Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:53 pm
Indeed, with the power amp valves providing the signal. Hence the fact I said 'help drive the speakers' not 'drives the speakers'. Know where you're coming from though - I like pedantic people, hell I am one.Mike wrote:Actually the Output Transformer is what drives the speakers.gary wrote:1) For power amp saturation (the big valves for the un-informed, those what help drive the speakers)
I would tend to agree with you. Proper power amp saturation occurs past 2 oclock on most amps master or channel dials, too loud unless you rock up stadiums or similar big venues when you play live.Secondly Power Tube Overdrive is not practically possible without an attenuation between OT and Speaker, and then the tonality of the signal is compromised. A mixture of the two is what you're hearing most of the time on those "classic rock" records.
Talking about compromise, the THD Hot Plate I owned when I was rocking Marshall JMP stacks was a really good option. As long as I never went below -12 ohms attenuation, the compromise was one worth making for more saturation at manageable volumes. The -16 ohm setting should have read 'buy a smaller amp
'.There is a limit to usable power amp valve saturation though. After 3 oclock on the dial, forget about it. Too much compression for my liking, even with single coil guitars. This is on Marshalls though, I never got my friends Laney GH100L above 10 oclock without getting fucking worried I'd never hear again.