Edit: I'm not sure if you are talking about hi-fi or musical instrument amplifiers? My experience is soley in guitar amps.
Sorry, yeah. I’ll clarify.
I was the guy that always had the ‘loudness’ button on, and full treble, on my cheapie stereos. With the bass as high as it could stand without distorting too much.
Over the years, I got good at making a great ‘bedroom’ guitar sound, and also learned quick how to adjust for onstage stuff, once I joined a band.
Was a bit of a shock, when I first began doing demos of my own material at home. I didn’t have a clue how to mic a speaker up. Sort of managed ok though.
I eventually moved back to valve amps, and Palmer load-boxes arrived. My live sound became a hot amp, soaked down, effected, then re amplified with a power-amp. I’d been playing 25 years, and had retired from band stuff.
I’d blend load-box filtered signal with the unfiltered capture for live work, and for recording I’d simply use filtered signal only. At least that was the plan. I did some good stuff like this. A good but quite old amp, with very worn Mullards.
15 years later, I bought my Tannoys. This coincided with my trusty amp going dead. Oh great!
Went through lots of stuff, trying to find a workable amp, or any solution. Horrible time. I bought the Sheriff 44, and that was horrible through the load-box.
I was also struggling with a Windows PC and Cubase, and the Tannoys were always going to need more power than 40W.
Bought a used Budda SD45, which blew up and took out my load-box and power-amp. Jesus!
So, to cut the story a bit, I bought the Bryston power-amp for the Tannoys, with some great speaker cables. I also went over to using a MAC for Cubase.
My problem was male vocals from CD’s would sit too loud in the image. Plus, I wasn’t getting the detail I expected from the Tannoys. So I knew I’d be working on that pretty soon.
My house was flooded, and I had to relocate. Gear was thankfully ok, but almost killed me.
Once in the new place, I lessened tweeter energy, and that balanced those vocals. Not perfect, but better.
Well, I went on a huge learning-curve with the hi-fi monitor stuff.
Class A pre-amp, top quality DAC, over £3000 in cables, and the final minute tweaking of the treble energy.
Long process, but I really sussed it. No more fogginess, anywhere. Flat response. The final £600 purchase of better woofer cable, gave me clarity in the lo-mids at the crossover point - and I was done.
The realism and sheer authenticity is really great. Although I’d spent months away from it in the woods, just listening to nature. We are talking 10 years to finalise this system, and I didn’t play very much guitar.
Ok, the point I’m making is that, with my acquired knowledge, and my new ears - I could better pinpoint what was going on with this disappointing Sheriff amp, and my failed efforts to get a usable sound.
I took one look at the PM valves fitted, and discarded them. In went my GT12ax7-M’s. They were better, but the old ears were wiser now, and I could easily hear the hi-mid emphasis, and lack of lo-end cohesion.
Everything I heard on YouTube was the same. Just hi-mids everywhere. What the fuck is wrong with people? Can’t they hear this shit? That’s not how a Marshall should be. Why so much treble? Where’s the lo-mids?
Meanwhile, I was constantly discovering new stuff in all my old CD’s. Thought I knew Zappa inside out, but the crazy detail brought out some incredible minute events. So I knew that side was sorted. The latest M4 Mac Mini arrived, with a $300 USB cable straight to the Bryston DAC - so the digital side was fully sorted.
Which left one very sorry guitar amp in the corner.
That was when I decided to source the best Mullards I could get. I spent weeks learning all I could on constructions and the different models of ECC83. Over some months, the odd one would pop up on eBay, with monster specs, and I’d grab it. Meanwhile, I burnt in some new power tubes. XF2 Mullards first, but settled on cheaper real Svetlana’s.
Finally I was in a position to kit the pre-amp. I chose best current V1, best transconductance V2, decent all round V3, the V4 splitter was an incredibly specced and balanced example.
I can honestly say I had tears in my eyes. Firstly, the deep switch on the load-box was switched out. There was real bass here. I could pick out the lo-mids separately. Hi-mids were controlled and balanced. The treble was sublime and musical. A little tweaking of my channel strip, and I was away.
I even adjusted my pickups, for the first time in 30 years!
I was amazed at zero noise, and incredible response. Now I bought the shielded mains cables, Lava speaker cable. Star quad silver signal cables, all fully balanced - and a dedicated UPS for the analogue setup.
I finally heard my true spirit, coming at me from 300W professional monitors. Can’t describe the feeling after 10 years of doubt.
The upshot is - I don’t think I’d have got there without my fully delving into building that monitoring system. I don’t begrudge the time out, because I have a new set of ears. Without which, I couldn’t have properly evaluated my guitar stuff.
Obviously I really love gear man. But this was such a great journey.
I have to be careful to remind myself that others haven’t been on this journey, and any lecturing from me is meaningless to them. But I’d wish the good stuff on anyone - it’s way out there.
Don’t know if that helps anyone, but thanks for reading. I’m happy to share any knowledge, as are most here.
