cosmicrepairdude wrote:A few issues:
1. I'm surprised you bought it, given how much you dislike its sound and the fact that you likened it to an AD30VT that you disliked the first time you heard it.
I think that I had only tried the AD30VT previously, not the AD50VT, and even that was in a typical music shop, full of other people playing and lots of noise. I ordered the AD50VT online, going on my previous impressions of the Valvetronix series, hence my reminder to everyone else, and myself, to always try before you buy.
cosmicrepairdude wrote:2. The cabinet doesn't seem small to me for a 12" speaker, I've seen smaller ones that were sealed.
The good sounding amps that I've played of around the same size were either open back or ported. As I said before, though, I don't think that the cabinet is the main issue with this amp. With the back removed, it doesn't sound that much different at low to moderately loud volumes.
cosmicrepairdude wrote:3. You haven't mentioned what speaker is in it. The tube was obviously changed by a previous owner, maybe the speaker was, too? Is it the original, a Celestion 70/80?
It's the Celestion made for Vox speaker. I assume that it's a 70/80.
cosmicrepairdude wrote:4. Some people, as you say, don't like that speaker, but the majority of reviews I've seen of this amp, both expert and consumer, liked its sound. A friend of mine has one and it sounds fine to me.
If it works for someone else and sounds good to someone else, that's great. It doesn't work for me. My intentions for the amp were recording at home, and a jam session here and there. I suspect that the majority of online review of this amp come from the younger crowd, who don't have a lot of experience with various amps and speakers. I remember being younger and thinking that a Crate solid state amp sounded pretty good. I hadn't heard and played enough amps at the point to know any better.
cosmicrepairdude wrote:5. The settings of both the Master Volume and Power Level affect the tone. MV is best left at 1:30 to 3:00 for tube saturation and PL as high as possible without the hiss intruding. Then use the Volume to adjust the loudness. You didn't mention your eq settings but a very good case has been made that none of them should be turned past around 12:00.
I read the manual and reset the amp to factory settings. I then played with the various volume knobs in numerous configurations, none of which had any major effect on the tonal quality.
cosmicrepairdude wrote:6. Given that so many people like this amp and that speaker choice has a huge influence on the kind of tone issue you're talking about, I can't see why you'd suggest that changing the speaker is a waste of time. There are certainly enough posts from people who have done exactly that. Other than the Peavey ValveKing 112, which I own, I'm not aware of any all-tube amps of that power in that price range and certainly none with modeling and effects options. The brands you're talking about are all way more expensive for that size and power.
The reason why I say that changing the speaker would be a waste of time is because the flaws in this amp's sound are originating at the amp, not the speaker. The speaker is doing a pretty good job at reproducing what the amp is putting out, without a lot of coloration. I don't doubt that the AD30VT's speaker is a better compliment to this amp than is the Celestion made speaker in the AD50VT, but overall, I'm willing to bet that the same tonal qualities are there in the AD30VT.
At the new price of this amp, there are all tube options, but none of which I think are really good sounding amps. There is always the used market, if you know what you're looking for. Modeling is a novel idea, but in practice, I think that it doesn't work well. I've heard a couple of modelers that do one or two sounds pretty well, but so do many other amps, tube or not, and non-modeling amps tend to have higher tonal qualities, imo. The way I see it is that the point of modeling is to produce a variety of sounds, in the spirit of the original amps. If modeling doesn't do that in a tonally attractive way, then there is no valid reason to use modeling. Built in digital effects are almost always cheap sounding, and I tend to avoid them. An amp should sound good without any effects. High quality stomp boxes or post effects can always be added.
cosmicrepairdude wrote:7. And as you may have noticed on the stuffing thread, some people have used a beam blocker or a layer or 2 of black t-shirt material to tame piercing highs, although turning down the treble could have the same effect.
Beam blockers are fine for speakers that put out ice picky frequencies. I'm not hearing that with this amp. It's overly bright, but not ice picky. Also, a beam blocker is nothing more than a speaker dust cap on a mount. A patch of duct tape will have the same effect. You probably already know that higher frequencies are strongest at the center of a speaker, and that's what a beam blocker, or tape, is blocking. I did put a mic on the amp, settling at the outer edge of the speaker, and I gave a go at recording it. Where other amps will tend to sound much darker with a mic at the outer edge of the speaker, this amp is still too bright. It isn't going to work for any recording duties, here.
When eq'ing the amp, again, the overall tonal quality isn't changed so drastically that the negative aspects of it's sound are cured. The amp is lacking in the thickness of the mid-range frequencies. Turning down the treble doesn't change this. It only removes some treble from an already not so good sound. It's the same principle as eq'ing a bad sounding stereo. It doesn't really help enough, does it? In my opinion, it doesn't.
Thanks for adding your comments, cosmicrepairdude.
