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Comments
There's a lot of stuff on here which makes comparisons pointless. I think Marshalls generally spund poor with a lot of drive or distortion pedals, yet a cranked HIwatt with an EP Booster or a Cornish CC1 is simply the best tone I've ever heard.
I guess what I'm trying to say is you can't over generalise here.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
For me it's the advertising thing that's the big problem- persuading you that something is higher quality (by that I mean "costs more to make") than it actually is. I use the "all-butter croissants" analogy... it doesn't matter if I can't taste the difference, if I'm paying for butter and being told it's made only with butter (which costs more), then I should get butter.
The other thing I prefer about something being all-valve is that I have options- I can try a pedal with the amp and satisfy myself that it doesn't make it sound any worse. With a hybrid you normally can't do that (in most cases).
I agree with you about the sliding scale thing- the irony is the HT series is arguably the "right" way to do a hybrid, and if they'd been more upfront about it the forums would probably have been saying how awesome they are. )
For me personally I don't really want amps to have diode clipping either if they're supposedly "all-valve" (though if they can be switched off it's not a massive problem, like in the valveking), but I also agree you could sort of argue that one either way.
The Vox advt range is interesting - I think (amateur me) that it's a digital pre, then a valve driven mini power section (increase volume increases 'gain' on the valve power?) followed by a digital power amp model section which makes it loud. So it has a gain for the digital, volume for the valve and a master for the digital power section.
Happy to be corrected - that was the impression I got when I asked Vox. Whatever it is, I like them as modellers - not amazing models, but good sounds in their own right.
I've just gone from using a 3 channel switching valve head with delays on an FX loop to pedals into a single channel amp & I've not noticed much difference.
I'm using a JFET based distortion box at 12v DC & I tried it at 9v DC and it did sound loads better at a higher voltage.
I suppose the question is, can the audience really hear the difference? Or is the tone unsatisfying to me? I sort of feel quite good about my tone using pedals at the moment. My current board is the size of a big laptop, so it's working well.
I know the stuff about Marshalls having non valve circuits in them & tbh I'm not bothered. I think the initial horror at the JCM900 was that it came out just as fashion had changed. So people wanted a different tone to perhaps the one they d designed it for?
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Stuff like that sounds really genuinely interesting - like you said, it could apply to a pedal. I know Kingsley do valve pedals, not sure if they're all valve or hybrid but they apparently sound pretty good.