Marshall 2203X VS 1985 2203 and Zakk Wylde 2203....video by 'THE COUNT'

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Racerxrated said:
Meh....I had one of the rare "1 of 18" Morin pre amps, ran it through my 800 FX loop, and a 120w Peavey tube power amp and while cool, it wasn't anything super special.
My 72, Nick mods, Camerons all had a better sound. I'm sure there are better Morin Marshalls out there but I consider my Morin experience fulfilled. I wouldn't overpay for one, that's for sure.
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Judging by his recordings, Medics morin marshall absolutely kills anything ive heard out of the morin preamps, but that is just personal taste of course
 
Cool, but I'd rather watch a Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry comparison video. It'd be crunchier.
 
thegame said:
Cool, but I'd rather watch a Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry comparison video. It'd be crunchier.
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Everytime the count palm mutes and it makes that big zakk wylde SD1 boost "FLUMBFT" sound where all of the frequencies between like 80 and 500 are just like a flat undistorted fart sound it makes me die inside a bit

The fact that people think this is like a generational guitar tone is mind boggling
 
DanTravis62 said:
Everytime the count palm mutes and it makes that big zakk wylde SD1 boost "FLUMBFT" sound where all of the frequencies between like 80 and 500 are just like a flat undistorted fart sound it makes me die inside a bit

The fact that people think this is like a generational guitar tone is mind boggling
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My philosophy is if you need a boost it better be a CLEAN boost. Adding pedal clipping to amplifier preamp distortion sounds like dogshit to me.
 
DanTravis62 said:
Judging by his recordings, Medics morin marshall absolutely kills anything ive heard out of the morin preamps, but that is just personal taste of course
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I've not liked sound or feel of any rack preamps I've had nearly as much as a full head counterpart and would guess the same would probably hold true with Morin preamps vs modded Marshall's

I've had a Langner DCP-1 with Hyper mod (no contest vs the Langner modded Marshall I had), Demeter TGP-3 (TGA-3 head was much better), tried a Bogner Fish, and will find out soon about the Mako Dorado vs the Dorado ch on the MK4 Pre I had, still have an Aguilar 1911 rack pre, but no amp I'm aware of is similar to that

Something about the sound and feel of rack pre's almost reminds me of playing modeling amps. Still of course much better than that, but somehow it gives me that feeling
 
braintheory said:
I've not liked sound or feel of any rack preamps I've had nearly as much as a full head counterpart and would guess the same would probably hold true with Morin preamps vs modded Marshall's

I've had a Langner DCP-1 with Hyper mod (no contest vs the Langner modded Marshall I had), Demeter TGP-3 (TGA-3 head was much better), tried a Bogner Fish, and will find out soon about the Mako Dorado vs the Dorado ch on the MK4 Pre I had, still have an Aguilar 1911 rack pre, but no amp I'm aware of similar to that

Something about the sound and feel of rack pre's almost remind me of modeling amps. Still of course better than that, but somehow it gives me that feeling
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I think certain power sources determine this to some degree.. The VHT 2150 seems to improve the tone of a good pre. The soldano Power amp as well.
 
alund said:
I think certain power sources determine this to some degree.. The VHT 2150 seems to improve the tone of a good pre. The soldano Power amp as well.
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I disagree. I have a '90's 2150 (which is what I use most for power amps), Langner Brutus power amp and also use just the power amp of some of my heads when playing these rack pre's. I do my homework as thoroughly as I can testing these rack pre's vs the pre's of my heads in the same power amps to try to make it apples vs apples (sometimes also both going into the power amp of the head itself I'm comparing to) and so this is where I'm coming from in finding rack pre's always falling short IME vs a good amp equivalent

I'd like to try a Soldano power amp. Rack power amps I like if it's a good one, but haven't heard a rack pre yet hold up well vs a good amp

Specifically with the Demeter's, I played my TGP-3 into the power amp of the TGA-3 head via the fx loop, compared to just the head itself, also ran both the TGA-3 pre into the 2150, did the same with the TGP-3 and the TGP-3 was IME inferior in feel and tone, lacking in nuances of the actual amp's sound. I think it was though as far as preamps go maybe the best one I've tried so far. Very good for a rack pre
 
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thegame said:
My philosophy is if you need a boost it better be a CLEAN boost. Adding pedal clipping to amplifier preamp distortion sounds like dogshit to me.
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I disagree, although there definitely is some truth there with the best amps not needing boosts

