In the context of Amps what is a rectifier?

Question

Such as Mesa/Boogies Tripple rectifier. and ****

Answer 1

A rectifier is a term that relates to power regulation. Any circuit that plugs into an AC outlet has some degree of power regulation into it.

Ideally, power comes in on nice, clean, smooth sine waves. In real life, it has hiccups, jitters, spikes, drops, and all kinds of ripple. When this power supply is used to amplify sound, the sound reflects many of these jitters, spikes, ripples, etc.

This is bad.

So, engineers slap some circuitry in there to smooth out these ripples. The only technology there used to be to do this were rectifier tubes - vacuum tubes that performed this smoothing procedure. Later on, we developed diodes, and all of a sudden our power rectification became much more efficient. Rectifier tubes were replaced with diodes.

Rectifier tubes have some of their own properties, namely power sag, that make them desirable, though, so Mesa started making amps with both diodes and tubes.

From what I've read, Dual Rectifier was named so because it had two rectifier tubes, and the Triple because it has three. Both can be switched over to diode rectification, which is usually preferable for heavy chug chug rock and metal stuff. Rectifier tubes are usually more vintage and bluesy.

Saul