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Valve Standard = dark tone


epi8668

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Just curious if the dark tones of the Valve Standard is typical or if mine has issues.

 

The cheaper the guitar I play through it, the better the amp sounds. My guitars with a full rich tone sound like mud. I've eq'd the bass to zero, mid to about halfway & treble to max and still I got mud. The only work around is a pedal where I basically thin the guitar tone going into the amp.

 

thoughts?

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Hi and welcome to the Forum!

 

I have a Valve Standard. I replaced the stock Epi speaker with a NOS CTS speaker (ca. 1975). Yes, I also find that the amp is a little dark sounding and have to crank the mid's and high's and cut the bass. The amp has a definite "vintage" sound to it, but it tends to be somewhat "lacklustre". I find that using a Boss GE-7 eq makes a big difference. The digital effects are not very practical and really add a lot of hiss, so I use my Boss ME-50 for good analog effects.

 

It is hard to find a good "bedroom" amp that sounds anywhere as good as my Vox Valvetronix gigging amp.

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The Valve Standard has a 4k OT. That's part of the problem. It may help the tone of the stock OT to simply add another 8ohm speaker in series for a 16 ohm load. Double the load, double the reflected impedance, and bingo. 8k for the power tubes. For the best tone, try a proper 18watt OT with an 8k primary impedance. Heyboer makes some of the best ones, but they're fairly expensive at $75~. MPS and Edcor OT's are reasonably cheep and get good reviews. The only downside of the Edcore is the lack of multiple output taps.

 

Gil...

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Hey bluesman ... Thanks! I agree that the dsp effect are a waste. I picked mine up second hand & when I was testing the amp I was playing a squire tele - it sounded great! Then at home I plugged in my '72 Tele Deluxe R.I. and it was mudd-o-riffic. I find it odd that the Valve Standard plays well w/ some guitars & so "lackluster" with others. Thanks for the eq tip.

 

cgil ... wow - thanks for info. A few months ago I ran an extension speaker to test that speaker out. I noticed more clarity with the "external" speaker but thought I was just hearing a fuller wider sound due to two speakers working. Honestly I'm not an "amp-tinkerer" - I fear I'd blow something up trying to replace the output transformer.

 

I know different amp makers go after different nuances, but why did Epiphone go so "low frequency" ... it seems odd to me.

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