Twin Jet depth control responsiveness?

[Trippled]

Hi,

I've owned the amp for a while and just wondered, am I the only one who feels like the the depth isnt really responsive from
9 to 3 o'clock?

Just wanted to check if it's only myself.

Daniel.

 

[TheMagicEight]

I felt the same way when I had mine. Doesn't do anything until you get that knob pretty high up there.

 

[Trippled]

you sold your twin jet??

 

[TheMagicEight]

you sold your twin jet??

Yep, about 6 months ago. IMO, an amp that doesn't have a cold-biased preamp distortion stage (as opposed to the Soldano SLO, 2203 Marshall, Rectifiers, 5150....most high gain amps) shouldn't have plate voltage above ~450. The Twin Jet, 20th Anniv. Ecstasy, and Mesa Mark series (to name a few) have no cold biased distortion stage. IMO Mesa Mark series can pull this off since their plate voltages are lower, but the 20th Anniv. XTC and Twin Jet just come across as "flat" and fizzy on recordings, with power tube voltages around 525 for the XTC and 550 for the Twin Jet. Definitely not my thing.

 

[Trippled]

Kinda weird after all of your posts about it in here, but I guess people change.

I have mine for about 9 months now, still lovin' it, I think though that I should have gone
with rev blue since I almost never use the 1st channel for it's drive, always set to clean.

It has an ok clean sound with the depth maxed out, but I guess it's still not rev blue clean.

 

[glip22]

you sold your twin jet??

Yep, about 6 months ago. IMO, an amp that doesn't have a cold-biased preamp distortion stage (as opposed to the Soldano SLO, 2203 Marshall, Rectifiers, 5150....most high gain amps) shouldn't have plate voltage above ~450. The Twin Jet, 20th Anniv. Ecstasy, and Mesa Mark series (to name a few) have no cold biased distortion stage. IMO Mesa Mark series can pull this off since their plate voltages are lower, but the 20th Anniv. XTC and Twin Jet just come across as "flat" and fizzy on recordings, with power tube voltages around 525 for the XTC and 550 for the Twin Jet. Definitely not my thing.

Maybe you have it backwards. The SLO is cold biased though.
In general the high gain comes from the number of gain stages you use, rather than how warm or cold the preamp stages are biased. Interestingly, a SLO-style very cold clipping stage has relatively little gain, due to the amount of NFB across the very large cathode resistor.
In terms of relative pros and cons, cold biased stages tend to sound fizzier when overdriven, and then usually some high end filtering is used to reduce the excess fizziness. A CF is also typically used to reduce some harshness. Warm biased distortion stages have a thicker tone with more growl, and don't require the filtering and CF. You also get more gain in the stages where the clipping is happening. I find it surprising that more amps don't use warm-biased gain stages. There is probably also a good case to be made for preamps using both types of distortion.

 

[se7en]

Yeah definitely... cold biased stages are prone to fizz and reduce sustain, that's why snubber caps and other band-aid methods are used to combat the fizziness. There's tricks to using a warm-biased stage followed by a normal stage that have a similar effect to what a cold-biased stage does.

 

[TheMagicEight]

Kinda weird after all of your posts about it in here, but I guess people change.

I sold my amp for 2 reasons. First, the two channels didn't "match". I could never get them to work together in a live situation so there wasn't an awkward change from one to another. They sounded too different from each other, and for me, not in a good way.

Second was because of my problems with fizziness I mentioned earlier. The 20th Anniv. XTC was the same way for me on the Red channel. When recorded, both amps came across as fizzy and a bit dull. Perhaps fuzz is a better word than fizz, if that makes a difference. And while they did both have an excellent feel that I haven't gotten out of an amp with a cold biased stage, I just wasn't getting the tones I wanted on the recordings.

So that said, I suppose I've changed after working with them in the studio. Yes, they're fantastic amps, but I think there are better out there.

Maybe you have it backwards. The SLO is cold biased though.
In general the high gain comes from the number of gain stages you use, rather than how warm or cold the preamp stages are biased. Interestingly, a SLO-style very cold clipping stage has relatively little gain, due to the amount of NFB across the very large cathode resistor.
In terms of relative pros and cons, cold biased stages tend to sound fizzier when overdriven, and then usually some high end filtering is used to reduce the excess fizziness. A CF is also typically used to reduce some harshness. Warm biased distortion stages have a thicker tone with more growl, and don't require the filtering and CF. You also get more gain in the stages where the clipping is happening. I find it surprising that more amps don't use warm-biased gain stages. There is probably also a good case to be made for preamps using both types of distortion.

I'm not sure about the Uber or Mark series - I haven't looked closely enough - but interestingly, the 20th Anniv. XTC has far more high end filtering than the SLO. And I do like amps that use all warm biased gain stages (really liking the Mark V so far). Just not - IME - when plate voltage on the power tubes is higher than ~ 450.

 

[se7en]

We all hear things differently, I guess. To me, when I think of flat and fizzy I think of Mesa.

 

[TheMagicEight]

We all hear things differently, I guess. To me, when I think of flat and fizzy I think of Mesa.

I have a few tricks up my sleeve with future builds. In the next few months, I'll be putting together what I think will be one of the best sounding amps out there. I have the tone in my head; just need to bring it to life.

 

[Trippled]

We all hear things differently, I guess. To me, when I think of flat and fizzy I think of Mesa.

ME too, hate mesas (-:

 

[se7en]

We all hear things differently, I guess. To me, when I think of flat and fizzy I think of Mesa.

I have a few tricks up my sleeve with future builds. In the next few months, I'll be putting together what I think will be one of the best sounding amps out there. I have the tone in my head; just need to bring it to life.

That's cool. Good luck with that.

 

[TheMagicEight]

We all hear things differently, I guess. To me, when I think of flat and fizzy I think of Mesa.

ME too, hate mesas (-:

Which Mesas? Most sound pretty awful to me as well, though early 2ch Rectifiers and some of the Mark series (with the right settings) I do like.

 

[Trippled]

Double post.

 

[Trippled]

Old rectifiers - Maybe.
I dont like their general philosophy for sound - they have very different amps but they all have some charcter in common,
bogner are like that as well, to me all bogners are sounding great, there'sd something in their mid structure that became their signature sound that just never stops to amaze me, I never heard a mesa that I liked though, just not my thing.