4.1.4 Channel 4 (Lead or heavy riffing)
This channel either is suitable for lead and soloing with the gainpot between 11 and 12 o’clock,
while further increase of it will give you monstrous distortion for the heaviest riffing.
4.2 Pre-amp Tubes
The pre-amps are equipped with 12AX7 tubes in all positions. The pre-amp tubes are not used to
make big power, but merely as pre-amplifiers. Therefore their life expectancy is much higher than
that of the power amplifier tubes.
This is not to undermine their utter importance in overall sound and response of the amplifier. Also,
many nuisance defects like crackling noises and low dynamics are directly related to defective pre-
amp tubes. Like all other tubes, 12AX7 tubes come in many different gain stages, and offer a wide
variety of tonal behavior. Our choice for production was made to ensure a wide variety of tones,
with low noise and, hopefully, excellent reliability.
4.3 Microphonics and Bad Noises
The overall performance of pre-amp tubes is easily influenced by mechanical factors from the
outside. This would manifest itself by a sudden feedback sound with high pitch. The input stage is
especially suspect to this phenomenon. If one encounters microphonic tube behavior, then the first
tube should be checked as a rule. Pre-Amplifier tubes can also cause hum or other bad noises, like
crackling or ticking.
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