Tell me about the CAE 3+ SE preamp

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Zappatalist

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I've always been interested in the 3+ SE preamp, but there aren't a lot of quality demos available, and there certainly aren't any in stock in my local music stores to try out. A lot of name players whose tones I dig have used them in the past as the centerpiece of their sound, and from a feature standpoint it's pretty ideal. I'm in several bands that cover a lot of musical territory, so having a bunch of classic sounds available across the gain spectrum is key... but I'm also not up for scrolling through menus or presets, I need analog simplicity.

Background- I've been using a Fryette Power Station lately in tandem with a Bogner Atma, and it occurred to me that I could also use the PS in conjunction with a preamp (via the line in), and still make use of the effects loops on the PS. I figure a high-quality Fryette 50w tube power amp (2x6L6) ought to be able to do the job nicely, especially considering guys used VHT 2150s and Classics back in the heyday of rack rigs. Also, for what it's worth, speakers are Scumback M75s (I'm not a V30 guy, I've tried many times).

Anything anyone (who has had first hand experience with a 3+ SE) could tell me would be helpful. I really can only tell what they sound like from some lo-fi YouTube demos, and of course the recordings/live performances of some of my heroes, where there's so much processing down the line by the time I'm hearing them that it's difficult to say what's what.

Also, when I see these for sale, I often see them advertised as having mods done (using that as a selling point), so I'm curious- what are the popular mods, and will I want/need them if I get one of these?

Thanks in advance!
 
Well, it has a classic blackface clean, a hot plexi crunch channel and a quite compressed distortion channel that really shines for leads. It is firmly in the Marshall camp but has a very typical... I don´t wanna say fizz, because that´s such a negative term... but something sizzling to it that you either like or not. Tons of gain, and every last drop is usable.

About those mods, I think that there have been several unofficial revisions of these preamps simply depending on which manufacturer built them for Bradshaw/CAE, and the various mods are to get them all as close to the best ones. I believe the mods originated with John Suhr, which designed the thing to begin with and probably had his hands in many of the ones that ended up in the big racks. The mods are certainly not a must, but might be cool.
 
The 3+ SE sounds really, really good but is obviously less special today than back in 1990. That three-channel setup with blackface, plexi and a huge lead is basically the standard these days, but back in the 80s you more or less just had the Boogie preamps, the ADA and the Soldano X88, none of which are exactly that. Even if the 3+ is in many ways very close to the X88 there are some key differences, not the least in that clean tonality.
 
Again, definitely appreciated. I get what you're saying there, for sure. It was definitely more of a singularity in terms of functionality back in the day, and its feature set is pretty standard now.

I'm trying to keep all- or most- of my gigging gear as light and modular as possible these days. Hence, I use the Atma and a 1x12 cab for small gigs, and the Atma, the Power Station, and a larger 2x12 cab for bigger rooms. I'd like to have access to another flavor of amp, but I'm not up for going back to the days of the 40-50 lb. heads, and I'd ideally like to utilize what I already have (the Power Station) rather than get a completely separate solution. So... I've kind of arrived at preamps, and the 3+ SE was the first one that came to mind in terms of sound, quality, and feature set. Just kinda wish there was a way to demo one in person, ideally with my power amp and speakers, since they aren't exactly cheap or easy to track down.
 
Yeah, they´re not cheap, but at least they´re not collectable-expensive like the X88 or Fish.

Some other awfully cool and more affordable preamps you might want to check out include the Soldano SP77, Boogie Studio and Quad, Egnater/Rocktron IE4 and the Groove Tubes Trio. I´ve had all of those at one time or another, and they´re all totally pro and sound great.
 
^Cool, thanks for the suggestions! I had the GT Trio a while back (in a rack with a Soul-O 75 slave power amp), and it sounded great. The whole package was pretty heavy (considering it had the GT rack fan too, and traveled in a flight case), but it was indeed killer.
 
Cool, yeah, I miss the Trio from time to time. Another thing to consider is the Egnater/Randall modular MTS line and in particular the RM4 preamp... the stock Randall modules were pretty weak, but the commercial modders are simply doing wonders with that platform now.
 
^I have, but from what I can tell they're even more expensive and harder to come by than the 3+ SE! Seems like those are going for close to $3k right now.
 
Zappatalist":1zwlc2cw said:
^I have, but from what I can tell they're even more expensive and harder to come by than the 3+ SE! Seems like those are going for close to $3k right now.
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Bogner Fish for $3K??? Uh no. Maybe 5 years ago...they typically go for right around $2k or less.
 
^That's good to know, I was just going off of the ones I've seen for sale recently.

Considering I've never seen either in the wild, they're both sort of equally intriguing, I suppose.
 
IF you have the money, a Fish is a great route to go. I believe there's one on the guitar center's used site one for 2k and I believe they were willing to go down to 1900 when I spoke with them.

Back to the topic. I've had a SE+ at one point in time. It sounded really good for 80's tunes and had a very (for lack of a better description) marshally tone to it. In the end I wasn't a fan of the lead sound and moved on from it. Looking back it probably would have sounded better if I owned a better Power amp but I still don't regret selling it. I preferred the fish, triaxis, and X88 to the SE+ but of course YMMV. Sorry I'm not of much help, but there are lots of great options out there and in my case there are better. :)
 
best clean sound ever. Very good high gain sounds. I have a 4 space rack bag with the 3+se and a matrix power amp and it's easy to move, super loud and sounds great. the other 4 space has a g force, furman, axess cfx4, buffer, interface and pedal power in it…. great rig.
 
Zappatalist":2p8gn63i said:
^I have, but from what I can tell they're even more expensive and harder to come by than the 3+ SE! Seems like those are going for close to $3k right now.
Click to expand...

There's a couple on Reverb for high $2k's. I've already made offers & you won't get them for less than about $2.3k

Still a great price for a killer preamp
 
Sounds similar to the Suhr Riot pedal, if that's your thing.
 
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