Matrix GT800 power compared to Ashly Mosfet/Peavey W/D/W

[harddriver]

Gentlemen, I have been running a Peavey 50/50 power for years in my Wet/Dry/Wet setup, it sounds fine and I'm pretty satisfied. I am just wondering if a good Mosfet amp would improve the tone or make any noticeable difference. I know that HHV800 are the cat meow but those are few and far between and any running units tend to need a full cap job and mosfets replaced. I just picked up an Ashly FTX1501 which was identical spec wise to the HH V800. Unfortunately it arrived DOA and wouldn't pass signal so I am in the process of returning it,kind of a bummer.

So I'm down to readily accessible power amps that I'm looking at, Matrix GT800FX, does it punch like a bigger built older amp with huge capacitors and X-formers, I just can't believe they can punch as hard as, but I know Dave Friedman loves them and he knows the HH tone, punch and feel, I see Steve Steven is using the GT1000 live for his wet cabs. In my experience nothing seems to be able to replace bigs caps and big transformers to have the headroom and replicate the input tone faithfully.

I see some big workhorse Peavey CS800X's bigg wattage, big xformers, big caps which would be about 100 to 150 watts in to 16 ohm cabs, they are built like tanks and pretty reliable.

The older Ashlys mosfets get good reviews and seem to be identical specwise to the HHV800. Again bigs caps, big xformers. Unfortunately finding a 30 year old power amp that hasn't been beat to death and on it's last legs seems to be an issue.

Just curious if the Matrix GT800 lives up to its claims, anyone here have experience?

 

[RedB4Black]

Can’t speak to the 800 , but I use a GT1000 to power wet cabs with my Wizards and it works great. I’ve used a Fryette 2/90/2 in w/d/w before and the Matrix does not lack in comparison.

 

[harddriver]

Thanks for the input. I seen the rig rundown for Steve Stevens live in 2014/2015 and he had the GT1000 for the wet cabs so would think there are moving some air DB wise and I would think he could fins techs to keep his old HH's running, so he must like them. I know Matrix has been making mosfet amps for quite some time and their website now says proudly made in the the USA, so that's an additional win for me. I am curious how they get 800 watts out of a single space rack.

I did read that the GT800 was more like the V800. I did see the GT1000 is a two space rack chassis, so bigger everything(xformers, filter caps, compared to the one space GT800.

I was tempted to try the new Chinese HH Scalar S800 for the street price of $248 but I can't convince myself that an amp in that price point is a quality build and deliver 800watts @400 watts @8ohms reliably for any length of time.

I guess I'll keep browsing around and see what's out there.

 

[Stradazone]

I'm using the Matrix single space FX1000 to re-amp into 4 Marshall Cabs on the DLR tour, sounds excellent, transparent and tube-like and it only weighs about 5 pounds! If you don't need that much power the B.K. Butler Mosfet power amps sound great as well and very inexpensive used

 

[glpg80]

Could you share your DLR rig on the tour Al? Thanks for sharing!!

 

[harddriver]

I'm using the Matrix single space FX1000 to re-amp into 4 Marshall Cabs on the DLR tour, sounds excellent, transparent and tube-like and it only weighs about 5 pounds! If you don't need that much power the B.K. Butler Mosfet power amps sound great as well and very inexpensive used

Thanks Al! Are you completely loading down your Suhr SL68 then reamping with the Matrix or are you running a WDW setup? Do you feel the GT1000FX punches on the low end well like the tube amp punches, just curious? Does you GT1000Fx run warm pushing 4 cabinets at stage volumes?

I read some older post that hinted there was some reliability issues with the early Matrix's but Matrix was very good about fixing them, I would imagine they have had time to upgrade the weak links by now.

I had a Mosvalve 962 before and felt it was a little lacking for some reason. I thought maybe the MV500 would be better with more wattage and headroom.

I would have to say Matrix is moving up on my short list.......

 

[Stradazone]

I'm using the Matrix single space FX1000 to re-amp into 4 Marshall Cabs on the DLR tour, sounds excellent, transparent and tube-like and it only weighs about 5 pounds! If you don't need that much power the B.K. Butler Mosfet power amps sound great as well and very inexpensive used

Thanks Al! Are you completely loading down your Suhr SL68 then reamping with the Matrix or are you running a WDW setup? Do you feel the GT1000FX punches on the low end well like the tube amp punches, just curious? Does you GT1000Fx run warm pushing 4 cabinets at stage volumes?

I read some older post that hinted there was some reliability issues with the early Matrix's but Matrix was very good about fixing them, I would imagine they have had time to upgrade the weak links by now.

I had a Mosvalve 962 before and felt it was a little lacking for some reason. I thought maybe the MV500 would be better with more wattage and headroom.

I would have to say Matrix is moving up on my short list.......

Yes Suhr SL68 - Suhr Reactive Load - TC2290 - Matrix Power Amp - 4 4x12 cabs greenbacks/vintage 30

not w/d/w just stereo delay blended in with the dry for solos, has lots of punch, I haven't really checked to see how warm it runs, but I have a backup just in case, so far so good!

