siggy14 said:
Yes there will always be a little difference, like I could never get my Revision G to sound as bright as my Revision C, but in the same respect my revision C's presense can only go down so far.
Honestly that Presense thing does not make a difference to me, if you ask me the Rev C gets too bright and i would never use that much presense.
And that, with a few other reasons discussed below, is exactly why I prefer Revision F and G over C and D.
For my taste, I don't want an overly bright tone. I like a little darker tone for rhythm, especially since most sound men seem to crank up the highs when you're playing live. And considering most lead guitarists not named "Malmsteen" still spend 90% of their time on stage playing rhythm, I focus more on the rhythm capabilities of an amp than I do leads.
On Revision F and G, I would bet my Treble and Presence neither one goes above 11:00 on the dial. That's about as bright as it gets for me. On my old Revision C, I had to run both knobs practically on "0" just to tame it. I like to be able to use my knobs, not have them set in virtually the "off" position the whole time. So for me, the later revisions offered me a more
usable range of high end on the dial and ultimately the ability to shape my tone more because of it. If I wanted to bump up my mids more on the Rev C, it naturally brightens the tone some...but there's nothing you can do about it when you're already running your Treble and Presence virtually "off." However, on F and G, you can compensate by adjusting the high end some because to me, it has a more usable sweep available.
Along with that comes the clean channel. The clean channel on the Revision C left a lot to be desired. I use cleans a decent amount in the music I play, and I like to have a pretty good clean channel. I don't need JC-120 or Fender clean, but a pretty good clean channel as far as high gain tube amps go. I never had that with Revision C. It was pretty "blah" to say the least, and to paraphrase Mike B on it, it "pretty much has a non-existent clean channel." The volume drop is crazy on it too. With Rev G, I never had that problem. I actually loved the clean sounds on G for what it was. While not a Fender by any means, it was more than I ever needed and was completely usable.
So that's my problems with the Pre-500 amps. For me, in comparison to F and G, it has a terrible clean channel and a poor EQ section which limits the effectiveness of the dials, which includes an almost unusable high end. I agree with Kung-Fool above when he states that there's minimal difference between F and G, which is why I've been lumping them together. I think they sound nearly identical too, which again - to my ears - calls into question the true tonal difference of the earlier transformers. I still think a G with newer trannies swapped to C specs would sound almost indistinguishable from a C despite the transformer difference. But, that's a post for another day.
I see people Revision C and D are "brigther," and I agree...but think it's an unusable high end. I see people say they are "tighter," and I don't think that's necessarily true. I think it's mostly the difference in EQ structure making you perceive it that way. I hear people say it has "more gain," but I never run my gain on a Revision F and G past 12 Noon. Why would you ever need more in a practical application?
If you want to spend $2k or more on an amp that's tight with an overly bright end high end with lots of gain and a mediocre clean channel, then IMO you should be buying a Soldano SLO 100. It doesn't even sound like a Recto is for you, all things considered, since the amp stayed in that form for only 1 year out of the 16 or so it's been around.
... na, seriously ... in switzerland one says that opinions are like assholes ... everybody has one.
