Am I missing something with amps?

[majwild1]

Every amp, ss or tube has a different tone, some try to emulate others it's all in the values of the components used and the way the signal passes through the circuit, say for instance a fender bassman aa864 circuit and a ab165 circuit same wattage, tubes ect. but 2 totally different tones, ab165 sounded like garbage, but if you mod the ab165 half way back to a aa864 circuit yoyou have a sweet machine, if clean is what you want the less you have in the signal path the better, just like pedals some pedals are not true bypass and just by plugging into them you color the tone of you guitar with out them even being turned on ( transparent ). Me personally I'm not into solid state amps, If a repair has to be made some of these amps are pretty much impossible to work on, I like the point to point hard wired amp very easy to work on.

[wingsdad]

A few years ago there was such a thing as a "Rock Man" It simply went on your belt buckle and it had a headphone jack and a guitar input jack. The controls on it could give you super cleans or "wall of marshall" tone. They were not cheap but there were excellent. I am not sure if they still make them. I think it also had an adaptor or batteries. My buddy had one about 15 years ago....

I got mine when it first came out...1981, when I got my STRAT. That's quite a few years...and it was $189 at 30% Off MSRP! Extrapolate to today's dollar... yikes. Scholz Resarch & Development. 'Patent Pending' on the back, folding headphones...I never got the ac adapter, but 8 AA's last a good while:

Belt buckle clip on the back, all right...

Bewtween that little Gain knob in the upper right of the back, and this panel...

...not a clear pic, sorry... a guitar and a stereo input for whatever you wanted to jam or mix with...walkman, keyboard... 2 headphone (or DI) outs, slide switches for 2 types of clean, 2 levels of distortion, preset chorus/echo (slap echo). 2 output 'volume' levels (to attenuate the line out signal to a board) ...and artful use of the vol & tone pots on your guitar...not much you can't do with it...oh, yeah, with an LP or the like, the TS sound....but working it, it does a whole lot more.

I only regret not getting his BassMan when it came out a year later.

Yes, Scholz sold out SRD to Dunlop, not sure how long ago... and they've made Rockmans for quite some time...maybe 15 years or more...not even close to the original, and that's probably why they go for less than 1/2 of what the original did...extrapolate that backwards, and they probably would've cost about $25 in '81.

[tunghaichuan***]

The Rockman X100 was a cool unit, although it was a two or three trick pony. I owned two back in the 80s remember paying about $50 each for them used. Both of the units I had came with AC adapters.

There was also a headphone amp made by Ross called the Rock Box, circa 1987 or so and another similar one called the Sound Studio, made by Latin Percussion of all things. They were identical except the RB was a bit warmer sounding but had less overall gain. The SS was red and the RB was black. They both had an A440 tuning note as the first channel, a clean channel, compressed clean channel, an OD channel and a distortion channel. They also had chorus and delay like the Rockmans and both effects were slightly adjustable.

I still have my Sound Studio somewhere.

[ZMAN]

I am going to ask my buddy if he still has his. You have to admit though they were pretty cool in their time. There was nothing like that out then.
I remember hooking it through my buddies GBX Bass amp with the two GBX cabs. It was amazing. Holy crap when I said 15 years it was probably actually almost 30 years Yikes.

[tunghaichuan***]

I am going to ask my buddy if he still has his. You have to admit though they were pretty cool in their time. There was nothing like that out then.

Yes, they were very cool at the time. I used to plug mine into my Tascam multitrack [cassette!] recorder so I wouldn't have to mic up a cab. For a prefessionally recorded example of the Rockman [other than Tom Sholtz] check out Rod Stewart's "People Get Ready" with Jeff Beck on guitar, awesome playing and tone from the X100.

I remember hooking it through my buddies GBX Bass amp with the two GBX cabs. It was amazing. Holy crap when I said 15 years it was probably actually almost 30 years Yikes.

It was almost 25 years ago that I had mine Sometimes I really miss the '80s, lots of used good, cheap, well-made gear available.

[wingsdad]

... I used to plug mine into my Tascam multitrack [cassette!] recorder so I wouldn't have to mic up a cab. ...

Despite its scuffed-up appearance, my original unit I've shown here still works like new after 29 years of hard labor. I got it to be my warm-up amp for gigs, but from the 1st time I hooked into a mixing board to record...holy crap!

From tape days to today with a DAW, it's still my first choice practice amp and go-to DI. Whenever I go to check out a guitar in a music store, it comes along for the ride, because it's my guitar audio signal reference point.

The critical factor in getting a variety of sounds and tones from it, not just the 'Boston' sound, is how you work its Input Gain setting way down for cleaner, up for grit & sustain) vs. how you set your guitar's Vol pot(s), and then the Tone pots. Pretty much how you work a Fender Champ or similar amp with only a Volume knob and no EQ controls.

[Plank_Spanker]

I got mine when it first came out...1981, when I got my STRAT. That's quite a few years...and it was $189 at 30% Off MSRP! Extrapolate to today's dollar... yikes. Scholz Resarch & Development. 'Patent Pending' on the back, folding headphones...I never got the ac adapter, but 8 AA's last a good while:

Belt buckle clip on the back, all right...

Bewtween that little Gain knob in the upper right of the back, and this panel...

...not a clear pic, sorry... a guitar and a stereo input for whatever you wanted to jam or mix with...walkman, keyboard... 2 headphone (or DI) outs, slide switches for 2 types of clean, 2 levels of distortion, preset chorus/echo (slap echo). 2 output 'volume' levels (to attenuate the line out signal to a board) ...and artful use of the vol & tone pots on your guitar...not much you can't do with it...oh, yeah, with an LP or the like, the TS sound....but working it, it does a whole lot more.

I only regret not getting his BassMan when it came out a year later.

Yes, Scholz sold out SRD to Dunlop, not sure how long ago... and they've made Rockmans for quite some time...maybe 15 years or more...not even close to the original, and that's probably why they go for less than 1/2 of what the original did...extrapolate that backwards, and they probably would've cost about $25 in '81.

I had one of these for a few years, but it was stolen. I paid $225 for it in '83 - yikes is right.

It sounded great!

I would kill to have one now. Great box!

[Eric***]

why not just use one these if all you want is a power amp for headphones no tone no nothing just clean power amp only 30 bucks

http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHHA400

So I got this yesterday, and something is amiss, I think. I only get sound out of the left channel, it's pretty weak, and it distorts if I go much past 12. I am thinking it might be because I am putting a mono signal in. Would that account for the issues I'm having? I tried both

guitar -> HA400 -> headphones

and

guitar -> Sansamp GT2 -> HA400 -> headphones

Any ideas?

[MichaelE]

You only get stereo out if you put stereo in.

[Eric***]

You only get stereo out if you put stereo in.

Yeah, I realize this now. Unfortunately, most guitars that I know of are mono. I was looking around earlier, but couldn't find a 1/4" mono female to 1/4" stereo male adapter. Do they make those?

Also, I think I'm understanding the amp a little better. It seems more like a boost than a standalone headphone amp, though it could be dependant on the headphones I'm using (Behringer HPS3000) -- coming out of something like a Boss ME-50, even the stereo headphone signal is kind of weak, but with the headphone amp, it perks up nicely.

Just figuring out this whole thing...