Why do guitar amps never have the design considerations of hi-fi speakers?

[olddawg]

I always wonder about this “mojo” thing. Ive seen some strange things happen. I’ve been going to a lot of “hosted” jams lately. I abbreviate my rig. I bring a Bugera V22, an old ProCo Rat, and whatever guitar I want to use that night. Since like you guys, I can fix stuff... I let other people use my amp rig. Everyone thinks it’s some “boutique” amp because there are always a few gear snobs and I took the badge off. But when someone uses it they sound nothing like me... as they say, “Tone is in the hands!”. But back to the mojo thing... Unless I really KNOW someone, I don’t like them playing my guitars. I made an exception a couple of weeks ago and let someone I didn’t know play my old Champagne LP Custom for a couple of songs. I don’t know what happened. He had seen me let another guy I know, respect, that can really play use it earlier. (He has mojo) This last guy I let play it was a total hack.(No mojo). All of a sudden.... like immediately, the damn thing won’t tune at all to my satisfaction. I normally do my own setups. The intonation is fine. The action is fine. I just can no longer get open chords in tune with each other. I changed the strings twice and checked everything I know to check. Nothing is cracked or damaged. It’s with my favorite luthier right now. He says it’s just being a bitch. I feel like the hack dude sucked 40 years of mojo out of it! Mojo I put in it. Or maybe it’s just mad a me for letting such a fool touch it. Kind of like a woman...

[nevetslab]

I can't help but think that audio measuring devices could be similar. If a "'65 Fender Blah Blah 212" is widely known to be this pinicle of circuit perfection, wouldn't it be possible to just measure the living shit out of it's output, and use that data to at least get into the ballpark of whatever you are trying to do? I'm not sure if my analogy is holding strong or if everyone is scratching their heads. I'm kinda scratching my head at this point.

Continuing along the points made by soundmasterg, eschertron, Enzo, J M Fahey and others, think about what you've come upon in your engineering experience in the lab equipment domain. Not much is available to us to tackle 3-dimensional transient sounds that we all hear, each of us hearing with our own 'weighting' as to how we each hear. Steady State measurements don't cut it. They show some important things, but not the fluidity of how we humans perceive with all of our senses. How women and children hear vs how we men-folk with years of exposure to high SPL hear, for instance. Interesting 'weighting' to apply to.....to what? The 3-D acoustic mapping gear isn't readily available to most, and even with that, just what to measure when you're trying to pin down to defineable terms THAT which clearly tag a vintage Fender Twin Reverb being a unique complex measurement that covers everything you could want, and be able to tell it with that complex measurement from the same made on a new Vox AC30 HW combo, or anything else. We make marks on the wall in our ever-increasing attempts to quantify these things, and still have no idea, let alone how to interpret what the lab folk have worked in trying to achieve this fleeting definition.

No reason NOT to indulge your passion in moving that science further along. I've been adding to my electronics/physics lab for years, with what my meager funding allows, but have long resigned to the thoughts that our human senses are still beyond what science can quantify with absolute certainty, and assign some meaningful 'file' that encompases all of the variables from any vantage point and any sensory points. I won't stop the pursuit, as it is a passion, but, the path can take the rest of your life, and still be weighted by your own perception, and not necessarily shared by others.

I love the analogy to taste, as we perceive the realm of satisfying our taste buds. Interesting how blind people hear & perceive their world, not having the vision sense, and seem far more acute as a result of compensating for the absence of sight.

[Chuck H]

This is turning out to be a good read thread overall. I was starting to get frustrated, but then Enzo set me straight. Now I realize that there are still some subtleties about "tone" analysis that the overly initiated don't air out much. So this is, perhaps, a good thing.

Something I considered while reading...

The intricacies of guitar tone not withstanding I think we HAVE established that from the perspective of the instrument amp (the amp the instrument will be played through for any that didn't get the memo ) that we don't need hi fidelity to do it. BUT!!!... a (somewhat) higher fidelity than the average guitar speaker and it's cabinet might be really beneficial for someone that wanted to use samples or patches and then re-amp. If only because it would prevent the speaker and cabinet itself from coloring the result. This consideration removes the power amp from the equation and assumes that whatever magic a given "tone" has is built in prior to re-amp. The frequencies to consider for such a power amp, speaker and cabinet system as it relates to guitar would still only need to be flat-ish from about 60Hz to 6kHz. Hardly hi fi specs.

