Tone Snobs

[Joe Llamahead]

Ok .......
Hi My name is Joe and Im a tone-aholic.

Actually The I am not the greatest player But I do sound good. It's kinda like having a good voice but can't remember the lyrics.

I know plenty of guys, myself included that no matter what they play gavitate tward a specific tone no matter what they play, of course there is better sounding rigs than others.

Besides Im a hotrodder and hafta screw with stuff .

There Is a lot of truth here in this thread.

[mooreamps]

Ok .......
Hi My name is Joe and Im a tone-aholic.

Actually The I am not the greatest player But I do sound good. It's kinda like having a good voice but can't remember the lyrics.

I know plenty of guys, myself included that no matter what they play gavitate tward a specific tone no matter what they play, of course there is better sounding rigs than others.

Besides Im a hotrodder and hafta screw with stuff .

There Is a lot of truth here in this thread.

Welcome to the forum. My family founded the town of Gold Beach ; and the Moore's have the cattle ranch in Opher...


-g

[Joe Llamahead]

Welcome to the forum. My family founded the town of Gold Beach ; and the Moore's have the cattle ranch in Opher...

Thanks for the welcome, I used to hang out here about 5 years ago..... I've been into other stuff.
I actually work in Gold Beach and we have a couple of Moores working there, Bean and Rod. I know Beanie lives in Ophir. IDK about Rod.
sorry for the hijack...... Its a small world especially in this part of Oregon!

[R.G.]

I need to respond to this.

I will freely admit my guitar playing is mediocre at best, even when I've been practicing. I concluded a long time ago that some people are talented musically as players, and I'm not. When I've been practicing regularly I can keep up with a bar-band suitable for drinking beer to, and that's about it. I'm at best a technician, not an artist, and that is being generous.

As much as I love inspired guitar work, I'll never get there. 8-(

I'm kind of like the short, unattractive guy who sits on a bar stool and tries to pick up girls with the line "... you know, I'm not really this tall. I'm just sitting on my wallet." 8-)

I *can* delve into the care and feeding of electrons, though, and that's probably a coping mechanism for me. I do take a certain pleasure in the number of pros whose music I respect and enjoy that play pedals I've designed or modified. It's a nice thing to store away for my dotage. At least I can read press releases that I didn't personally put out.

On the other hand, there are some people I've seen that cope other ways; notably in the context of this thread by owning Hyper-Modded What'sa'Blasters with vintage cardboard jacks and cornflakes-in-oil resistors and detecting tone so subtle that they're only ones who can hear it. I like to think I'm immune to that, if only from the attitude that if it can only be detected by a human mind, it may only *exist* inside a human mind.

I try to be as tolerant as I can. I can't remember where I read this, but there's a quip that goes "Never make fun of a man who's proud of his ancestry. It may be all he's got to be proud of."

[octal]

R.G.

Your "if it can only be detected by a human mind, it may only exist in a human mind" comment reminded me of an idea I've not seen discussed in guitar-amp-land. You'll see all these subjective comparisons of repro amps in cork sniffer magazines... it's pretty easy to scientifically compare a vintage amp to a reissue.

Guitar into Y cable into original '59 Bassman (for example) and repro Bassman amp. Both amps are driving identical tightly matched speakers. Connect a differential amp across the outputs of both amps (effectively subtracting the output of one from the other.) Adjust front panel controls for best null while playing. If the amps are a perfect match, there will be no signal from the differential amp while playing. Any mismatch between the two amps will be revealed by an AC voltage at the output of the diff amp. Replace / tweek parts in the repro amp as needed to get the best possible null.

I'm generally of the "if it sounds good it is good" school of close enough, but for the people who want the ultimate in new gear that sounds like old, the differential amp analysis technique could be a heck of an argument settler.

Is it a terrible & or crazy idea?

Nathan

[R.G.]

It's a good idea, and much more technically sensible than most of the listening tests the tone cognoscenti want to do. It's a variation of the differential distortion test for hifi stuff, where you take the input and the output, pad down the output with resistors, and amplify the difference. If done properly, only the distortions remain. Should work for matching two amps, too, including distortions and frequency responses. You'd have to measure the actual sound outputs from the speakers though with matched microphones, because the speaker "voice" matters.

The problem with any analytical approach is that tone snobs will avoid anything that can be measured and quantified like the plague. The more someone has their self-worth invested in there being mystical differences that can only be heard by them and the people that agree with them, the more they dread any objective measurements of the emperor's new clothes. They will often attack people who want to do objective measurements as hopelessly naive and deluded.

[Wilder Amplification]

This brings me back to the "golden ears strategy"...as posted by Randall Aiken in his FAQ section of his website -

Q: Why is it, when discussing circuits in internet forums, that people with no technical background always seem to claim that they can hear so much better than someone with an electronics background?

A: That's the "golden ears" strategy, a time-honored internet arguing technique used with limited success by those who are usually "technically challenged", i.e. "internet armchair engineers", who cannot produce supporting data to back up their side of the argument. These people tend to rely heavily on tenuous, unprovable concepts, such as "magic" and "luck"to describe circuits, rather than anything concrete, like mathematics, scope plots, or plain old reason and common-sense.

The laws of "golden ears" are a bit complex. Here they are, at least as far as I have been able to ascertain:

(1) "You are not allowed to make any mention of golden ears until you are losing an argument and have no way to save face."

