Touch sensitivity

[jmaf]

Don't worry.
I'm also obsessed by gorgeous Blondes too.
Also see them everywhere.
Er ........... hope didn't misunderstand you ....

There are also Deluxe Blondes but they often cost lots of money. All Blondes cost money, in fact, and some sound more pleasant than others. Some blondes really distort everything, others not so much.

(I just noticed that you can safely talk about women instead of amps for a long time and sound ambiguous all the way. Hmmm...maybe that's part of the tube amp magic? And maybe that's why Trainwreck amps were named after women? Hmmm.....)

[Chuck H]

Maybe that's why they're called TrainWrecks

[Chuck H]

Just to add to the discussion...

I have seen plenty about how the unique character of the CF clipping adds it's flavor to the tone. What I haven't seen mentioned is how the very low impedance output of the CF affects the following stage. It's worth noting that a lower impedance output to a following stage will suffer less loading. loading has the effect of rolling off relative to rise in frequency. I don't have all the specifics in my head, and I know the typically very high input impedance of a triode stage doesn't load much. But the human ear seems particularly sensitive to this affect as it applies to clipping. Could this also be a factor in the relative goodness of using CF stages in high gainers?

EDIT: TrainWrecks do not use a CF. But they DO use a cold clipping stage. My own preamp (that I designed long before TW circuits were revealed, but are scary similar) use to use a local feedback stage as a reverb mixer. I left it in even with the reverb removed because I liked the tone. I've since switched to a clod stage like the TW amps and now my amps share virtually the same topology as TW Express/Liverpool type amps... Though I swear I didn't clone TW amps, I did take a tip from that cold clip stage. Could it be that the isolation of cutoff clipping is achieving a similar (though less complex) result as the CF?

[cminor9]

There are quite a few more difference than that! The blackface has no cathode follower, the other two have them, but in different positions (assuming you're talking about the same schems I am.... Then you have LTP versus cathodyne, different bias points etc... It's a overall design. Operating point players perhaps the biggest part, as it controls the DC component of the distorted signal, which causes dynamic (e.g., time and level dependant) compression, and changes in distortion products.

Well, I simplified for the sake of typing, and also I was focusing on the preamp only because I wondered if the sensitivity was a result of the preamp. But yes, point taken and thanks the reply!