I love Carvin guitars......but their wiring leaves a lot to be desired. They do not ground to the back of the pots.......rather to the thin wire bridging the pots. I had one of mine come loose soon after I received it. They also ground the bridge to the thin conductive cavity lining rather than...
Nothin you can do to match the load if you want to keep it 4x12 format. That being said, you can safely run the 8 ohm tap into a 16ohm cab. But you will have slightly less volume and a more compressed/darker tone. This has been my experience at least with Marshall-type circuits.
I tried one for about 2 weeks and tried every configuration possible.....FR with cab sims into monitors, power amp without cab sims into 4x12, etc.....
I got really close, but nothing like my tube heads. YMMV
Dean "Lights Out" Schenker sig pup. Hands down my favorite pup in mahogany...and I've used a bunch of boutiques. Imagine a Duncan Custom with more mids and warmth......no spiky sounding ceramic attack. Much better than the BKP Cold Sweat as well IMO for that style pup.
My other choice would be...
Wow.......one of my favorite bands ever. I'm not much into the later material as it has a much more modern sound. However, I love the old stuff.......simple, catchy riffs played through loud ass Marshalls :rock: Seems like they were the opening band of every show I went to in the early 80's.
I...
I agree.......I found them excessively bright in every amp I've tried them. I really like the Sovtek LPS. Great sounding warm/articulate tube. However, they can't be used properly in cathode following stages.
I honestly hated the Suhr Aldrich. I tried it 3 times (in different guitars) because of all the hype........I thought I was doing something wrong. It was very stiff, cold, and harsh in every situation. I will say that I liked the DSH+ in a super strat.
Other flops for me were the Dimarzio...
I never recorded it. I bought it on impulse after trying it out one day at GC. I sold it because I realized that I didn't really need it. But it sounded so good that day that I had to have it. I also plugged into the combo but it rattled really bad......but maybe they got that sorted out by now...
I know nothing about the SL5, but the Class 5 head is awesome. I had one and could get just about every Marshall tone available at manageable volumes (with a SD-1 and Whiteface RAT). There is also a little trick that involves the headphone jack that can be used with a cab and gives super low...
I personally hate the Ultex picks.......but funny you mention the inconsistency. I have some .90mm and 1.0mm sharps laying around and the 1.0mm is much thinner. It's really not even close. Makes me think they are just pressing these and marking them as their best sellers
For a while there, everyone raved about them, but I rarely hear about them anymore. I'm looking for a couple speakers on the cheap to pair with some new Creambacks in a 4x12.