08-05-2020, 10:40 AM
Of course we like distortion. But it has to be right sort of distortion. Which you've got with your design, albeit the expensive way.
You could get much the same effect using a low-distortion, state of the art solid state amplifier and some signal processing ahead of that. That processing might be tricky to achieve, but it would be feasible. This is a standard technique in recording studios - there's huge market for DAW plugins that add the desired types of distortion to give an analogue "warmth" to a modern recording. And people still use vintage mic pre-amps and compressors, or bounce stems out to an analogue tape machine. All commonly done - if anything, more so these days.
In the recording studio it's part of the artistic process. Doing it in your home - and applying the same broad brush to all recordings - is a matter of personal preference, but there are plenty who would find it an insult to the engineers who made the original recording. BTW, I'm not expressing my own opinion either way here - please don't think I'm having a dig at you.
I'd be tempted to try letting your amps drive a dummy load and then pass that through a solid-state amp. You'll get most, perhaps virtually all of what you're hearing right now - but you might need to play with the dummy load so that it looks more like the impedance curve of your speakers. Having done that, you could add a control that lets you mix between the "enhanced" sound from the valve amp and the "clean" sound before. Easy in theory, a few challenges to solve in practice. But quite doable. It would give you a convenient front panel control which you could label "Niceness", allowing you to choose your poison, according to the recording...
If the idea of running a valve amp into a dummy load just to get the right sort of distortion sounds like heresy, it's a common trick in the recording industry to allow guitar amps to be turned up to their optimum point for a required sound: https://www.thomann.de/gb/attenuators.html
To be honest, it might be worth investigating studio gear. What you clearly crave from your system is a modification of what the artists intended, and doing this at line level is whole lot easier and cheaper than building huge valve amps. To start with, investigate vintage compressors and poor quality audio transformers which can make "nice" distortion if you're lucky. Lots of options, all far cheaper than typical audiophile tweaks. Put it in a nice box and you'll make your millions selling them!
You could get much the same effect using a low-distortion, state of the art solid state amplifier and some signal processing ahead of that. That processing might be tricky to achieve, but it would be feasible. This is a standard technique in recording studios - there's huge market for DAW plugins that add the desired types of distortion to give an analogue "warmth" to a modern recording. And people still use vintage mic pre-amps and compressors, or bounce stems out to an analogue tape machine. All commonly done - if anything, more so these days.
In the recording studio it's part of the artistic process. Doing it in your home - and applying the same broad brush to all recordings - is a matter of personal preference, but there are plenty who would find it an insult to the engineers who made the original recording. BTW, I'm not expressing my own opinion either way here - please don't think I'm having a dig at you.
I'd be tempted to try letting your amps drive a dummy load and then pass that through a solid-state amp. You'll get most, perhaps virtually all of what you're hearing right now - but you might need to play with the dummy load so that it looks more like the impedance curve of your speakers. Having done that, you could add a control that lets you mix between the "enhanced" sound from the valve amp and the "clean" sound before. Easy in theory, a few challenges to solve in practice. But quite doable. It would give you a convenient front panel control which you could label "Niceness", allowing you to choose your poison, according to the recording...
If the idea of running a valve amp into a dummy load just to get the right sort of distortion sounds like heresy, it's a common trick in the recording industry to allow guitar amps to be turned up to their optimum point for a required sound: https://www.thomann.de/gb/attenuators.html
To be honest, it might be worth investigating studio gear. What you clearly crave from your system is a modification of what the artists intended, and doing this at line level is whole lot easier and cheaper than building huge valve amps. To start with, investigate vintage compressors and poor quality audio transformers which can make "nice" distortion if you're lucky. Lots of options, all far cheaper than typical audiophile tweaks. Put it in a nice box and you'll make your millions selling them!
