Atomic Reactor

[silver26]

Anyone here have an Atomic Reactor? I'm pretty close to buying one and wanted to hear your opinions on them.

I currently have a Line6 Spider amp - which I don't like much. But I have the Line6 Floorboard, which I love. So I was thinking of getting a POD and an Atomic Reactor so I can keep using the board.

[Andrew Sa]

I've never played one, but I hear nothing but good things...go into a store, try thats et up out, and let me know what you think.

I know that my pod run through the effects loop and into the tube power amp of my old Laney sounded amazing...I presume the Atomic Reactor sounds as good...give it a go.

[silver26]

Im pretty sure that no one locally has them (Im in Canada).

I was going to go ahead and buy one online, with a return policy. Just wanted to see what other people thought of it.

Apparently they are making a 212 soon as well.

[suicidalmoose]

The 212 sure would be interesting. Those amps look pretty sweet, they supposedly quite uncoloured so as to make your modeller shine but they introduce the whole tube factor to make the models more realistic. Low wattage, high price but they look pretty sweet.

one question though, you wouldn't overdrive those amps right because they're designed to run in clean with your modeller doing all the work. so 15 watts RMS is going to be 15 watts full stop right? Whereas usually a 15 watt tube or even solid state you can crank up to about 25 watts if you really over drive it (or am i totally wrong?)

[aschleman]

The 212 sure would be interesting. Those amps look pretty sweet, they supposedly quite uncoloured so as to make your modeller shine but they introduce the whole tube factor to make the models more realistic. Low wattage, high price but they look pretty sweet.

one question though, you wouldn't overdrive those amps right because they're designed to run in clean with your modeller doing all the work. so 15 watts RMS is going to be 15 watts full stop right? Whereas usually a 15 watt tube or even solid state you can crank up to about 25 watts if you really over drive it (or am i totally wrong?)

15 watts of tube tone is equally as loud as 30 watts of solid state tone... So the amp would be pretty loud... Although... I believe the Atomic amps are primarily engineered for recording. They're useful in gettin a good mic'd amp sound.... rather than plugging your pod or other modeller straight into the multi tracker.... Sometimes you get a better... more realistic tone by pushing it through speakers... Useful little rigs though. Look pretty sweet.

[suicidalmoose]

I heard that watts are watts and throwing 15 tube watts into a 10" driver is going to produce the same ammount of effective volume as 15 solid state watts, however the difference is tube amps often sound fuller and can be driven from the power section so that you end up getting more watts (ie distortion / drive).

[aschleman]

That is why... in the music industry... everyone pretty much knows that 2 solidstate watts equal 1 tube watt... That's why you see all these solid state combos that make 300 watts... or 350 watts... The highest tube amp you're going to find is probably going to be between 150-200... period. 50 tube watts are equally as loud as 100 solid state watts... I've read plenty of books that state the same thing.

[silver26]

I was talking to a retailer through email earlier, and he said Atomic has gone out of business, but they are expecting another distributor to be sending them 212's in a month or so.

... Yeah, dont make much sense to me either.

Maybe Line6 is buying them out, like I said would happen when I first heard of these amps.

[suicidalmoose]

That is why... in the music industry... everyone pretty much knows that 2 solidstate watts equal 1 tube watt... That's why you see all these solid state combos that make 300 watts... or 350 watts... The highest tube amp you're going to find is probably going to be between 150-200... period. 50 tube watts are equally as loud as 100 solid state watts... I've read plenty of books that state the same thing.


i would like to disagree as i have read scientific publications about this, when you have a speaker cabinet full of speakers, it's output volume is solely going to be based on watts. so solid state watts and tube based watts are watts are watts. however tube amps can pass their RMS threshold a lot further then most solid state amps can and with a lot better results. therefor you may see a tube rated at 18 watts rms (that's without distortion) and then once you're driving the pre amp and power amp section that may be come 36 watts (not RMS) - and then you've got 36 watts going in to your speaker cabinet. a solid state amp rated at 30 watts RMS may only be able to drive to about 36 watts RMS or maybe only even to 30 Watts RMS and all the distortion is performed in the preamp stage.

however at the end of the day, watts are watts, and they're going in to the cabinet. My initial question was that because we're using this tube amp purely as a transparent modelling amp then wouldn't this power benefit of tubes be lost?

also tube amplifiers may sound to the human ear louder as they contain harmonic distortions and imperfections that create a rounder more natural sound that may add fullness and thus trick the human mind in to sounding louder however if you measure it scientifically the decibells coming out of the cabinet will be identical to that of the same wattage being pushed through by a transistor amp.

[suicidalmoose]

found a nice simple explanation ... >>here<< (http://www.tabcrawler.com/articles.php?action=readarticle&articleid=66) ... that basically says what i just posted.

[shadz]

I see what your saying. one of the reasons we guitarists like valves (what us aussies call em) is because they react to the power increase as you crank the volume. most solid state amps hit their peak around half way, and then the sound just gets marginally louder, but doesn't break up nicely like a valve/tube does. if this amp is designed just to amplify your digital modeller cleanly, do you still get that benefit of the valves, or is it all just a marketing ploy?

i don't personally like the modelling thing, i'm old-skool and like a real amp and stomp boxes to do my thing, but i can certainly see that they have their uses...

[suicidalmoose]

haha i was gonna say valves too but i thought i might try and stick to the american version (i'm a perthian in london temporarily). I'm going modeller route mainly because i can't afford all that fancy gear and i'm into experimentation , when i'm rich and famous or have saved for like another 2 years then I might get a better amp instead and maybe god forbid a solid state 2x300 watt PA (cause i'm a bit of a vocalist too so it would be versatile).