speaker is putting out

So there's a complex mix of both physical and electro-magnetic interactions going on. There is no way to replicate that except to play at gig levels. At least that's the very "purist" point of view.

Having said all that: You can absolutely use headphones with the HT-5. Just plug them into the Emulated Out (EO). There is a button on the back to change the voicing between a 1x12 sound or a 4x12. It actually doesn't sound that bad.

However, the power amp (and thus power tube) is not involved with the EO. Basically, the signal comes from the preamp, goes through some modeling (to emulate the sound of a cab) and then goes to the EO. So you still won't be able to get power tube saturation.

The two options you have are a sound isolation cabinet or an attenuator. I'm not going to go into details on each one, just do some google searches. Personally, I went with sound isolation and built my own, but both solutions have the drawback of losing the interaction with the guitar. In addition, with sound isolation, if you want to hear the tubes saturating you'll need to mic it....so now you need a mic preamp (and possibly a headphone amp) as well. With an attenuator, you reduce the interaction between the speaker and amp.

[nesveiks]

Thank You again.
Wow, You know how to explain it easy
I think one last question if You can answer please: i have a Behringer 802 USB mixer. Is it better to plug my guitar straight to him and make a link between pc and my guitar (to use amps through soft in computer as Guitar Rig) to play with headphones or just use the Amp and plug my headphones to it and as you told before, play as it is?

[thephantum]

It's all about what sounds the best. Only your ears can tell you that.

Another option is to connect the amps EO to the 802. That way you have another way to control the volume of the headphones. It also gives you the options of recording from the EO or simply passing your guitar signal through the amp before passing it through modeling software.