Why are so many modern guitar amps so middy and muddy?

ICBM

monquixote said:

I think it's driven from two directions.

Firstly much more guitar gets played at home so amps are going to be tuned for that environment primarily.

Secondly reviewers often claim that a pedal or amp has "no bad sounds" as a compliment but this really means that the range of tones has been tightly curated.

I'm sure many of us have had the experience of coming from a Marshall to a Mesa Mk and discovering that the EQ is insanely powerful and will likely sound shit if you don't know what you are doing. A lot of people just don't want that and if you flounder while trying something out in a shop you most likely won't buy it.

I get all that... but the amps I'm talking about sound crap at home too!

The sort of amps that I assume have been primarily designed for home use are things like the Line 6 Spider - and actually those are fine from an EQ point of view.

Octafish

ecc83 said:

Just a thought about "subjective impressions"?  This could well be a factor. I know the MD at Bs has remarkably good HF hearing (well, he did 12yrs ago!) and, fwoabword, great "resolution".  
This was evidenced when we unboxed and tested the very first shipment of the A100 heads. They all worked and made a fantastic row into a 240W 4X12 but Ian said there was something wrong, a "fizz" or "glizz" on certain high notes. IIRC none of the 3 rest of us could hear it, pretty audibly battered anyway but, sho'nuff, there was a cap connected to the wrong tapping on the OPT secondary. The moral is, amps are perhaps better voiced by a committee?

Dave (and YCPAOTPAOTT)

Maybe urban myth, but I did read somewhere that Leo Fender had lost some of the top-end in his hearing. As a consequence he was always pursuing brighter/more trebly sounds from his guitars/amps.