"Quiet valve amps sound crap" - do they though??

Lesgrandepotato

Pabcrane said:

Lewy said:

sjo89 said:

Pabcrane said:

I've found most valve amps have an individual sweet spot but no, I don't think they sound crap at low volume. I don't know anyone who says this either I don't think.

Well why do so many amps have attenuators on now and why are people always talking about "good tone at bedroom volume"? Because people believe (valve) amps only sound good when their volume is cranked up. My argument is that even with volume only on 1 or 2 in some cases, they can still sound good. 

There are plenty of people (on this thread and elsewhere) who don't believe that big valve amps turned down sound bad, but the notion that valve amps need to be turned up to sound their best has most definitely been part of the guitar world narrative for decades. That doesn't mean it's any more true than any of the other cack that's been peddled, but it's definitely been out there. 

I should have said I don't personally know anyone who says this. I don't doubt that other people out there say that amps sound bad at low volume - otherwise the OP wouldn't have started the thread.

Some of it I think is you just miss the whooomph of a big amp. It just doesn’t have the ‘body’ of a loud sound. 

slowpilgrim

<5W + attenuation is what I've found to be best in my flat. Can get full output saturation, and at that wattage you're not knocking off so much volume that it destroys the tone. I think everyone should have an attenuator for home use regardless, simply to save your hearing and stop your ears from getting fatigued.

ToneControl

there is another issue to consider: human hearing
most wil have hear of the Fletcher Munson curve
Fletcher Munson Curve: A Must-Know for Audio Recording (ehomerecordingstudio.com)

There is a newer set of curves:
Equal-loudness contour - Wikipedia




Many will remember the "loudness" button on "hi-fi" amps in the 70s/80s

Basically, quieter settings on amps will sound lacking in bass and treble
This could be a good or a bad thing, but on a classic amp basically means you are getting a different sound to the one the amp became famous for

Some observations I have made:
My DC30 has a point at which a tiny nudge higher on the volume brings the amp alive. with the master volume down, the feel and DC30-ness seems to be lost as it gets to lower volumes, and that's the best master volume control on an amp I've tried
I have a large iso box containing mic'd up speakers, I used to run valve amps into it, you couldn't hear the speakers in the room. Monitoring those signals, I had to use multiband compression and EQ to make the amps sound alive, basically increasing the bass and treble in an adaptive way - see the chart above.

If you never play loud, you'll never miss the apparent EQ of the amp at "normal loud volume"