The preamp’s basic design is the same although the limiter is different and I get many comments on it working great, but the other difference is in the sound of the parts. There hasn’t been much improvement made since then. The Eden, SWR, and Thunderfunk power amps are all the same basic 1980’s HiFi design, when transistor power amps were perfected. The amps that I’m most in competition with are the Walter Woods Ultra 1200, and the iAMP 800, both digital, and more powerful. I think many players are willing to pay a little more for an amp, but can’t afford to spend twice as much, and the large companies that can bring the price down with mass production, aren‘t in this market. I quite often get thanked for even building this amp. It’s like getting a boutique amp at a mass produced price. We’re small enough that the added expense doesn’t add up to the kind of money that attracts an accountant’s attention, and our sales are small enough that the slightly higher street price of the amp isn‘t critical. So an amp design can be easily improved, but it adds a couple hundred dollars to the street price. Ceramic caps always sound harsh, but only cost a nickel. These caps lower the amp’s low frequency distortion and provide the solid, clear low end the amp has.Īll of these changes could have been made without listening to the amp. Then we increased the amount of power supply filtering from 15,600uF to 23,400, and currently it’s up to 27,200, with an option to go to 40,800, two and a half times what we started with. We changed the 5-watt power supply resistors to 10-watts so they wouldn’t unsolder themselves anymore. We also made a new double-sided preamp board to eliminate the flying jumper wires that were making noise. I started the redesign with a new preamp board and we immediately changed all the signal path caps from electrolytic and ceramic to polyester film and silver-mica. The amp is very similar to Eden and SWR amps, yet it sounds different. How is your current product similar / different from previous AMP and subsequent Gibson products? In my exchanges with him on the topic he seemed to hear it as I've described above.Ĭan the amp be bought separately? If so for how much? 'Cause if you don't want the amp I'll bet someone else here might.Ĭlick to expand.well, given that dave worked at gibson, i'm sure he saw alot of shortcomings in the GB-440, all of which culminate in a more improved TF, thus his striving to make it more robust in terms of better parts, etc. You might want to PM Brad Johnson for another opinion as he actually owns and has gigged a couple GB440 and the TF. It's possibly due to "inferior" parts as older op amps seem to be known for this characteristic. The TF may well have parts made to "better" tolerances but they sound exactly the same except for the only sonic difference I could perceive which was subtle - the GB440 has more grind in the mids which I prefer in a mix. ![]() I have owned both concurrently, gigged both a bunch, and carefully A/B'd both. Is there a link? He did agree with this assessment though. Funk claiming improved low end clarity nor did he mention it in our conversations on what the sonic difference might be. I disagree about the TF being more robust and I've never read of Mr.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |