What's better for live playing: amp head or rack preamp and poweramp?

[spycam]

My bands another guitarrist is having a dilema, he can't decide is it better to buy amp head (engl, mesa, etc) or to go with rack poweramp and preamp (all tube)?
Pricewice it's probably the same price, but soundwice, if not for studio usage only, but mainly for rehearsing and gigging, what are the + and - of both setups?

Thanks

 

[JeffTD]

Racks get reaaaallly heavy and reeeeaallly addicting.

 

[spycam]

well, weight and addiction has nothing to do with my question
I asked what would sound better

 

[Flat Fifth Fury]

Good heads always sound better than preamps and separate poweramps. It has a lot to do with the "pre" and "power" sections of a head sharing of the same power transformer. Heads are also made to be a single unit are as such more sonicaly cohesive than the separate pre/power setup. There are a few preamps that sound great and are very "head like" but for pure tone always go for a head.

 

[AdamWathan]

I think this question is a bit silly... Neither setup sounds "better"... Heads are simpler and more practical in general, but a rack setup gives you a lot more control over your tone since you can piece it together using any rack units you want. A $150 solid state Crate head is going to sound worse than an ENGL E570 preamp with a VHT 2:90:2 poweramp, and a Rocktron Ganiac preamp through a cheap Behringer poweramp is going to sound worse than a Bogner Uberschall.

I would go with a head just because I like my rig to be simple, but I carry around a 4 space rack with a power conditioner and rack tuner anyways.

 

[J.DavisNJ]

Racks get reaaaallly heavy and reeeeaallly addicting.

YUPPP.

My Marshall 9200 + JMP-1 preamp and Alesis 3630 weighed around 80-90 lbs. My skinny ass almost had a herniated disc from that thing. God damn I hate carrying it.

the the original poster. It really comes down to preference. With rack, you do have a ton of options. If you get tired of your preamp, ditch it and buy another. Also, rack stuff generally can be had at decent prices on ebay all day.

But, it is addicting like others said and you constantly want to change your setup!

-Joe

 

[ElektricEyez]

I've tried the whole rack unit sett up and I found that an amp head just has a lot more "UMPH" than a rack. racks can be cleaner, while a amp head you can feel the notes literally cutting through your body. There is a reason that multi-tube amps, like Marshall and Mesa are so popular, they have a tone that just can't be imitated. I personally like pedals for my effects (they have to be good quality) because I think they sound warmer, and don't give you that thin tinnie sound that racks can have. It really does come down to personal choice, where racks can give you more options, so it really comes down to the style of music, but for me, I'll take my triple recto and Boss pedals over any rack unit. As the saying goes, why emulate when you can create.

 

[JeffTD]

well, weight and addiction has nothing to do with my question
I asked what would sound better

I don't care if it sounds like god - I'm not carrying something to/from gigs that weighs like 100 pounds and is only a glorified amp + effects setup.

 

[broken81]

Do you need something that is rackmount like an effects processor?

If you do need something that is rackmount do you want to carry a guitar head and a rackmount box?

These are things you need to figure out and the sound of either rack or a head can be sweet. Your probably gonna spend a bit more money with a rack setup just to let you know. Plus you will probably buy a bunch of shit you really don't need. Anyone that had a rack setup will probably tell you the same.....

Good luck though

 

[-J-]

Heads are better I think, because there's less in the way to screw up the signal. Seems like when people run through 10 racks of crap out comes an overprocessed 80s nightmare. Best to always K.I.S.S.