If it wasn't for pedal clipping I wouldn't be able to use any amp except for ones that cost 3 trillion dollars because they're all too farty and loose
 
braintheory said:
I disagree. I have a '90's 2150 (which is what I use most for power amps), Langner Brutus power amp and also use just the power amp of some of my heads when playing these rack pre's. I do my homework as thoroughly as I can testing these rack pre's vs the pre's of my head in the same power amps to try to make it apples vs apples (sometimes also both going into the power amp of the head itself I'm comparing to) and so this is where I'm coming from in finding rack pre's always falling short IME vs a good amp

I'd like to try a Soldano power amp. Rack power amps I like if it's a good one, but haven't heard a rack pre yet hold up well vs a good amp
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This is a good discussion because I have the slo power source and the soldano 100 head. Probably worth doing a side by side with the superlead myasnikov vs Caswell vs head alone. I am pretty happy with my pre’s and the right power. That doesn’t mean what is in my head also lives in yours but I’m satisfied with certain combinations.
 
braintheory said:
I've not liked sound or feel of any rack preamps I've had nearly as much as a full head counterpart and would guess the same would probably hold true with Morin preamps vs modded Marshall's

I've had a Langner DCP-1 with Hyper mod (no contest vs the Langner modded Marshall I had), Demeter TGP-3 (TGA-3 head was much better), tried a Bogner Fish, and will find out soon about the Mako Dorado vs the Dorado ch on the MK4 Pre I had, still have an Aguilar 1911 rack pre, but no amp I'm aware of is similar to that

Something about the sound and feel of rack pre's almost reminds me of playing modeling amps. Still of course much better than that, but somehow it gives me that feeling
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I think that's true to some extent, but at least for me i don't think it's a hard and fast rule.

The wilcox DCP1 clone I had absolutely killed with everything I used as a power amp, including a cheap ass rocktron 2x50 1 space rack power amp, tube amps, power station, and a million other things.

I definitely preferred the SLO amps to the sp77,88, 99 preamps as far as that goes - and I tried all of them at mikes old shop in west seattle.
 
alund said:
This is a good discussion because I have the slo power source and the soldano 100 head. Probably worth doing a side by side with the superlead myasnikov vs Caswell vs head alone. I am pretty happy with my pre’s and the right power. That doesn’t mean what is in my head also lives in yours but I’m satisfied with certain combinations.
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That would be interesting with the Soldano. Of course we may have different taste in sounds we like, but in the case of these rack vs head comparisons I feel like it's comparing the same flavors (like the Demeter TGA-3 vs TGP-3), the amp head just was for me a much better version of it. I couldn't hear any benefit to the preamp versions when compared, only drawbacks, but maybe it's just me. The head versions seem like just a more organic and tonally complex version IME. I don't see any benefit to losing that with the pre versions I've had
 
DanTravis62 said:
I think that's true to some extent, but at least for me i don't think it's a hard and fast rule.

The wilcox DCP1 clone I had absolutely killed with everything I used as a power amp, including a cheap ass rocktron 2x50 1 space rack power amp, tube amps, power station, and a million other things.

I definitely preferred the SLO amps to the sp77,88, 99 preamps as far as that goes - and I tried all of them at mikes old shop in west seattle.
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I haven't tried a Wilcox, but the real Langner DCP-1 Pre (with hyper mod) I had had all the things I didn't like about any pre's I've had. On its own it sounded actually quite impressive, but when compared to the pre's of just my favorite heads running through the same power amp as the DCP-1 was going through to make it fair, every time it made the DCP-1 comparatively sound almost like a modeling amp to me despite how good it sounded on its own. This has been my experience so far with all the rack pre's I've had. Something about it seems like there's a big compromise at least to me

Just my theory, but maybe guys are very impressed with the sounds they get running a preamp like that into a great power amp like a 2150 and don't think to compare it apples to apples with just the pre's of their good amp heads and don't realize what's lacking with the actual rack pre. Just my thoughts. I've not been satisfied with the ones I've had
 
DanTravis62 said:
I disagree, although there definitely is some truth there with the best amps not needing boosts

If it wasn't for pedal clipping I wouldn't be able to use any amp except for ones that cost 3 trillion dollars because they're all too farty and loose
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Let me clarify, by pedal clipping I meant dialing the gain on the pedal higher and as a result, the pedal's own distortion gets superimposed on the amp's distortion. Distortion on top of already high gain distortion is what I hate. Most ODs still have some dirt even with their gain at 0.

Pedal clipping could also be interpreted as dialing the pedal as clean as possible but pushing it's output to overdrive the amp. That's ok.
 
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