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I recently acquired a Monoprice (Laney) 15 Watt tube amp that I've enjoyed playing with. I've replaced V1 with a 12AY7 and V2 with a 12AT7 and am enjoying the results. I also have a Polytone Baby Brute Open Back and a DVMark Little Jazz, so since I love all three of these amps I thought I'd try a quick side-by-side. I am using a section of Jimmy Raney's solo based on "Just Friends" from Aebersold Vol. 20 because it has a good range of pitch. I scrambled the order of the 3 clips and will wait a bit before revealing which is which.
The recording setup is: SHure SM57 mic close on the cab, running to a PreSonus AudioBox iTwo, which then runs from the USB straight to my iPhone. I edited in Screenflow and adjusted the volumes so that they are comparable, but did no other audio editing.
I would like to ask that while naturally everyone will like some and not others, it would be interesting to keep the focus on description. How are the three amps similar, different, etc. Of course we all will like some things more than others, but I'm not here to try to show that one cheap amp is as good as another not-as-cheap amp, or to fool anyone into approving of an amp they might not otherwise endorse.
It's for fun!
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01-29-2019 10:28 AM
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I like the sound of the 59 the personality shows through on all amps. I would choose number 2 for my favorite but honestly it's splitting hairs. I've been very aware lately that the guitar or amp you choose matters little to the listener when recorded. In the end the playing is what is important. Choose the one that inspires you the most to play, and know that will change with time. Nice to have choices. Thanks for sharing....
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1st one darker sound my least favorite. The 2nd and 3rd were close have to hear more to decide which but all work fine.
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Fun idea! Thanks for putting this together.
The voicing of #2 stands out from the other two IMHO with more clarity but it's just an EQ thing, not better or worse. If I had to pick I would likely go with 3. But I would be happy with any
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Imho #1 sounds warmest and least like the guitar. A good sound when that's what you want.
# 2 sounds the clearest, thinnest and most like the guitar unamplified. Nice when that is what you want, however there is some very noticeable artifact to the sound. Like a fuzz mixed in with the tone.
#3 Splits the difference of the first two. Somewhat warm and still somewhat clear. My favorite by far.
I'm listening with Beyer Dt 990 pro open back cans.
Very interesting - thanks for the post Lawson.
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I would be interested to know if you used the neck pup or both?
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The first has no definition, there is so much compression the notes sort of flow into each other, and you can't hear the attack at all. Not a good sound to my ears, but some people like it. The second sounded crisp, good definition, the best sound of the three. The third was slightly muddy, less definition than two, but better than one.
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Thanks for doing this Lawson, enjoyed it. Good jazz tone from all 3, don't know that I have an obvious favorite. Looking forward to the unveiling.
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Neck pickup only, volume and tone both on 8
Originally Posted by wengr
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Good to know. I have a 165, (iirc you do as well) so I wonder how similar the guitar tone is? Pretty similar I would think. I'll be very interested to find what #3 is as I like that tone. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Actually my ES165 sounds very different from my other 16" archtops: 2 Gibson ES175 "Figured" models, this VOS1959, an Epiphone ES175 Premium, and an Epiphone Zephyr Regent Reissue. The VOS I used in the clip has a wooden bridge, which gives it a notably different sound from the others in this list. The ES165 has the 490R pickup, and even though everyone says its very much like the Classic 57, it really isn't. It's got a more focused tone with a bit more bite than the others. I like it a lot, and I also find that the Epiphone Zephyr Regent Reissue, along with the ES165, has better acoustic sound mainly because there isn't a hole and pickup routed right above the bridge. Originally Posted by wengr
I find that VOS1959 is a honey of a guitar. It's the easiest one to just pick up and play, though I passionately love all the others. Probably could sell one of the "Figured" 175s though, they are literally identical.
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Between 2&3 for me, although I'm leaning a bit more towards 2.
Nice playin!
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I think I liked 3 best.
I liked the bright sound of 2 but it also sounded like something was rattling or hissing on the sustained notes and I didn't like that.
Great playing.
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I liked #2 the best, I'd love a bit more 'hair' to that tone ( +Barnyard Jr pedal kind of break up), but the liveliness is there. #3 is ok. But not #1.
Will be waiting for the results!
My guess: #1- DV Mark, #2- Monoprice, #3- Polytone
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My experience is that online demos do not give you the full picture. By the time the signal is processed through the players hardware and then through my hardware and speakers, what I hear may not be what I would hear in person. If one is interested in chasing tone, the only real way to demo stuff is to buy it and use it in YOUR real world.
That said, I like all three sounds. Number one sounds the fattest, so I am guessing that one had the biggest speaker ( is that the DV?) Number 3 had the most "shimmer" so I am guessing that was the tube amp. Number 2 was my favorite and I am guessing it was the Polytone.
I have three amp heads, a Polytone Mini-brain, an Acoustic Image Clarus and a Henriksen Jazzamp. When I run them through one of my Raezer's Edge cabs with the same guitar, my favorite is always whichever one I am plugged into. They all sound great, with some small differences.
Life was simpler for a jazz guitarist back in the 1970's. We pretty much had two viable choices, a Fender tube amp or a Polytone. Today, great choices abound.
Lawson, if you think you are cash poor and instrument rich now, wait till you discover Henriksen amps.
