I can't nail the sound I want through my real-life speaker, but can get it with IRs thru headphones

allen · January 2023

I've got a Hook Wizard amp and it has a blackface pre-amp circuit (among other things) with treble/middle/bass/presence plus a gain control.

So it should be able to nail a medium gain overdrive type of SRV tone fairly easily (Texas Flood or Scuttle Buttin type of thing).

Today I was running the output of the amp through my Quad Cortex with a variety of different IRs (I used 1 x 12 and even had a 4 x 12 IR of a Celestion Gold IR) and dialled in a really great tone, basically maxed the mids and put the gain up to about 75%.

However, when I played it through my cab it sounded boxy, flat and weak. The cab is a Zilla mini modern with a Celestion Alnico Gold.

My theory is that I could run the headphones pretty loud, but I have to run the real speaker at TV volumes (neighbours).

Do you think I just need more volume to get the same sound in the room or is it something else?

maharg101 · January 2023

Hmm. The acoustics in your room might not be as optimal as the virtual acoustics "in" your IR. Hard surfaces, placement of open-backed cabs, excessive volume in a confined space, floor coupling, speaker/cab choice, on-axis/off-axis response are just a few factors that could be in play here.

FWIW I sometimes experience similar issues with being able to get great sounds out of the Ox Box, but the real cab in the room seems lacking. Using the attenuation function of the Ox can help, but louder generally equals "better", up to a point, and only if the acoustic environment is right.

Can you attentuate the output of your amp in some way ?

maharg101 · January 2023

p.s. hadn't come across these amps before, it looks like one hell of an amplifier !

mrkb · January 2023

No you are wrong. Amp in the room is best and IRs don’t feel real, they are like listening to a recording

I find most amps in the room to be poor compared to good quality IRs with a good room sim. And the sound changes if you move across the speaker, so there’s many “Amp in the room” sounds.

allen · January 2023

maharg101 said:

p.s. hadn't come across these amps before, it looks like one hell of an amplifier !

It is!

I've been doing some exploring with it, but not sure I have totally got all of its potential yet.

So far I feel like I can get a great clean blackface sound, plus an overdriven vox (was doing some great Bryan Adams on it yesterday)

I have recently been messing round with the Marshall style channel stuff trying to get a low gain overdrive. So far I've got it set so that neck single coil is chewy and bridge humbucker is full on classic rock, but that's just one of the potential settings.

This isn't a real demo, but I was fiddling with it on youtube.

allen · January 2023

mrkb said:

I find most amps in the room to be poor compared to good quality IRs with a good room sim. And the sound changes if you move across the speaker, so there’s many “Amp in the room” sounds.

True

maharg101 said:

Hmm. The acoustics in your room might not be as optimal as the virtual acoustics "in" your IR. Hard surfaces, placement of open-backed cabs, excessive volume in a confined space, floor coupling, speaker/cab choice, on-axis/off-axis response are just a few factors that could be in play here.

FWIW I sometimes experience similar issues with being able to get great sounds out of the Ox Box, but the real cab in the room seems lacking. Using the attenuation function of the Ox can help, but louder generally equals "better", up to a point, and only if the acoustic environment is right.

Can you attentuate the output of your amp in some way ?

It's got a master volume, not an attenuator.

But I think both of you are saying that it's just 'normal'. I have to admit that my room is not optimal as it's hard tiled flooring, not carpet. I still think it's got something to do with volume as the headphones were pretty loud.

Did sound bloody excellent though

maharg101 · January 2023

Find something soft and heavy and experiment putting it in front of the speaker cab. Even standing the cab on a rug might help quite a bit. It's like playing in an empty hall vs the same space full of meat-based sound absorbers (aka the "audients").

allen · January 2023

Will try it.

What about putting a cushion in the back?

maharg101 · January 2023

You could try it. More likely to be effective at the front I think, but nothing ventured, nothing gained !

Modulus_Amps · January 2023

At home I prefer playing though a load box with IR's. At work I get to crank the amps up and wouldn't think about using IR's

Point is, for home use go the route that sounds best to you.

LastMantra · January 2023

What sounds good through headphones won't sound as good through as cab. If you to your playing through the cab you need to get it sounding good using the cab, which, in turn, won't sound good through headphones.

