Lonestar vs Cal Tweed... anyone have both?

[rarebitusa]

For those who do or maybe did... wondering what the comparisons are? Also curious about the CA Tweeds 6V6 vs the el84s in the LSS or the 6L6 LSC.

 

[jrperser]

I have both the LSS (EL84) and the LSC (currently with 6L6's, though I've run E34s in it as well). Neither one of these amps sound like the California Tweeds to me, and I've had the opportunity to A/B them.

 

[bandit2013]

I do not have both so my opinion is mute.

The CT is a very different circuit than what you would find with the lone star series. The CT only has one gain stage triode V1A. It makes use of a DC coupled cathode follower tone stack driver (assumed as V2AB is classified as the tone stack driver in the tube task chart). The one similarity is the FX loop as the send triode is a cathode follower. Also, the reverb runs a dual triode circuit using a 12AT7 tube, and the reverb return is quite different, it has the typical recovery and a blending stage. Probably why the reverb sound really exceptional.

It does not take much to overdrive that single gain stage either. So organic sounding. The Filmore is probably much closer to the Lone Star amps than say the CT. Not sure how the LS or LSS would compare since the CT is only single channel but does have two inputs, one for low gain and the other for high gain.

 

[rarebitusa]

I have both the LSS (EL84) and the LSC (currently with 6L6's, though I've run E34s in it as well). Neither one of these amps sound like the California Tweeds to me, and I've had the opportunity to A/B them.

Since the OP I had an opportunity to play a CAL Tweed. Yea I agree the LSS is voiced quite differently. To my ears the Tweed was more along the lines of a Fillmore. The LSS has that smooth bassy voicing which is pretty unique.