[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by jesseallen

This is my first time on this forum but I just wanted to share something I discovered with my CTP-2 pre-amps. First off, I have two high end Tak's....a EF-360sc which I replaced the original CT-4B pre-amp with the cool tube and a Tan which had one already built in. I was trying to find a magnetic sound hole type pickup which would "fatten" out the sound against the piezo in the bridge.

It seemed like there was always a "compatibility" issue between the cool tube and the magnetic pickup. If I ran the cool tube by itself it was fine (though it would feedback more the more I turned it up), but if I ran it along side the auxiliary magnetic it made the magnetic pickup sound terrible, very thin and trebly. I tried putting new 12AU7's in but that didn't help.

Anyway, long story short....I ended up removing the tube all together and just using the magnetic sound hole pickup plugged into the CTP-2 pre-amp auxiliary input. It all works....tuner, EQ's, volume switch, etc. I presently have one guitar set up with a passive LR Baggs M1 which sounds very good IMO....picks up the sound board vibrations along with the magnetic pickup. And I also am using a Fishman Neo-Buster humbucker magnetic pickup in the other guitar. This is less expensive pickup but has the built in "feedback buster" which I liked. This has a darker sound as it is just a magnetic pickup. But, it works pretty well if you want a "meatier" tone.

I am not a technical guy and I am sure there is probably another pickup which would be more compatible with the cool tube but I was pleasantly surprised to find the pre-amp works without the tube. Obviously, the volume slider does not do anything on the tube side but i run the magnetic pickup full out on the auxiliary rotary switch and just use the slider switch to control the volume. Pretty cool actually....

I do like the cool tube with just using it alone....I think it works great I just needed a little more "meat and potatoes" in my playing situation.

I gather you didn't try using the Takamine Tri-Ax2 or earlier version of this magnetic pickup? Wouldn't this magnetic pickup have been the one to try as it's matched to the CoolTube preamp?