famous beagle
Well-known member
So, this is a continuation of my "Rare Tube" thread. The said amp, a Kay 752, arrived today, and I checked it out. I'm thinking something must be not right with the amp, but I wanted to get some other opinions before I went back to the guy. Here are the issues:
1. The amp is really quiet. Even with it dimed, it's not at all uncomfortable to be sitting right in front of it. The catalog says, "Delivers a big 5 watts of undistorted music power." (See point #2 with regards to the "undistorted" thing.) Now, I know this is a hybrid (solid-state input and power tube/tube rectifier), but my tweed Champ clone is rated at 5 watts as well, and it's not in the same league at all. It's not even in the same sport. The Champ literally seems 5 or 6 times louder than this thing. One other difference is that this amp has a 6-inch speaker, whereas the Champ has an 8-inch, which I'm sure makes a difference too.
2. It has zero headroom. It's literally distorted from the moment you can start to hear signal. To give you an idea, in the "9 o'clock" clip, the amp is barely audible. That's why the hum is so loud in that clip, because I had to crank the mic preamp so high because the signal was so quiet. And, for the most part, it sounds almost just as distorted as all the other clips.
If you listen to the clips in order -- 9:00, 12:00, 2:30, dimed -- it's actually pretty hard to hear a difference in tone at all. It changes a bit in the "dimed" clip because I switched to the bridge pickup; the other three were in the middle position (all on a Hagstrom Swede). And I was probably digging in a bit more, so that probably affected it too. But, with the clips volume matched like this, I wonder if it would have made a difference at all. I mean, I was playing quietly in the 9:00 clip because I was trying to create a clean tone, and it still sounded that dirty.
So, what do y'all think? Does it sound as though this is the way the amp is supposed to sound? I can't imagine the catalog would make the previous claim with this kind of performance. I mean ... I know things were different in 1966, but every other low wattage amp I've ever heard (many of them vintage) has at least some amount of pretty clean space before it breaks up.
Thanks
1. The amp is really quiet. Even with it dimed, it's not at all uncomfortable to be sitting right in front of it. The catalog says, "Delivers a big 5 watts of undistorted music power." (See point #2 with regards to the "undistorted" thing.) Now, I know this is a hybrid (solid-state input and power tube/tube rectifier), but my tweed Champ clone is rated at 5 watts as well, and it's not in the same league at all. It's not even in the same sport. The Champ literally seems 5 or 6 times louder than this thing. One other difference is that this amp has a 6-inch speaker, whereas the Champ has an 8-inch, which I'm sure makes a difference too.
2. It has zero headroom. It's literally distorted from the moment you can start to hear signal. To give you an idea, in the "9 o'clock" clip, the amp is barely audible. That's why the hum is so loud in that clip, because I had to crank the mic preamp so high because the signal was so quiet. And, for the most part, it sounds almost just as distorted as all the other clips.
If you listen to the clips in order -- 9:00, 12:00, 2:30, dimed -- it's actually pretty hard to hear a difference in tone at all. It changes a bit in the "dimed" clip because I switched to the bridge pickup; the other three were in the middle position (all on a Hagstrom Swede). And I was probably digging in a bit more, so that probably affected it too. But, with the clips volume matched like this, I wonder if it would have made a difference at all. I mean, I was playing quietly in the 9:00 clip because I was trying to create a clean tone, and it still sounded that dirty.
So, what do y'all think? Does it sound as though this is the way the amp is supposed to sound? I can't imagine the catalog would make the previous claim with this kind of performance. I mean ... I know things were different in 1966, but every other low wattage amp I've ever heard (many of them vintage) has at least some amount of pretty clean space before it breaks up.
Thanks