[Greg_L]

Many guitarists sound bad even with the best guitar-specific amps and cabs and speakers. I don't want to hear them sound bad in HD audiophile full-range sound quality.

[catalin gramada]

Many guitarists sound bad even with the best guitar-specific amps and cabs and speakers. I don't want to hear them sound bad in HD audiophile full-range sound quality.

You need to change some gold plated interconnects, a piece of cable or maybe some snaked oil caps then. You.ll never known why those guitarist sound so bad

[Greg_L]

You need to change some gold plated interconnects then

I use capacitors made from the crystals harvested from Superman's bedroom.

[catalin gramada]

I use capacitors made from the crystals harvested from Superman's bedroom.

You.re in a right track Let's keeping that way

[Chuck H]

Ok... Maybe we try to get the thread back on course.

Michael, what exactly do you have in mind for a signal chain that would require a power amp and speaker system capable of recreating anything probable for a guitar tone? I ask because other than digital patches no such signal chain where multiple amp tone simulations currently exists. And WRT those digital patch amps there are already flatter response power amps and speakers (at least the speakers themselves, not so much the cabinets) that accurately represent the signal from those digital patches. Most of those amps include guitar cabinet emulation for recording outputs that can be fed directly to recording media. So, as it relates to a signal chain which does many different amp tones and is designed to cover as broad a spectrum as necessary for that, that has already been done.

If you still want to hear what an unadulterated guitar sounds like you can always plug straight into your home stereo or even direct into a PA as has been suggested. You can include any pedal chain you normally use to get the full affect. There have actually been guitar players that used more high fidelity speakers to get the tone they wanted. George Harrison, The Edge and even Stevie Ray Vaughan to some degree. And that's just three off the top of my head. I've seen it done more times than I can remember. It's most often done in combination with more standard guitar speakers as an accent to a more basic tone. But if the subject of higher fidelity guitar speakers systems is really of interest to you then experimenting is encouraged and even precedented.

[eschertron]

IIRC (and often I don't!) Vox put a 'neo-dog' speaker in my valvetronix amp because - for one reason, at least - it colored the sound less than some equivalent, more typical guitar speaker.

This allows the modeling/emulating signal process to produce the desired result, including speaker coloration, with one caveat: the speaker color expected from an AC30 or Marshall Bluesbreaker must necessarily be added into the sound process, with just the right tweaks that compensated for the neo-dog's natural characteristic. Extra work for the sound designers, of course, but at least there is a real guitar speaker cab at the end of the signal chain.

Modelers can fall flat when they don't have realistic speaker and cab simulation. The dilemma of hi-fi sound reinforcement raises its ugly head when the "guitar-sounding" input sound enough unlike a real world example that all its flaws are in evidence. Kind of an 'uncanny valley' for guitar tone, I guess?

[Greg_L]

IIRC (and often I don't!) Vox put a 'neo-dog' speaker in my valvetronix amp because - for one reason, at least - it colored the sound less than some equivalent, more typical guitar speaker.

This allows the modeling/emulating signal process to produce the desired result, including speaker coloration, with one caveat: the speaker color expected from an AC30 or Marshall Bluesbreaker must necessarily be added into the sound process, with just the right tweaks that compensated for the neo-dog's natural characteristic. Extra work for the sound designers, of course, but at least there is a real guitar speaker cab at the end of the signal chain.

Modelers can fall flat when they don't have realistic speaker and cab simulation. The dilemma of hi-fi sound reinforcement raises its ugly head when the "guitar-sounding" input sound enough unlike a real world example that all its flaws are in evidence. Kind of an 'uncanny valley' for guitar tone, I guess?

One of the "requirements" of many modelers is a speaker that doesn't add any significant tone fingerprint. AxeFX, Kemper, whatever....they like full-range or totally flat speaker setups. Just run them right into the PA.

[eschertron]

One of the "requirements" of many modelers is a speaker that doesn't add any significant tone fingerprint. AxeFX, Kemper, whatever....they like full-range or totally flat speaker setups. Just run them right into the PA.

Right. That's where they* get close, but... EWWW! Not close enough

*Vox, Zoom, Line 6, etc.