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To: Yardstick

“But what makes Marshall amplifiers great is their distortion sound. “


I know some care for that distortion and given how many fuzz boxes were sold which created 50% distortion it may be a lot of people care for that. There will always be people with more money than brains or taste but it is their money and taste is just individual taste so bless anyone who can make money with mediocrity.

I grew up with Hi-Fi and Stereo systems where you did everything possible to eliminate distortion to reproduce the sound of the original instruments.

There were a bunch of dope smokin hippys who equated distortion with very high decibels as that is what you got when you ran the gain up higher than the amp/speaker could handle.

A lot of money was and continues to be spent on questionable music with almost unlimited distortion and the sound of real instruments is completely lost. For example, remember you cannot spell crap without rap.

Fortunately in our society we can choose what we spend our money on, (at least until Odumbo tells us what music to buy) and there is enough choices for all of us.

Distortion??? No thanks it is like pencils in my ears. I like the occasional very loud music, which the pipe organ or orchestra, or band can deliver in almost unlimited db Levels with no distortion whatsoever.


41 posted on 04/06/2012 8:06:04 AM PDT by Wurlitzer (Welcome to the new USSA (United Socialist States of Amerika))
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To: Wurlitzer

Sorry for the double post but the laptop crashed just as I was posting this.

Anyway, regarding amps/speakers and distortion. The only way you can amplify and reproduce an audio signal without distortion is to have a perfectly linear system. Any non-linear component will create distortion and the more non-linear the greater the distortion.

As of this date, there are no amps/speaker systems on the market that are completely linear although they have come damned close and more than likely the distortion is below what a real human can detect. Some who believe in gas filled cables or gold escutcheon screws will claim they can hear it but it is highly unlikely.

Even in the high end systems, when you push up the volume level you start clipping (a very bad non-linear condition) and yuck starts to happen.


42 posted on 04/06/2012 8:14:35 AM PDT by Wurlitzer (Welcome to the new USSA (United Socialist States of Amerika))
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To: Wurlitzer
There were a bunch of dope smokin hippys who equated distortion with very high decibels as that is what you got when you ran the gain up higher than the amp/speaker could handle.

You seem to have enjoyed using this thread as a forum to bash rock and roll music as well as the people who listen to it. Your opinion notwithstanding, rock music was for fifty years the dominant genre of music in popular culture taking off in the early 1950s and only recently being replaced by rap/hip-hop in terms of popularity.

An overdriven electric guitar was the primary instrument in this genre. Rock is not rock unless the guitar is distorted and this is where Jim Marshall was such an important force. You see, the electric guitar is actually a system of two components, each useless without the other. There is the instrument itself and there is the amplifier. To say the amplifier masks the "real" sound of the guitar makes absolutely no sense. The amplifier is as much a part of the "real" sound of an electric guitar as the pieces of wood and strings slung over the player's shoulder.

Distortion??? No thanks it is like pencils in my ears.

Thanks for sharing. Me? I like the sound of Gibson Les Pauls plugged into dimed Marshall Plexis. There is nothing else like it.

44 posted on 04/06/2012 8:49:28 AM PDT by Drew68
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