A/B: ES2 vs K&K through Red-Eye

[drumstrummer]

It's widely believed that the Red-Eye preamp and K&K pure mini are a match made in heaven, and that is my position as well. But I haven't seen a lot of information about how well Taylor's ES2 pairs with a Red-Eye. So, I'm here to report my experience.

In short, the experiment was a success.

Having lost my old Red-Eye on the road somewhere, I recently bought the Red-Eye Twin, which worked great to A/B between my Seagull Artist Studio outfitted with the K&K, and my Taylor 512ce 12-fret with the latest ES2.

On the A side of my RE Twin, the K&K: for balanced sound I boost the treble a bit and turn down the gain so those knobs are sorta "toed out" about 30 degrees each. On the B side, the ES2: for equivalent gain, I turn it up a bit, and for a balanced sound the treble is down a bit, so the knobs are "toed in" toward each other, also about 30 degrees each.

With this configuration they both sound incredible and can be played together with A+B switched on, and compliment each other well.

Not surprisingly the Taylor has a more crisp high end naturally, but that very musical treble knob on the Red-Eye is just as useful for rolling that off a bit and warming up the signal as it is for boosting treble to tame the boom on a K&K.

So, if you are like I was, thinking about investing in a Red-Eye but hesitating because you don't know how it will work with your Taylor. Fret not, they will get along just fine.