My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

[LukeGilmour]

the amp is a SS fender princeton chorus.
on volume 1-2 it sounds great, with a lot of clarity
3-4 it still retains a lot of quality, but it begins to sound harsh, muddy, too middy (i really dont know how to express this)
5-6 and above its just awful.. it loses all the things that made it a lovely clean amp in the first place

why does this happen? maybe a speaker problem?
it got stock eminence speakers 10", should i change em?

thanks!

(could add a sondclip if its useful)

 

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

Well .... Most people would say that that's what happens with SS amps when you crank up gain and volume ... it definately happens with my Kustom 15 watter its great up to about 4, after that .... I dont know, try a good distortion pedal into your Fender cranked but clean ...

 

[millsart]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

I honestly wouldn't put money into changing speakers on a SS amp, they may be a bit of the issue with the muddy sound, but basically the problem is the SS

SS sounds nice and clean until you push it and then instead of the nice musical distortion and breakup of a tube amp, it just gets harsh as it clips.

If you want to play louder with a SS amp, you need a much higher rated amp


Thats the very reason why it takes a 100watt SS amp to hang with something like a 30watt tube amp

 

[WhoFan]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

it's mostly the speakers in that amp... my Princton Chorus's speakers start cr*pping out above 4 on the volume dial... mostly on the low notes... It is a basic SS amp for around the house really....

most SS amps to me do not sound their best cranked...

The Ultimate Chorus i also own has some better headroom with 130 watts and 2x12 speakers but still it's not the loudest amp...

these Fender Chorus amps i love to jam and practice thru but for playing in a band they do not cut thru at all....

 

[Kosh Naranek]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

My forst guitar amp, a Peavey solid state amp, did the same thing. Sounded awful cranked up.

 

[kjrocks]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

I agree with WhoFan. I had an Ulitmate Chorus for years and loved the tone but I couldnt keep up with the band. Dont laugh, but I moved to the Roc Pro and with a quick tube change its a great,cheap,versatile and loud amp. It has loud crystal cleans and sick gain.More than most would ever need.

 

[Reckless Abandon]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

Get tubes and you will not have the problem. Solid state amps alway sound like poop to me cranked. Although some get good sound out of them cranked.

 

[tone4days]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

i am not sure how helpful it is telling a guy to get a new amp .. yes, we all know that a bigger newer amp can solve a problem ... the point is, what can he do with what he has

have you tried turning down the bass EQ as you crank up ... if it is turning into a farty muddy mess, that might be someplace to start trying to make it more useful

does this amp have a master volume and some kind of gain or channel volume ? .. if so, crank the master and use the channel gain as loud as you can stand the tone ... adding more channel gain will just make things worse ... and if you have supper hot pickups on the guitar, you might need to dial back from 10 to 8 or so ...

you might be able to make it sound louder with a better speaker (more sensitivity / higher power rating) ... but i am not sure that i'd throw more $$ at that - after all, a single 10" is still a single 10" ... prolly better to save your dough towards a new amp ...

ultimately, yes, any amp - tube or ss - that is running out of clean headroom will not retain the clarity ...

good luck
t4d

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

That is the nature of SS. It's more than just an issue of how much headroom and avoiding harsh clipping. SS devices operate on low voltage and higher current. Tubes operate on high voltage and low current. This means that tubes can handle sudden transient signals and still have a lively sound with sparkle, and SS amps loose that sparkle and depth as you turn up.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

i've owned many Princton Chorus amps over the years... since 88 or so i've had 3-4 go thru my hands... and an Ultra in the early 90's was my main amp, (a Power Chorus for a week), I sold Princtons and Ultras over the years for louder tube amps... but i found i missed that stereo high gain fuzzy sound at home in my bedroom... so i bought a Princton Chorus again in the late 90's and have hung onto it since, 10 years now i guess... just last year i had a used 90's Ultimate fall into my hands for a few hundred... it died a week after i bought it but after a trip to the amp tech it has worked fine since...

i hate the DSP versions of these amps... the Analog Reverb and Chorus effects make these amps what they are...

i tried fruitless times to get these amps to work in bands but they don't really cut it... sometimes i think it's the freq's they produce that makes them disappear in the mix... sometimes i think it's the stereo nature of the amp... They don't really mic up that well and when recording they really sound too fuzzy even with the gain cut way back...

for spaceish Clean sounds they seem to work well until you mic it

i did have a few great times using a Princton Chorus in stereo with a SS Marshall 1x12... the Marshall added the volume, extra bass, and the clarity that was lacking with just the Princton Chorus on it's own... those 2 amps were my set up for a few years and i loved it!!!

