~~Studio Pre vs. Quad Pre~~

[Shane C]

Neptical,

To be honest the simultaneous channel thing doesn't do anything special. Its just two channels on at once, they sound better when separate to my ears. I have no use for it at all. But you never know someone out there might like it.

Without having second examples of 1Ds and 1Es to use as comparisons, we can't really say the difference is due to the model variation. In my experience, Boogie gear simply differs from piece to piece, especially the older stuff (which could be due to the components aging in various ways). Probably not to the degree that old Marshalls do, but these are still hand-built, living, breathing pieces of equipment.

Wise words here, experience is what we need. Most of us would be lucky to own two of the same piece of gear.


Back to the output jack topic tho: Ive been playing the outputs of the Quad and the difference is very noticeable!

FX send sounds amazing (Mike B recommends the FX send!). Recording out sounds horrible. Main out sounds good when output volume is low but when turned up to 10 the sound becomes harsher and horrible. Im gunna stick to the Fx send, its a bummer about the pull deep tho.. Im using the depth knob on my VHT 2502 to compensate.


Over and out!

 

[Neptical]

Shane-- thanks again for all your help man. It's much appreciated.

I'm hoping to pick one of these up here within the next few weeks. I have 2 of them locally that I'm looking at right now. One of these sounds like it's gonna be a blast to hook up with one of my III's.

I'll have to report back when the time comes. :twisted:

 

[little-b]

I love my 88' quad..i like it better than the tri,recto pre,and v twin pre...Im running mine thru a strategy 500 and it just kills!..

 

[Shane C]

Littleb,

That's some killer gear you got man. I have to ask.. how does the Quad compare to the Bogner Fish, Soldano or Diezel in terms of sound quality? What is it about the Quad that you like compared to the others? Could you please mention some strength's and weakness's of each of the units.


Thanks!


Shane

 

[little-b]

Littleb,

That's some killer gear you got man. I have to ask.. how does the Quad compare to the Bogner Fish, Soldano or Diezel in terms of sound quality? What is it about the Quad that you like compared to the others? Could you please mention some strength's and weakness's of each of the units.
Thanks Shane!..Its mainly a studio rig,but on occasion(when ive got some roadie help), I'll take it out on the road.As far as the pre's go, The quad is the tightest of them all,its a tad more forgiving when you play lead on it,than the others,the reverb sounds real good...The fish isnt as tight,but has a touch more complexity in the tone- the brown ch in that thing is killer.The x-88r has a real modded marshall type lead tone and just cuts thru the mix real well and its also not as tight on the bottom as the quad is.the x88r's ch 2 is real nice for light,crunchy,or pop stuff.And my badcat pre has thee best clean ch.hands down-very voxy ac/30ish,real chimey..and it has a feature on it that switches in different preamp tubes! a first, I think.It's serial # 1.It also has a mid to high gain ch,that is more pop/top 40 oriented.....If you like Night Ranger,Stryper,Metallica,etc-from that era,the quad covers that really well.....Even though the mesa manual says u can get a zillion tones out the quad,and u can get a lot of em,the mesa does,well "mesa" tone the best-..the other pres just dont nail that tone...The fish sounds killer w/ the vht classic and 2150,as does the x88r,and the the badcat and these latter 2 pre"s are way less forgiving in your playing also...heres a side note- the quad sounded the best to me thru a boogie poweramp,ive tried it thru my vhts and liked it better thru the 500....Diezel is coming out w/ a preamp(90% sure), so id love to add that,plus ive put off the CAE3+ pre-i will add that one too......1 more note---racks got a bad rap(mainly in part due to misuse of em in the 80s)....but i laugh every time a client comes into our studio and looks at this rack and they snicker and giggle until they plug into it and theyre blown away; they cant believe that it feels just like playing thru an amp head!...its so funny....

Thanks!


Shane

 

[Shane C]

Littleb, thanks for the reply and great info!

I think I can finally die happy knowing I own a "studio quality preamp" and possibly the tightest sounding preamp ever made!! ...its only taken me 15 years to get it!!! :lol: Btw I am a huge Metallica fan.

Its interesting you bring up the "rack vs head" debate as Ive read that rack setups lack something but Im concluding that seems to be related to the quality of the preamp or power-amp rather than a fault of the separate component setup itself, is this your experience also? I find my Quad and VHT responds amazing well and find no shortage of dynamics and feel.

I believe Ive seen your rig in a other post, its a truly a sight to behold and I love the bright 80's colors of the rack units too.


Thanks again!

Shane

 

[little-b]

Yes, when you use a high quality preamp, short connections,high quality cables,and not a bazillion choruses,delays,dogs,cats,lions,zebras,defunkantordisemkombubulator effects before the poweramp(which you should never skimp on the power section),you can get almost a 100% amp head feel and dynamics.Weve had clients prefer the quad,or fish or badcat pre, over thier cousins-xtc,slo,mkIII,mkIV,lynx,panther before...I always wondered what would happen if we blindfolded our clients when they came in here and just randomly plugged them into a slo,then the x88r,or the quad,then into the mkIII, or fish,then the xtc...?I'd be willing to bet that there would be some surprises!..lol.