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What is a TUBE HEAD? What is an AMP HEAD? What is a CAB?

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gary350

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I did a search on Craigslist of Tube Amplifiers and many of the adds read TUBE HEAD for sale or AMP HEAD for sale.

So I emailed about 30 sellers to ask, What is a TUBE HEAD? What is an AMP HEAD? They all said, It is the Tube Amplifier don't you know anything.

I email them back to ask, Why are you calling it a HEAD???

Answer. It is the HEAD that sends sound to the CAB.

So I email them back, What is a CAB?

Answer. Cab is a speaker.

So I email several people to ask why and where these names HEAD and CAB came from why are you calling by those names.

Answer. The sound systems, connectes to the HEAD and it connects to the CAB that is what it is.

LOL............I never heard this before. When did people start calling amps, heads and speakers, cabs???
 
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When I hear the term "tube head" I take it to mean a tube type preamplifier that drives a solid state final amplifier. That being just what I have taken it to mean. I have no idea if it is correct or not. As to the CAB I take it as short for cabinet so a speaker cab is a cabinet that may contain several speakers. Again, just what I have taken it to mean and I am not an audiophile or guitar type. :)

Ron
 
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When I hear the term "tube head" I take it to mean a tube type preamplifier that drives a solid state final amplifier.
Not really, when there is solid state components in the path they usually differentiate by saying "tube preamp" or Peavy's trademark "trans-tube".


When I hear the words head or cabinet it is assumed that they are separate pieces of gear, where combo amps are one unit. A cabinet can also be called stack or half-stack, indicating a type or how many speakers are in the box. A head can be either solid state or tube (or both), and you plug it into a cabinet or direct into a board (generally with a dummy load).

I miss this amp https://www.fender.com/products/hotrod/models.php?prodNo=2230100 but it was just way too loud for what I needed. Sure did sound great around "8" when it really started to saturate.

What are you looking at getting? A good site for gear review is Harmony Central.
 
I did a search on Craigslist of Tube Amplifiers and many of the adds read TUBE HEAD for sale or AMP HEAD for sale.

So I emailed about 30 sellers to ask, What is a TUBE HEAD? What is an AMP HEAD? They all said, It is the Tube Amplifier don't you know anything.

I email them back to ask, Why are you calling it a HEAD???

Answer. It is the HEAD that sends sound to the CAB.

So I email them back, What is a CAB?

Answer. Cab is a speaker.

So I email several people to ask why and where these names HEAD and CAB came from why are you calling by those names.

Answer. The sound systems, connectes to the HEAD and it connects to the CAB that is what it is.

LOL............I never heard this before. When did people start calling amps, heads and speakers, cabs???


You're talking about guitar amplifiers, they have been called heads, cabs, and combos for decades - I've no when it started, but it's a VERY, VERY long time ago (probably when they first started making seperate heads and cabs).

Presumably you're not a musician, or involved in music in any way?.
 
When I hear the term "tube head" I take it to mean a tube type preamplifier that drives a solid state final amplifier.

No, in guitar terms the 'head' is the entire amplifier, and the 'cab' the speaker cabinet.

Seperate pre-amp and power-amp is extremely rare, and pretty pointless for guitar.

Buying a head and a cab is more versatile, and you can swap cabs for different venues - a 1x12 for a small venue, or a 4x12 for a larger one.
 
Thank you all for the enlightenment. :) Someday I may need to know these terms. Don't know when, but maybe someday.

Ron
 
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