stephen sawall
SEMI ERECT MEMBER
For #1, It's important to understand that this is more than the tone of the cabinet. If you plug an amp into a 4x12 with Greenbacks, it sounds one way. Plug it into a 2x12 with V30's, it will sound another way. This isn't just the tone of the speakers/cabinet. The amp itself actually sounds different depending on the speaker load it's plugged into.
For #2, it's important to understand that this is volume dependent.
So here's what the PS is doing:
The PS cuts the interaction between the speaker load and the amp.
The PS mimics the speaker load. Takes ALL of the power from the amp and soaks it up. It bogs that signal down to line level and sends it to a few places (FX loop, Line out, and its own internal 50W power amp).
The internal 50W power amp in the PS then re-amplifies the sound at the desired volume and that power amp has its own interaction with the speaker load.
Now we get to the settings:
The RL filters (Flat, Fat, Deep and Flat, Brite, Edge) control the reactance of the load the PS is presenting to the amp. I mentioned that every speaker load sounds a bit different. The goal of these controls is to allow the PS to mimic different types of speaker loads. By doing this, it mimics how your amp sounds when connected to those loads.
Though, this is volume dependent. As you turn the PS up, there is more reactance between the cabinet and the Power Station's tube power amp. As such, you may find you need less reactance from the RL filters. At bedroom volume, it may sound best at Deep and Edge. At higher volume, maybe Flat and Brite.
The Presence and Depth controls apply only to the internal 50W power amp in the PS. That is the last part of the signal path. It's for fine tuning after you get the RL filters set. Keep them turned off (full CCW) by default and add presence or depth as needed / desired.
Steve chose to offer a broad range of tuneability knowing that it may be a curse and a blessing as is often the case with such things.
We tell players to concentrate less on trying to match and instead adjust to taste, because what you're really trying to accomplish is a good overall balance for whatever is required at the moment. as that requirement changes, you have the ability to adjust further.
We recommend starting with switches set to flat and knobs to zero. bring up the volume and start with the bottom switch to get the bottom end feel you like. then add the top switch for the sparkle. finally dial in the presence and depth to taste. it may seem backwards, but it's usually faster and easier to tweak the bottom switch before the top and depth before presence.
the frequency response of the ps-2 power amp shouldn’t be equated with how it interacts with a speaker just as the frequency response of a speaker shouldn’t be equated with it’s impedance behavior. how the power amp behaves with a given speaker determines how the 2 sound together and that’s also determined by how hard the power amp is driven. meaning, that though the ps-2 power amp stage is somewhat more linear than a typical guitar power amp, it’s still a tube amp. once you push it into distortion territory, it starts to lose linearity, and damping factor will decrease. this condition varies with not only load impedance, but speaker type as well. even if you keep the power usage relatively low, power amp behavior will still vary with speaker choice more than would happen with a ss amp. depending on your application, those variables will determine what sounds best to you.
a modeler is not a string of real amps and cabs. they are virtual amps and cabs in which electro-mechanical variables don’t occur the way they do in the real world. with modelers, there are no comparable variables like room size and shape, stage construction, speaker cable type and length, line voltage variations and a host of other environmental variables that govern how real amps and cabs sound and feel.
yes, the ps-2 power stage is more neutral than a typical guitar amp, but you have the presence and depth controls to help “de-linearize” it so to speak, if desired. so i think it’s worth pointing out the pitfalls of assuming that a virtual flat load and a virtual power amp at some arbitrary volume setting will produce a correspondingly “modeled” interactive behavior between them as would occur with real components.
For #2, it's important to understand that this is volume dependent.
So here's what the PS is doing:
The PS cuts the interaction between the speaker load and the amp.
The PS mimics the speaker load. Takes ALL of the power from the amp and soaks it up. It bogs that signal down to line level and sends it to a few places (FX loop, Line out, and its own internal 50W power amp).
The internal 50W power amp in the PS then re-amplifies the sound at the desired volume and that power amp has its own interaction with the speaker load.
Now we get to the settings:
The RL filters (Flat, Fat, Deep and Flat, Brite, Edge) control the reactance of the load the PS is presenting to the amp. I mentioned that every speaker load sounds a bit different. The goal of these controls is to allow the PS to mimic different types of speaker loads. By doing this, it mimics how your amp sounds when connected to those loads.
Though, this is volume dependent. As you turn the PS up, there is more reactance between the cabinet and the Power Station's tube power amp. As such, you may find you need less reactance from the RL filters. At bedroom volume, it may sound best at Deep and Edge. At higher volume, maybe Flat and Brite.
The Presence and Depth controls apply only to the internal 50W power amp in the PS. That is the last part of the signal path. It's for fine tuning after you get the RL filters set. Keep them turned off (full CCW) by default and add presence or depth as needed / desired.
Steve chose to offer a broad range of tuneability knowing that it may be a curse and a blessing as is often the case with such things.
We tell players to concentrate less on trying to match and instead adjust to taste, because what you're really trying to accomplish is a good overall balance for whatever is required at the moment. as that requirement changes, you have the ability to adjust further.
We recommend starting with switches set to flat and knobs to zero. bring up the volume and start with the bottom switch to get the bottom end feel you like. then add the top switch for the sparkle. finally dial in the presence and depth to taste. it may seem backwards, but it's usually faster and easier to tweak the bottom switch before the top and depth before presence.
the frequency response of the ps-2 power amp shouldn’t be equated with how it interacts with a speaker just as the frequency response of a speaker shouldn’t be equated with it’s impedance behavior. how the power amp behaves with a given speaker determines how the 2 sound together and that’s also determined by how hard the power amp is driven. meaning, that though the ps-2 power amp stage is somewhat more linear than a typical guitar power amp, it’s still a tube amp. once you push it into distortion territory, it starts to lose linearity, and damping factor will decrease. this condition varies with not only load impedance, but speaker type as well. even if you keep the power usage relatively low, power amp behavior will still vary with speaker choice more than would happen with a ss amp. depending on your application, those variables will determine what sounds best to you.
a modeler is not a string of real amps and cabs. they are virtual amps and cabs in which electro-mechanical variables don’t occur the way they do in the real world. with modelers, there are no comparable variables like room size and shape, stage construction, speaker cable type and length, line voltage variations and a host of other environmental variables that govern how real amps and cabs sound and feel.
yes, the ps-2 power stage is more neutral than a typical guitar amp, but you have the presence and depth controls to help “de-linearize” it so to speak, if desired. so i think it’s worth pointing out the pitfalls of assuming that a virtual flat load and a virtual power amp at some arbitrary volume setting will produce a correspondingly “modeled” interactive behavior between them as would occur with real components.