Maybe I'm not understanding the question though...

ICBM · January 2023

The Gold is one of the speakers which doesn’t sound great at very low power, to me. It’s possibly not the whole problem but it most likely isn’t helping.

What LastMantra said is always going to be true though - totally different types of amp/cab/speaker/acoustic space need to be dialled in differently, it’s very difficult to exactly correlate one to the other. Most people just complain about the other way round

.

p90fool · January 2023

It's simple, your brain has been softened by IRs, you've become a weak, subservient slave to the machine and you have no idea what's real anymore.

pedalo · January 2023

I find my Kemper always makes me sound a million dollars but my amp in the room does not.

allen · January 2023

I have been experimenting this morning.

allen · January 2023

I've also stuck a pillow down between the back of the cab and the wall.

It seems to have helped a bit, but not quite sure.

The perceived volume has gone down, so it's allowed me to turn the amp up a bit and I think that has helped on its own.

I've also changed a setting on the amp. The head has got a switchable load so that it can be run without a cab. However, it also runs fine with the speaker connected and the load turned on. I had assumed that the speaker jack automatically disconnected the load, but it seems it doesn't. So I had been running the amp with the load on (presumably at about 1watt equivalent or somesuch). I switched the load off and it sounded better/different. Although again, could just be that it got louder.

As an aside, the amp can go very loud even with the load on.

maharg101 · January 2023

So hopefully now you can "bear" the sound in the room

Boromedic · January 2023

LastMantra said:

What sounds good through headphones won't sound as good through as cab. If you to your playing through the cab you need to get it sounding good using the cab, which, in turn, won't sound good through headphones.

Maybe I'm not understanding the question though...

This is bang on, if I play my PT15IR using the headphone out or FRFR I have to adjust the amp settings to sound as good as it sounds through my cab. It sounds best through the cab in the room, but can sound "nearly" as good the other way too.

There is a point where I can set it to sound spot on through both but, I play through the cab mostly so set it that way.

ICBM · January 2023

allen said:

I've also stuck a pillow down between the back of the cab and the wall.

It seems to have helped a bit, but not quite sure.

The perceived volume has gone down, so it's allowed me to turn the amp up a bit and I think that has helped on its own.

I've also changed a setting on the amp. The head has got a switchable load so that it can be run without a cab. However, it also runs fine with the speaker connected and the load turned on. I had assumed that the speaker jack automatically disconnected the load, but it seems it doesn't. So I had been running the amp with the load on (presumably at about 1watt equivalent or somesuch). I switched the load off and it sounded better/different. Although again, could just be that it got louder.

As an aside, the amp can go very loud even with the load on.

It's most likely that the load is simply switched in parallel with the speaker output, in which case with both the load and the speaker connected to the amp at the same time, the impedance will be mismatched which will both change the tone and the dynamics. Having a load in parallel with the speaker will also increase the damping on the speaker making it sound 'flatter'. This isn't harmful to either the amp or the speaker, but it probably won't help with the sound.

allen · January 2023

ICBM said:

It's most likely that the load is simply switched in parallel with the speaker output, in which case with both the load and the speaker connected to the amp at the same time, the impedance will be mismatched which will both change the tone and the dynamics. Having a load in parallel with the speaker will also increase the damping on the speaker making it sound 'flatter'. This isn't harmful to either the amp or the speaker, but it probably won't help with the sound.

That’s interesting. It does sound flatter - maybe that is what is happening. It doesn’t make sense that sound comes out if the load is supposed to be taking all of the power from the amp.

ICBM · January 2023

allen said:

It does sound flatter - maybe that is what is happening. It doesn’t make sense that sound comes out if the load is supposed to be taking all of the power from the amp.

It does if both the load and the speaker are simply connected to the amp at the same time, which is the easiest and most reliable way of doing it. The load will be the same impedance as the speaker, so with both connected you have half the impedance - safe for valve amps - with half the power going to each.

The alternative is what you assumed (quite logically) would happen, which is that the speaker jack automatically disconnects the load - but the switching contacts in jacks are less reliable than a proper switch, so a cautious/prudent amp designer might choose to use just the switch instead and leave the speaker connected.

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I can't nail the sound I want through my real-life speaker, but can get it with IRs thru headphones

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