Captor X type of device without the reactive load?

[SKU]

Anyone that’s gonna go around publicly belittling the playing of others better have SIGNIFICANTLY better time feel than the clips you’ve posted have demonstrated. Your playing is solid; but you’re still an amateur hack just like the rest of us. Glass houses, yardda yadda yadda…

True and thank you for your honesty. I wish more people would do that in general!

 

[laxu]

OX is completely different. Closer to an IR (though a lot more dynamic) than to an analog EQ filter.

Nah, it's literally just IRs + some speaker drive emulation. Fractal tested the OX Box by running a 1W vs 100W input into it, and there was zero difference in how the OX behaved. Therefore, anything except the speaker drive emulation is not reacting to the input level. You can find the thread on the Fractal forum.

UA likes to be vague about what the OX stuff actually does, but it's really just an IR loader where you like the baked in options or you don't.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I don't. Or didn't; I've not tried one in awhile. Then again, I'm was a Mesa player, and none of the options at the time gelled well with Mesa's amps, IMO. Also, it's a shitty attenuator. But the rest of their stuff I've owned or tried isn't exactly convincing me to seek one out again.

I DID NOT like the Suhr with the Badlander. At all. Super disappointing in a way I did not expect.

 

[Mongillo19]

I DID NOT like the Suhr with the Badlander. At all. Super disappointing in a way I did not expect.

Hmm that's strange! I don't notice it sounding any different compared to other amps. What didn't you like about it?

 

[Mongillo19]

@Desertdweller didn't like the IR version, but does like the non-IR version, which is interesting and weird.

I have heard that being a common theme. Wonder if it's just internet hive mind or truly something different between the two?

 

[HotRats]

It only doesn't sound good if you're used to TOP "bright guitar forward" type of sounds. For live use is more than enough and it doesn't require EQs. It sounds decent and more importantly feels great out of the box.

I don't want to argue about IRs vs analog counterparts but I'd like to point out 3 things regarding the specific use this thread is about, which is replacing the mic in front of my cab on stage.

• first one is that the "feel" factor is not relevant here because the player, me, doesn't hear the signal sent to the FOH. I monitor myself through my cab.
• second one is that even if out of the box IRs might not be perfect for an FOH usage you can easily modify them and make them better. this is an area where the anolog devices lack a lot and the main reason I choosed a digital one.
• third one, the most important one, is the scope of a digital or analog substitute of your mic. the scope, in the context of small venue/bar gigs is provide a certain degree of sound reinforcement and a monitoring feed for bandmates in the easiest and most effective way possibile. again I believe that the more a device is flexible the better your life is.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I have heard that being a common theme. Wonder if it's just internet hive mind or truly something different between the two?

With the Stealth; the Suhr was great. With the BL; it sounded congested and just felt weird to me. I honestly have no idea why?

 

[jellodog]

With the Stealth; the Suhr was great. With the BL; it sounded congested and just felt weird to me. I honestly have no idea why?

Because the Suhr has a fixed reactive load curve that works better with some amps than others - the more suited the SIC of the load is to the amp, the better. Especially in the low resonant peak.

I believe this partly explains why people have so many different opinions about reactive loads being "good" or "bad". It really depends upon the amp and wether it's a good match or not.

 

[Mongillo19]

Because the Suhr has a fixed reactive load curve that works better with some amps than others - the more suited the SIC of the load is to the amp, the better. Especially in the low resonant peak.

I believe this partly explains why people have so many different opinions about reactive loads being "good" or "bad". It really depends upon the amp and wether it's a good match or not.

Where's the RL that let's you select SIC

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Because the Suhr has a fixed reactive load curve that works better with some amps than others - the more suited the SIC of the load is to the amp, the better.

I believe this partly explains why people have so many different opinions about reactive loads being "good" or "bad". It really depends upon the amp and wether it's a good match or not.

Many years ago, when I still had energy for absurdity, I considered making some iso “chests” in the attic space above my jam room to hold a couple cabs to use just as loads, since the kind of cabs/amps I’m into aren’t well represented by commercially available load boxes….

 

[Mongillo19]

Dunno, but I trust his opinion.

Is it possible the IR one has a different SIC than the non IR?

 

[jellodog]

Where's the RL that let's you select SIC

Yeah, well the problem is that it's very expensive to build the load with lots of different curves.

(it would be even larger and heavier too)

But the FAS load does at least have the US / UK switch, which should increase the chances of a better match. I've never tried it though.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Where's the RL that let's you select SIC

Better yet, IRs all have meta data; reactive load reads the meta data!

 

[JiveTurkey]

Because the Suhr has a fixed reactive load curve that works better with some amps than others - the more suited the SIC of the load is to the amp, the better. Especially in the low resonant peak.

I believe this partly explains why people have so many different opinions about reactive loads being "good" or "bad". It really depends upon the amp and wether it's a good match or not.

I knew this but didn't think anything of it till I experienced it IRL. It was pretty eye opening.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

True and thank you for your honesty. I wish more people would do that in general!

General honesty is overrated. It’s the rest of being a decent human being that most of us struggle with.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Yeah, well the problem is that it's very expensive to build the load with lots of different curves.

(it would be even larger and heavier too)

But the FAS load does at least have the US / UK switch, which should increase the chances of a better match. I've never tried it though.

The thing is, the parts aren’t THAT expensive? Kinda big, and need lots of room to dissipate heat. I wonder if one concern is that people would start flipping switches while playing and fry an amp?

 

[SKU]

General honesty is overrated. It’s the rest of being a decent human being that most of us struggle with.

Disagree. You can't get better without feedback. That's part of why so many guitarists can proudly barely play. The feedback they get - especially in places where idiotic optimism is the only way like TOP - is "wow the tone is cool" i.e. "yeah, the tone is decent but you could learn to play first". Culture also plays a role in here so yeah ..

 

[jellodog]

I wonder if one concern is that people would start flipping switches while playing and fry an amp?

Not sure, but you could flip the attenuation level switch on the Ironman II I had had without frying the amp. I believe that would throw in more resistors (?). Might have been done with brushes on that big ol' knob so that the circuit was always continuous or something?

I must be possible to swap loads without completely disconnecting... but I dunno.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Disagree. You can't get better without feedback. That's part of why so many guitarists can proudly barely play. The feedback they get - especially in places where idiotic optimism is the only way like TOP - is "wow the tone is cool" i.e. "yeah, the tone is decent but you could learn to play first". Culture also plays a role in here so yeah ..

I mean, I think everyone in this thread has been pretty honest. The problem for poor ol' @HotRats is that very, VERY, little of our awesome honesty has been directed at anything remotely related to the problem he was addressing. Thankfully, he restrained from general honesty and was the best human in the thread; soldiering on, saving his honesty for relevant points.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

In your opinion, do you view IRs from even the big names to be analog filters?

Not being snarky, just honestly curious because I have no idea lol

Sorry, I missed this in the bickering. No.

The speaker cab itself...you could describe it as a physical filter, I guess. I wouldn't describe it as an analog filter personally, though not real persnickity about semantics as long as folks know what you're saying -- mostly because the manner in which it acts as a filter are in terms of acoustics, not electric signal modulation/modification/whatever.

An analog speaker sim isn't accurately described as an equalizer because it is pre-set. So I rightly or wrongly call it an analog filter. The point is that it is using known analog electical circuits to modify an analog signal in continuous real-time as the signal passes through the components.

An IR is a digital filter that does math on snapshots of a signal. It will never be capable of doing so in continuous real-time.