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Old 01-05-2012, 01:46 AM
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Doug Young Doug Young is offline
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Location: Mountain View, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
Here is a comparison of two high end preamps,
Rick, very interesting. the two examples certainly do sound different. How were these done? Separate takes? Part of my point is that, tho there may be differences in preamps, the differences are dwarfed by other factors, such as 2 different performances. There is about a 3 db difference in the volume of the left sides of these takes (huge in the context of A/B'ing), tho the right side is about the same. In addition to the level differences, this causes a shift in the stereo image, which of course makes the sound be different. (its possible that both the level difference and stereo image shift are caused by a subtle difference in how you sat or held the guitar) After correcting for that, I don't hear a huge difference in the two, tho there is some interesting differences when I compare frequency profiles. There are differences at some frequencies of almost 8db in levels. My guess is that this is merely due to it being two performances, subtle differences in attack, etc. If indeed the inputs are identical (i.e this was a single take sent simultaneously to two preamps), then at least one of the preamps is not linear in its behavior. Fran of course is assuming "transparent" linear circuits. If a circuit is non-linear, either it is broken, or is deliberately trying to convey some "character", and is basically an effect.
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