 

[TheGreatGreen]

I'm using the Matrix single space FX1000 to re-amp into 4 Marshall Cabs on the DLR tour, sounds excellent, transparent and tube-like and it only weighs about 5 pounds! If you don't need that much power the B.K. Butler Mosfet power amps sound great as well and very inexpensive used

Thanks Al! Are you completely loading down your Suhr SL68 then reamping with the Matrix or are you running a WDW setup? Do you feel the GT1000FX punches on the low end well like the tube amp punches, just curious? Does you GT1000Fx run warm pushing 4 cabinets at stage volumes?

I read some older post that hinted there was some reliability issues with the early Matrix's but Matrix was very good about fixing them, I would imagine they have had time to upgrade the weak links by now.

I had a Mosvalve 962 before and felt it was a little lacking for some reason. I thought maybe the MV500 would be better with more wattage and headroom.

I would have to say Matrix is moving up on my short list.......

Yes Suhr SL68 - Suhr Reactive Load - TC2290 - Matrix Power Amp - 4 4x12 cabs greenbacks/vintage 30

not w/d/w just stereo delay blended in with the dry for solos, has lots of punch, I haven't really checked to see how warm it runs, but I have a backup just in case, so far so good!

Just curious, have you had the chance to A/B just the Suhr (or any tube amp) straight into cabs vs the same amp into a Reactive Load > SS poweramp > cabs?

Are these two setups considerably different or are they really similar in sound and feel?

 

[psychodave]

I'm using the Matrix single space FX1000 to re-amp into 4 Marshall Cabs on the DLR tour, sounds excellent, transparent and tube-like and it only weighs about 5 pounds! If you don't need that much power the B.K. Butler Mosfet power amps sound great as well and very inexpensive used

Thanks Al! Are you completely loading down your Suhr SL68 then reamping with the Matrix or are you running a WDW setup? Do you feel the GT1000FX punches on the low end well like the tube amp punches, just curious? Does you GT1000Fx run warm pushing 4 cabinets at stage volumes?

I read some older post that hinted there was some reliability issues with the early Matrix's but Matrix was very good about fixing them, I would imagine they have had time to upgrade the weak links by now.

I had a Mosvalve 962 before and felt it was a little lacking for some reason. I thought maybe the MV500 would be better with more wattage and headroom.

I would have to say Matrix is moving up on my short list.......

I had a mosvalve power amp and it was cool, but couldn't keep up with the big boys. I have an HH V800 and it sounds great. I've used it as my w/d/w poweramp for more than a decade. These days I mainly a Mesa Boogie Strategy 400 (one of the last ones with volume and presence pots on the front). I modified each side with versatile depth pots and it can be run either flat response, or with the depth pots up to bring a massive sound... nothing like 12 tubes cooking.

All of that said, I've wanted to try a GT800 or 1000, but there is nothing my rig is lacking to make me want to buy one. I do understand they work great with AxeFX products.

 

[harddriver]

I too have a Mosvalve 962 and it was kinda disappointing. I have been running my old Peavey 50/50 classic power amp and have been satisfied, but recently I got the itch to try a real Mosfet amp with my W/D/W. Since most HH V800 are scare and in need of rebuilding, caps and mosfets I started looking at the Matrix GT1000FX 2 unit rack space. I got it a few days ago and have been comparing it to my Peavey and it does reproduce my exact dry tones more accurately than my Peavey, the Peavey sags more and colors the tone more, probably because of the EL84's and the tubes are old.

The Matrix punches nice not tons of low end but it does punch the Peavey had a resonance knob that I added some low end with. I stand in front of the dry cab then with the effects bypassed stand in front of either wet cabs and the tone and details of the my dry amp tone are pretty exact. I have been pretty impressed since the amp does not have either a traditional or toroidal power or output transformers. Either way I was ready to be very critical and not impressed my the Matrix but I have to say I am and I don't feel it lacks anything for my W/D/W application.

I would say if you were driving a single 16 ohm load I would run it bridged to get the Max wattage.

Here's Al, running the Suhr SL68 as a load then reamping with Matrix GT1000FX single rack space driving four Marshall cabs, two wet, two dry.

 

[Stradazone]

Just curious, have you had the chance to A/B just the Suhr (or any tube amp) straight into cabs vs the same amp into a Reactive Load > SS poweramp > cabs?

Are these two setups considerably different or are they really similar in sound and feel?

Very similar, the Matrix is very transparent!

 

[Ian1eh]

TUBES! VHT 2/50/2.....Boogie 2:90.....TUBES!

 

[TheGreatGreen]

Just curious, have you had the chance to A/B just the Suhr (or any tube amp) straight into cabs vs the same amp into a Reactive Load > SS poweramp > cabs?

Are these two setups considerably different or are they really similar in sound and feel?

Very similar, the Matrix is very transparent!

Thanks! That's very cool to hear.

I'd love to run a tube amp > reactive load > ss poweramp rig. It would be pretty much ideal for bringing a non-mv amp to reasonable volumes, and/or to add post-poweramp effects to the chain, even stereo effects if you want.

Fun times we live in to be a guitar player.