When does distortion become clipping?

[brandon.]

Stay with me here.

I use a Marshall Lead 100 Mosfet. It's based on a JCM 800 circuit, but it's a little different as it's solid-state. It has some EQ and a "gain" knob, but it all sounds like complete trash. To engage the EQ you have to pull out the gain knob, but I never use it because it's useless. I love this amp, it delivers the goods without any bells and whistles, so I want to figure out what's happening.

The way I use the amp, it has 5 knobs that do things:

1. Master Volume - at around 8'o'clock
2. Volume 1 - loudest at 8'o'clock, after that its shitty volume cut distortion
3. Tone - kept on 0 most of the time
4. Volume 2 - on full 10, all the way up
6. Gain - all the way down, gotta keep the mid SS shit out of the sound.


The Master Volume does most of the work. At around 5 it sounds great clean, but up around 8, it behaves like a tube amp and starts to break up nicely.

My question is: would this amp at full Master Volume be clipping? Is it fine to keep it running at 8'o'clock for my favourite sound? or am I sending the clipping DC current to the speakers and overheating the voice coils?

I just recently re-speakered my 4x12 with new speakers. 2 of the old speakers were definitely fucked up from over-heating. I'm wondering if the Mosfets would act like tubes?

Sidenote: I share the cab with my roommate who uses a Sunn Concert Lead. I'm just trying to figure out where these clipping signals are coming from, and, if there's any way I can hook something up to compress the clipped signal?

[Pens]

Stay with me here.

I use a Marshall Lead 100 Mosfet. It's based on a JCM 800 circuit, but it's a little different as it's solid-state. It has some EQ and a "gain" knob, but it all sounds like complete trash. To engage the EQ you have to pull out the gain knob, but I never use it because it's useless. I love this amp, it delivers the goods without any bells and whistles, so I want to figure out what's happening.

The way I use the amp, it has 5 knobs that do things:

1. Master Volume - at around 8'o'clock
2. Volume 1 - loudest at 8'o'clock, after that its shitty volume cut distortion
3. Tone - kept on 0 most of the time
4. Volume 2 - on full 10, all the way up
6. Gain - all the way down, gotta keep the mid SS shit out of the sound.


The Master Volume does most of the work. At around 5 it sounds great clean, but up around 8, it behaves like a tube amp and starts to break up nicely.

My question is: would this amp at full Master Volume be clipping? Is it fine to keep it running at 8'o'clock for my favourite sound? or am I sending the clipping DC current to the speakers and overheating the voice coils?

I just recently re-speakered my 4x12 with new speakers. 2 of the old speakers were definitely fucked up from over-heating. I'm wondering if the Mosfets would act like tubes?

Sidenote: I share the cab with my roommate who uses a Sunn Concert Lead. I'm just trying to figure out where these clipping signals are coming from, and, if there's any way I can hook something up to compress the clipped signal?

Clipping just means that you've hit the voltage ceiling for reproducing the analog wave being sent in. There isn't enough voltage to go high enough for the swing, so it chops it. That's it. You aren't sending DC to the speakers, ever, because all of these circuits have output capacitors or transformers that block DC.

The only way it can fuck up the speakers is if the speakers aren't rated to handle the wattage coming out of the amp.