Is PS-100 “clean” and linear enough to be useful in creating guitar cab impulse responses?

Stage & Studio Power Station PS-100
1

I have a fryette ps-100 and was just wondering if it is flat and uncolored enough to be useful when creating guitar cabinet impulse responses or would I really need a solid state power amp?

Thanks,

Howie

2

Howie,

While we enthusiastically endorse tube amplifiers for guitar ampliification, that endorsement does not necessarily extend to impulse capture. For that we use and recomend a very linear solid state amplifier.

That’s not to say it can’t be done with a tube amp, and coincidentally, a couple of our gear users do exactly that, and seem very satisfied with the results. I suppose in that scenario, absolute linearity is not the point.

That said, it also depends on the solid state amp. I would not, for example, recommend using a Class D amp for this application either. That type of topology has drawbacks related to the way the output is filtered to remove switching artifacts from the audio signal. We haven’t done scientific tests to support this assertion yet, but the fact that even order upper harmonics can get filtered out along with the undesireable artifacts is a known issue.

Cheers,

Dave

1 Like
3

if you create and use the impulse response as representing the part of the system “after” the power amp (i.e. the speaker/cabinet/microphone response only) then the linearity of the power amp doesn’t really matter. this means capturing both the output of the power amp (e.g. using PL-IR with cab-thru, or something similar which can turn a speaker-level signal to a line-level signal***) as well as the output of the microphone, and then deconvolving one from the other to get the impulse response. I do this with my own PL-IR.

*** I could be wrong but I can’t figure out if the Power Station has the capability, on its own, of outputting a post-Power Amp line output when it’s used as a standalone power amp, which would be crucial if you’re trying to make an impulse response which only captures the sound of the cabinet/speakers/microphone, since the power amp response is not linear and flat enough (i.e. “impulsive” enough) to be negligible.

4

All good points.

The way to get a post amp line out on the PSA is to use the Self Attenuation method:

Connect the Speaker out of the PS to its Amp In jack. That will feed the Speaker Out back into the reactive load, from which the Line Out signal is tapped.

You can do this with the speaker disconnected, or connected to the second speaker out jack and setting the impedance switches accordingly.

File under “More Whack PS-2 Tricks”

Dave