...and so far it has given me a bad impression. I wasn't there an hour before I got in a PM argument with some guy who was convinced that there was such a thing as "more tone". Here, let me put it up:

Shane, what I meant in my comment about the VHT 50CL regarding the more gain you use the less tone you will have:

When you hear a player like Eddie Van Halen (back in the late 70's and early 80's) you notice how massive his lead tone is. How you can hear every single attack, screech, slide, etc. Thats cuz he is making it sound like that from his hands. His Marshall Super Lead allows him to showcase his vast control of dynamics because it derives most of its gain structure from the output trans.

Power tube gain is very different in how it responds to pregain. It is more unpredictable and complex. Preamp gain is an attempt at recreating power section like dynamics and compression but it is never as convincing.

When I said you lose tone I meant it. Let me give you an example. The more distortion you use the more every note you pick will sound uniformely the same. Many 'shred' types of today rely on thier pregain to play guitar. You know guys who NEED to have a ton of distortion to play something and make it smooth.

To me John Petrucci is liek this. His tone lacks any character. Every note he plays sounds the same. When I saw G3 with him and Vai, Satch I thought Vai's tone was head and shoulders above Satch or Petrucci. This is because Vai uses about a 3rd less pregain in his lead tone. Thats why you can hear every little subtle clickity clackity when he plays leads. You can hear all his pick attacks. Van Halen's old Marshall tone was like that too.

If you have ever played through a good JCM 800 head cranked to 11 you know it sounds exactly like old VH but though it is plenty of distortion, it is quite thumpy and unforgiving. In other words if you let some joe blow shred head plug into it, he would probably sound like a hack cuz you really need to be able to play guitar with attacjk and conviction to sound articulate and tonally sound with the cranked Marshall.

I have played for 27 years and can do all that shred stuff as well as a variety of other styles. I realize that tone is personal pref. I am just commenting on my experience with many amps and tones. Seems like alot of the younger guys playing guitar nowadays kind of don't get it regarding a good micd tone. You know they scoop the mids and use WAY too much pregain. The end result live is a buzzsaw guitar tone that is competing with bass and cymbols for its spot in the mix. Instead of sitting in the midrange frequency range.

But beyond all that, I am a firm believer if your power section isn't adding a proportion of power tube compression to your distorted tone, your tone will never really have 'legs'.

Its a weird phenomenon really. I mean what a power section can do for your sound. I learned first hand with an amp I used to own THD BIvalve. It cut through my band 10 times better than my last amp before that, and it didn't even need to be loud. I realized then that I had been a dummy my whole life about tone. I mean not realizing that the power section is what separates teh men from the boys.

Thats why great amps are expensive.

Ok sorry for the lecture, I am a fast typer.

Bruce

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Wow. What a close-minded and totally convinced he's right individual. My last response was: "Really....and what unit of measurement do you use to measure tone?".

My argument with these boneheads is always that tone is subjective, just like art and women (or men, for you ladies). Everyone has a different opinion of what's good, therefore it's a highly subjective qualitative measurement, and not something you can ascribe a quantity to. Which means there is no such thing as "more" or "less" tone. Heck, even "better" or "worse" tone is up to the individual.

Anyway just thought I'd share.