talbany wrote:From my notes
The skyliner amps also used more negative feedback in the power amp stage which gave better control of the bass response (flattens over PA response).........
Tony
Tony, you got me a little confused about the feedback stuff.
According to Aikens page (http://www.aikenamps.com/NegativeFeedback.htm). The smaller the retio the more voltage is being feed back to the phase inverter. Hence, the earlier versions would have more feed back and thereof less bass than the skyliners.
Skyliner Amps - Skyliner amps can either be with or without the post overdrive stack. The word skyliner refers to the clean tone stack. This stack has a bass knee of around 80 hertz and give a hard attack on the bass notes. The middle control is centered approximatelty at 400 hertz and this give the more pronounced upper mids that many folks talk about.
The skyliner amps also used more negative feedback in the power amp stage which gave better control of the bass response (flattens over PA response).
The skyliner also had a unique boost circuit that breaks the connections between the treble and the bass controls as well as the top of the bass control to the wiper of the bass. This gives about 10+dB of boost on the top end with a gradual rolloff in response starting at around 600 to 800 hertz. This helps the bottom end from getting "wolfy".
Later amps used the Bluesmaster setup. Once again Bluesmaster refers to the clean stack and changes in the power amp. The Bluesmaster stack as a little more gain due to its circuit layout. The Bass control is centered around 130 hZ. This gives the bass a softer / spongier feel/attack (to my ears, your ears my be diferent). The middle control centers at around 800 hertz and give a more scooped mid range sound.
The power amp section is roughly the same as a Marshall Plexi (a few component changes). This has reduced negative feedback and gives more PA gain and a large bass response.
The Bluemaster also used a completed different boost arrangement that simply lifts the entire tone stack off of ground. This give a HUGE amount of boost, especially in the lower registers. This boost system also tends to roll the high end off just a little bit (6 to 8 dB) as compared to the bottom end.
In general it is accepted that the Tone stack boost must be used when running a post overdrive tone stack amp in Overdrive mode. This reason is that most of these amps (not all) had a large amount of padding on the input of the overdrive stage that makes it necessary to have a large signal on the input of the OD section to get any reasonable amount of gain. You can decrease the input padding, but it does not sound as good.
Blues
My post was in reference to the amount of NFB in both Skyliner and Bluesmaster not 2nd or 3rd gen amps..Sorry if I confused you..Thanks for posting the info..
All the Best!
Tony
" The psychics on my bench is the same as Dumble'"
talbany wrote:
Blues
My post was in reference to the amount of NFB in both Skyliner and Bluesmaster not 2nd or 3rd gen amps..Sorry if I confused you..Thanks for posting the info..
All the Best!
Tony