so i basicly leave the Princton Chorus for home practices but found a set up that offers me some of that type of sound in a band setting... My Classic 30 combo with a Boss DS1 and Boss Chorus get me real close to that Fenders sound but louder and better cutting clarity in a band... and teh Clean Channel of the C30 with the Chorus is even better then the sound i get from the SS Fenders...

oneday at the local shop i found a new DSP Stage 100 head for $250.... it had been hanging around for ages and the store wanted rid of it... i picked it up... it says it's 100 watts but my C50 head thru the same cab will eat it for sure!!! a big difference between Tube and SS ratings i guess

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

man this is all great advice & all but for real i think this is just a reason to buy a louder amp, with tubes & more speakers.

i mean i know that's probably bad advice cause i dunno what your budgets are or anything like that, but when i first started learning about the science of amps & stuff i was always looking for shortcuts that would somehow be better than the smart decision.

ok check it out, i went through 2 silverface bassman heads and ran em with pedals. Problem is they sounded bad at high volumes. Solution would be to get an amp that sounded best when it was loud, like a marshall or something that sounded similar to a marshall. But no, i had to look into mods, make that amp as loud & clean as possible, and try to find ways to fix the terrible midrange. With all the stuff i did i could have probably bought a JMP. It was kinda nuts. But then on a whim i bought this traynor head that people said you could get soundin like a marshall real easy and they were cheap and way loud for what they were. So i bought one, had some old dudes i knew through another dude change out some parts. Done. I mean it's by no means exactly what i want, but it's close enough for me to still really like it.

so yeah dude, buy a bigger amp.

 

[vegetablejoe]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

The Princeton Chorus (stereo 2x10") I used to own did great clean and clear until about 4-5 on the vol. knob; thereafter it didn't get any louder and just got more distorted. That seems the standard output for this particular amp. Which makes it great for home practice.

If you can only do pristine cleans up to 2, then there really is something wrong with your amp, imo...

 

[alex1fly]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

An EQ pedal will help you cut through by boosting the frequencies that reproduce your attack and cut through the mix (800 hz is pick attack to my ears) and you can also cut the muddy frequencies. It's a lot cheaper than a new amp, and is a useful tool that you should have anyways.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

An EQ pedal will help you cut through by boosting the frequencies that reproduce your attack and cut through the mix (800 hz is pick attack to my ears) and you can also cut the muddy frequencies. It's a lot cheaper than a new amp, and is a useful tool that you should have anyways.

i don't see this being a great help... the Princton Chorus is a real mid range piggy and adding more mid range to cut thru will make it sound like a bad AM radio station on a clock radio... Besides a big issue with these amps is the Speakers cr*ping out too really

EQ pedals can help add many wonderful things but they don't fix an amp that is not meant for more volume then a practice amp... i tried everything with my Princtons Chorus and Ultimate Chorus amps over the years and they just don't work in bands...

my old 1990 era Solid State Fender Deluxe 90 cut thru better then the Princton did... but not by much...

i was using my Princton Chorus amp tonight to jam along to the Stones tune Monkey Man... if i could find a rig that would give me that openess and full sound at a higher volume i'm sure i'd be using it... The Ultimate's extra volume on tap and the louder larger speakers help... but even then it does still get lost in the mix with a band...

 

[LesStrat]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

My amp does that too!

No...wait...it's because it makes ME louder.:smack::doh:

















Perluss Whun to t4d's suggestions.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

My amp does that too!

No...wait...it's because it makes ME louder.:smack::doh:




Perluss Whun to t4d's suggestions.

are you a shy player LesStrat

 

[Thunder7]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

Are you using this in a band situation? I had to use a small Fender Princeton 65 for a lot of practices and a few gigs. My way around trying to turn that "beast" up was micing and running through the PA. Worked out great and actually sounded pretty good too. I read an article some time ago about how when you turn an amp up the EQ changes and you have to re-EQ the amp and the level that you'll be playing, I don't remember what it's called. I stumbled across this page looking for it, http://www.amptone.com/index.html, that might be able to give you some pointers. You really might need a new amp, but until then make the best you can out of what you have.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: My amp sounds worse and worse as i crank it up

Are you using this in a band situation? I had to use a small Fender Princeton 65 for a lot of practices and a few gigs. My way around trying to turn that "beast" up was micing and running through the PA. Worked out great and actually sounded pretty good too. I read an article some time ago about how when you turn an amp up the EQ changes and you have to re-EQ the amp and the level that you'll be playing, I don't remember what it's called. I stumbled across this page looking for it, http://www.amptone.com/index.html, that might be able to give you some pointers. You really might need a new amp, but until then make the best you can out of what you have.

good advice..