Randall MTS Recto vs. Erect Module

[Mercury25]

I happened upon a used Randall Recto module practically new in the box for about $130.
Other than the fact that it is a Randall module and lacks the dual channel feature, can anyone shed some light on any other tonal differences between the Recto and Erect?

I "occasionally" need the Rectifier sound and it seems like a good deal, but I would not hesitate to drop the $$ on the Egnater if there are major differences I'm not aware of.

Thanks!

 

[jkdsteve]

I've owned 3 Recto modules, still own a Grail and now an Erect.

The Erect seems to share that same characteristic of the Egnater modules over the randall equivalents..they seem to sound a little smoother. I noticed something about the Erect too..it seems I can scoop the mids a little more and still have mids if that makes sense...9 o'clock on the Erect seems to be about 11 on the Randall.

Another point of note...I'm using my Randall RM50HB as a power amp for the M4...if I run the Erect in the M4 it will sound a little different than in the head itself....different components and one (2?) more halfs of an ax7 in the signal path too...
..like wise if I take the Grail out of my RM50HB and put it in the M4 it will sound slightly smoother and darker....

I'm fairly sure that's all signal path...

Conclusion - the Recto module will get you 90% of the way there..if you want to go 95%, mod a couple of caps and resistors...

You can also play some pre-amp yube swapping games can change the character of certain parts of the frequency spectrum...I never went to the extremes of trying same tubes in each module...just generally settled on the Shugang ax7 r8 or r9 in Recto type modules.

 

[Mercury25]

Thanks for the reply!

"Close enough" might be is good enough, considering how much I'll use it.
Do you have any info or links to the cap/resistor mods you are referring to?

 

[jkdsteve]

Thanks for the reply!

"Close enough" might be is good enough, considering how much I'll use it.
Do you have any info or links to the cap/resistor mods you are referring to?

Yeah...I bought a Recto for $100, made 3 component changes and it was pretty good....of course the twin channel, bright and bass switching may be worth $350 to $400 to you..it was to me, which is why I bought an M$ (lol...a common typo on 'merkin keyboards)

When I'm looking at Egnater boards, I'm seeing different makes/types of caps and resistors in certain positions...I'm assuming they're key tonal positions.

Egnater already has switchable bass coupling but the original Recto modules came with something like 47pf in c3..22 is an improvement...1 even more so (tightness of distortion) (I might have my powers of ten mixed up tho ;0) )

Changing R1 and R3 I think changes the distortion a little too.

Pete (stratotone) might be a guy to ask, since he's looked at both and does some really nice mods on the Randall stuff.

I don't want to upset Jeff or Bruce (on their forum) by implying any favourtism...all has merit, the more modules the better

 

[EWSEthan]

JKD sounds like much more of an expert on this than me, but from what I remember reading at the grailtone forums... the Randall Recto doesnt sound as much like a Recto as the Egnater E-Rect or the Randall Grail.

Not sure how accurate or helpful that statement is...

 

[jkdsteve]

JKD sounds like much more of an expert on this than me, but from what I remember reading at the grailtone forums... the Randall Recto doesnt sound as much like a Recto as the Egnater E-Rect or the Randall Grail.

Not sure how accurate or helpful that statement is...

Thanks for calling me an 'expert' but I'm a really terrible guitar player..have just had some time to spend on this since it's actually one of my favourite modules I also actually owned 4 or 5 different Rectos at various levels in my experience with tube amps though.....People with a better ear should have the name expert tho

In the room, to my ears, I can dial the same Metallica style tone with a Recto module as I could with a 2ch Dual in either vintage or modern mode....I couldn't really record them the same though...but I suck at that too

Someone (maybe Pete) made a study of the difference between the Grail and a Recto and I think it came down to about 3 or 4 component value changes...but there are different caps too..silver mica vs. poly etc. This last difference is the main diff. I see with the Egnater modules..the large brown resistors and different caps etc. I mean a resistance is a resistance, a capacitance is a capcitance....but tone doesn't come from transfer function alone