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Lawson i want you to now do this with your L5. I don’t how bad it is a bit south of here but right now we are working on getting to -25 degrees tonight so not much else to do other than play or repair guitars here. Play a little solo chord melody on that L5.
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I realize the problems of posting like this for making big contrasts among amps; I mainly am doing it because it's what I'm doing for fun right now, and though my forum friends might enjoy some rough-cut side-by-side of the three amps. I do NOT think many would listen just to hear me play a memorized Jimmy Raney solo at 66% tempo, so it's an excuse for me to post a little of my playing which is good for me. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
My experience is that online demos do not give you the full picture. By the time the signal is processed through the players hardware and then through my hardware and speakers, what I hear may not be what I would hear in person. If one is interested in chasing tone, the only real way to demo stuff is to buy it and use it in YOUR real world.
That said, I like all three sounds. Number one sounds the fattest, so I am guessing that one had the biggest speaker ( is that the DV?) Number 3 had the most "shimmer" so I am guessing that was the tube amp. Number 2 was my favorite and I am guessing it was the Polytone.
I have three amp heads, a Polytone Mini-brain, an Acoustic Image Clarus and a Henriksen Jazzamp. When I run them through one of my Raezer's Edge cabs with the same guitar, my favorite is always whichever one I am plugged into. They all sound great, with some small differences.
Life was simpler for a jazz guitarist back in the 1970's. We pretty much had two viable choices, a Fender tube amp or a Polytone. Today, great choices abound.
Lawson, if you think you are cash poor and instrument rich now, wait till you discover Henriksen amps.
I love all three of the amps in this clip, and honestly I don't know that I like one more than the others. As always, I hear differences playing that I can't hear well in the clip, but that's pretty normal.
I"m not actually "cash poor" I've just busted my budget for gear. I bought the cheap tube amp to have something to play with and learn with, and if it didn't work out, I didn't have a lot in it. As it turns out, the Monoprice/Laney is a heck of an amp given its total lack of pretensions.
If I can sell off a couple of guitars I might be in the market for a "good" tube amp, but for now I'm enjoying learning the way these amps work, which is very different from just plugging in and turning on.
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You all try to stay warm up there! It's going to be single-digits here, but not MINUS. Originally Posted by deacon Mark
My next move was going to be trying some chord melody on each amp, and maybe I'll break out the L5 for that.
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Listening to only the guitar channel there’s a “fizz” on the loudest notes on both amps 1 & 2. It sounds like a digital artifact from saturating the signal in the digital signal chain. You might want to roll back a few dB if you do this again.
I mostly listened to the isolated guitar. Amp 3 seemed the most full bodied but maybe not as bright. I like it. It seems great for solo or duo work. The fizz makes it difficult to evaluate the other two. I was wearing Sony MDR-7506 headphones that tend to be bright, so that might have affected my preference.
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I think I have isolated the cause of the "fizz" and that's namely that I had all the amps stacked pretty close to each other, and all turned on. I noticed when I turned one of them off, the faint fizzy sound stopped. Listening "live" I don't think it would be noticed, I sure didn't as i played and even as I edited the clips. I tried to set the digital gain well into the green with no clipping, but once I started playing obviously I couldn't watch the meter so I might have gotten some digital clipping. Originally Posted by KirkP
thanks for the feedback and if I replicate the comparison I'll try to isolate the amps better and also watch the input gain on the A/D converter box.
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I preferred #2. It seemed to have the most clarity along with a more acoustic quality.
The other two sounded more electronic, meaning a little more distorted or harsh.
I have no idea which was which.
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What the heck, I'll guess 1 is the tube amp, 2 is the DV, and 3 is the Polytone. 1 is the most mid-rangey/dark and compressed. 2 is the most scooped sounding. 3 kind of splits the difference. To me, the important question is not "do these sound different?" It's "can I get the sound I want out of all of them ? (IOW, how similar can I make them?)"
John
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Exactly. Remember I'm not asking for any judgment about best, I'm just having fun putting the 3 up there and hearing what everyone has to say about it. I can get the sound I like from any of them, and each of them has something special the others lack. I wish I could get the differences I hear while playing to show up better in the recordings. Likely I need to work on the mic placement more. Originally Posted by John A.
And I didn't even try the thing with the DVMark Head + different cabs... hmmm...
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I was recently dealing with a HiFi vendor. He said people are making $ X000 investments based on what they hear from their computer speakers or, worse still, cellphones. Frankly, listening through my Mac's built-in speakers, I couldn't decide between the three. They all sounded like jazz guitar... The real differences, when playing live with a band, come from stage dynamics, i.e. how the amp behaves and how you hear and interact with it.
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A T7 is a phase inverter tube and has the wrong plate voltage for V2. For a little 15w amp try a 5751 or 7025 in V1 and or V2. Way more musical. A Y7 in V1 in a small amp doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You are basically making it a 8w amp. A T7 is used for V3 or for reverb. Yes I know Fender uses a T7 in V1 of a GB HRD but it isn't right. Y7's sound one dimensional to me. Lawson buy a NOS Jan 5751 and put it in V1. You will be amazed and very sonically pleased. A TAD 7025 would be my 2nd recommendation followed by a TAD 5751.
BTW.....GREAT guitar playing Sir.
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