Choosing an Output Transformer

[olddawg]

And an hour later.. ear fatigue..

[Chuck H]

And an hour later.. ear fatigue..

I've been there. Because I've designed one offs for players a few times these new amps need to be thoroughly "vetted". And, of course, I've had to do the same with my repeated designs in development, though more briefly for copies because I know what they should sound like. But the end result is many stints of cranking and listening, adjusting and re-cranking and listening. Short story time

The worst example of this was when I was modding/re-voicing someone else's design for Dean Markley. He wanted others opinions on the tone too so I had to work quickly between successive listenings. The panel included myself, Dean, the guitarist from Deans personal band and Ronnie Montrose. Dean and Ronnie were buds. We were working this out at Deans house and he just called Ronnie, who lived near by. Ronnie showed up in old jeans with grass stains and a T-shirt. He had been doing yard work when Dean called him. He brought a bag of Egg Mac Muffins and introductions and breakfast ensued. After that we got to work. This was a two 6L6 amp with 425Vp and a fairly efficient speaker in a living room. Three hours and several adjustments later we all agreed we needed a break because of ear fatigue. After lunch we did another two hours of this. Too many opinions in the room!!! We all agreed that the amp was sounding very good though. Ronnie said that it had the "right tone" and defined that as being a particular set of attributes regarding the distortion modulation, LF/HF response and how it balances with the final EQ. I was flattered but tried not to show it in the interest of professionalism. The story has an anticlimactic end though because Dean ultimately went another direction when I suggested he simply "reissue" the old CD60 design. A very good sounding amp and more versatile designed by JMF/Spectra that had a pretty solid following sice the 80's.

Unfortunately we weren't testing my own designs that I did for DMS at that time. I would have dearly loved to hear Ronnie Montrose play through one of my amps!