(2) "He who first proclaims to have golden ears is the only one in the argument who can truly have golden ears." The opponent, therefore, must, by the rules, have tin ears, since there can only be one golden-eared person per argument. Now, everyone else on the board may have golden ears, but only if they choose not to perform the test in question that may disprove the theory. These people may be brought up as often as possible, until that point where they actually perform said test and obtain results not in accordance with the original golden-eared proponent's position.

(3) "Golden ears can only exist on a person who has no formal education in the subject matter." The minute a person receives an engineering degree, his ears automatically turn to tin, and he cannot be trusted with even the simplest test of tone or frequency response, no matter how long he or she has been in the field of interest.

(4) "Once you have proclaimed golden-ear status, you can no longer answer any questions, nor put forth anything of a technical nature, because you may slip up and show that you really have no clue as to what you are talking about." At this point, your golden ears have become tarnished, and everyone will see the emperor has no clothes, so this situation should be avoided at all costs. Should this happen, you have no choice but to either slink away and hope nobody notices and soon forgets about you, or loudly proclaim victory in the vain hope that someone will believe you.

[Alex R]

Honestly, you guys. To hear you talk anyone would think tubes didn't have soundstages.

[Steve Conner]

The minute a person receives an engineering degree, his ears automatically turn to tin

It's a state of mind. The golden ears crowd convince themselves that they can hear things.

If you just loosen up and admit that maybe you can't hear the difference between two capacitors the same value, then you save a lot of stress, a lot of money, and free up time to enjoy music rather than endlessly tweaking the equipment and listening for imagined deficiencies in it.

So, I always recommend the "tin ears" approach on purely practical grounds, whether it's theoretically correct or not. I still appreciate high-end boutique gear, but mostly for its looks. I have half-jokingly talked of forming the "3dB Club" that shuns any tweak that would make less than 3dB of a difference to some audible parameter of your system.

Have you noticed that the music released on audiophile record labels is always terrible? Sometimes it seems like the better the pressing, the worse the content, but it doesn't matter because true audiophiles don't listen to the content anyway. It's just a test signal to excite their wonderful system.

[Gibsonman63]

The golden ears argument was coming to mind, but I forgot where I read it. Thanks for reminding me. Yet another pearl of wisdom from Mr. Aiken.

[GibsonLover]

There is a fine line between any kind of snobbery and plain ignorance. One may firmly believe something in their own mind whether it is true or not. It's the degree of their conviction that can be irritating. To me, it's a lot like the Bible pounders knocking on your door wanting to talk about Jesus. R.G. hit it on the head with his last comment. I'd rather just smile, then go find a pretty lady to talk to.

[koen]

So I'm curious about the famous, really good players with a great tone. Did they just happen to run into it, or have they also been tweaking, swapping parts ad nauseum, until they got 'that tone'?

For myself, I prefer good quality equipment, even though I don't play very often. I got a '52 reissue Tele because I always wanted one, finally could afford one and I will probably have it for a long time. And damn, it plays great and has a great tone as a bonus too!

[jmaf]

My greatest curiosity, ever, is Mr. Jimmy Vaughan. His brother was, IMHO, the greatest guitar player who ever lived and had the guitar tone I strive for whenever I think of tone. I listen to all the greats, in blues and rock, from Jeff Beck to...gasp, Malmsteen. I think they all form the culture of guitar, whether you think Malmsteen is a Ritchie Blackmore ripoff or not, he's a part of the guitar DNA by now. But.

What is it anyone saw about Jimmy Vaughan? Everyone of the authors I've read, some mentioned in this thread(Pittman, Gerald Weber, etc) mention the Jimmi Vaughan tone. Pardon me, but don't get it. I don't want to diss the guy or his playing in the terms I have in mind, so suffice to say the last time I saw Jimmy Vaughan on stage with some great bluesmen I thought it was some comedy show guy messing with some of the greats, then I noticed it wasn't saturday night live.

Then you read his interviews where he's commenting on tone and such.... Perhaps Jimmy Vaughan is not who this thread is about, and I know you refer to technicians who let out their playing frustration on their purported perfectionism with tone, but when the OP mentioned tone snobs who can't play, I unfortunately thought of Jimmy Vaughan.

[JoeM]

So I'm curious about the famous, really good players with a great tone. Did they just happen to run into it, or have they also been tweaking, swapping parts ad nauseum, until they got 'that tone'? ...

I doubt if any of my favorite players even own a soldering iron.

[Wilder Amplification]

So I'm curious about the famous, really good players with a great tone. Did they just happen to run into it, or have they also been tweaking, swapping parts ad nauseum, until they got 'that tone'?

Well first off they focused on getting their playing right. They knew if their playing wasn't up to snuff no amount of gear or component swapping would ever save them.

Once their playing was down it was quite easy getting 'that tone'.

A lot of 'that' tone is just the natural sound of that particular gear combination. Take Jimi Hendrix for example. A Marshall Super Lead, a Strat, UniVibe and a Vox Clyde McCoy wah will get you that naturally if the playing is right. No component swapping needed.

Then look at Jimmy Page...again...Marshall Super Lead cranked and a Les Paul just naturally sounds like that if the playing is right.

As the old saying goes..."'Tis not the dress that makes the woman, but the woman that makes the dress". This goes to state that a woman can't just put a dress on and automatically she's blessed with a wonderful body. She will make the dress look stunning if the shape of her body is already stunning (kinda brings ya to the whole "Honey do these pants make me look fat?" and you know the real answer but are also full and aware of the consequences should you reveal that answer).

This goes the same for guitar players. "'Tis not the gear that makes the playing sound great, but the player that makes the gear sound great".

I doubt if any of my favorite players even own a soldering iron.

Thanks for the sig!