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tell me about design & tones [message #25097] Sun, 19 June 2016 17:03 Go to next message
vintagefan is currently offline  vintagefan
Messages: 166
Registered: March 2014
Location: Dallas
Senior Member
Has anyone ever talked with or heard of Bud Ross talk about the science and engineering that was used to achieve the
Kustom tones & sound, and to make them work right? I wonder how many months and materials it took to get the amp just right. I find my K100C-8's are very temperamental with it's tones.

I experimented with leaving the back off the cabinet, and I put the head into the cabinet without putting in the bolts that holds it in. I got noticably more treble, which I like. Then I put the back on, but left off the screws out that holds it on. There was still more treble than usual. Then I bolted the head into the cabinet and put the screws back into the back panel, and the noticably "more treble" sound went back to the normal sound the amp has always had which was a little more bassy. Both of the different tones were good, not drastic, but very noticable.

Is it possible the bolts holding the amp into the cabinet add a little resistance to take away a little hi end eq? And what is it about having the back on the amp that adds a little more bass? I wonder how many of the components and materials Bud Ross and his engineers experimented with to make these amps sound right and work right....

On a side note, when my reverb tank started feeding back, I ran a long cord and laid it on the bottom of the cabinet.This cured the feedback problem, but added more bass. I guess the extended cord added more resistance. Which makes me think this is why the reverb tank was placed inside the head. Could this be why the engineers put the tank inside the amp head?

Thoughts or any reasons?

[Updated on: Sun, 19 June 2016 17:18]

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Re: tell me about design & tones [message #25104 is a reply to message #25097] Wed, 22 June 2016 06:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
stevem is currently offline  stevem
Messages: 4728
Registered: June 2004
Location: NY
Senior Member
Mainly you are playing with and experiencing the effects of frequency phase cancelation when you listen to the amp with its back closed off to different degrees / amounts.

The sound waves coming off the rear of the speaker are out of phase with those coming out of the front and as such they cancel each other out to the degree of how strong they are when they meet each other.

This effect will vari dependant on the room and it's surfaces the amp is in, as in if wall behind the amp is largely a hard reflective suface, if the floor is carpeted or not, does the Cealing have beams traversing the area, or even if the amp is set up caddy corner in a room which will act as a tuned low frequency Bass port.

If you want the least amount of this effect to happen to your amps sound then you should fully close its back off and the you will just be dealing with how your ears perceive the accustics of the room your in!

If you really want to take this to a extream you can make triangle shaped 3/4" plywood reinforcements and glue them in between the sides, top and bottom of the cabinet to the baffle to make the cabinet very ridged.

Speaker wise you will also notice this effect if you focus real close on where certain tones are coming from off of a amps face.
As a speaker gets bigger in diameter the highs it outputs will tend to beam more due to them being produced mainly around the location of the voice coil in the speaker.
This effect is very well heard if you compare the highs of a 10" driver and those of 15" driver made for 6 string guitar use.
Basically the bigger the speaker the further you need to be away from it for the mid frequency's to blend in with the highs!
Also the more speakers you have on any givien sq ft of baffle the sooner the blending effect will take place.

[Updated on: Wed, 22 June 2016 06:42]

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Re: tell me about design & tones [message #25105 is a reply to message #25104] Wed, 22 June 2016 07:43 Go to previous message
vintagefan is currently offline  vintagefan
Messages: 166
Registered: March 2014
Location: Dallas
Senior Member
Thanks Stevem.....The science of these amps is intriguing.
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