I opened this thing up full throttle unattenuated today, then with channel volumes around 5 for some dirty old country blues. Sounded pretty sweet with a harmonic tremolo and analog delay. I'm surprised at how not so loud it is with the E34L's, just my same experience with the DSL50. I'm willing to bet that it would be much louder with the winged C's in it. I will try them in it eventually. But jumping from the DSL50 with the winged C's in it now and the E34L's in the Plexi 51, the DSL50 is significantly louder. I mean, the Plexi 51 is loud but not disturbingly so right now as the DSL50 can get with those winged C's. Not like that day when a guy from the block behind me came crying that he couldn't hear his tv. The bass on the Plexi 51 is pretty huge and fat though with the bass channel up around the same as the treble channel. It gets way too fat above around 2 on the bass knob when running like that. Thinking about attenuators, I really need to get around to building one of JohnH's from the diy thread. I bet I would like that thing more than my Weber.
I like the plexi with an attenuater.It keeps the tone manageable , and the THD even adds a bit of gain,and compression.
Shouldn't all el34s deliver more or less the same volume? About the DSL : it's just a naturally loud amp, a friend of mine has a dsl15 and it covers my Yeti 50 at times (modern era switch engaged)... Maybe it also delivers the right freqs, small wattage amps mean less bass, less bass means brighter, brighter means cuts better thru the mix
I would think so. But when I put swapped the E34L's in place of the winged C's, I noticed a a pretty dramatic increase in bass and drop in volume. The E34L's were biased the same as the winged C's. I took the amp to jam with a drummer that day and noticed that the volume was lower with my typical settings. I didn't investigate it further at the time, but I probably should, just to know. I did notice later with the DSL50 cranked up high (green channel, crunch button off) that the E34L's and winged C's didn't sound different in bass like they did at lower volumes.
E34Ls are rather bassy sounding tubes, deliver quite some aggressione and compression but lack mids at times, which might the reason why I'm struggling at rehearsal with my Yeti on certain settings even against 15-20w amps (especially inherently bright ones). They sound good when playing solo, even very good I'd say, but in a dual guitar scenario make things a lil hard. With that said, I had no idea they also decreased the overall volume of the amp , I'm quite shocked (and relieved in a sense). By how much volume considering the master of your amp? more or less ofc
That was my impression at lower to moderate volume settings with the DSL50. But don't take it as absolutely so. When I took the amp to play with the drummer, I wasn't pushing alot of volume. My kit that he was playing has a snare that isn't the loudest, so I had to keep it down a bit so as not to drown him out. But I could completely overcome that kit with the E34L's in the DSL50 through an openback 212 with not so efficient speakers (95db I think) at higher volume settings. I kept the amp's max loudness just to the point where the snare cut through when beating the crap out of it, which was below the amp's sweet spot. I'll put the winged C's in the Plexi 51 over the weekend and see what the situation is. I'm curious anyway to see if they cause any significant change in the sound in that amp compated to the E34L's that are in there, especially at higher volume.
For the Yeti depends on the mode you use. I dig the modern one, which is the gainer and fatter, but like said it's much quieter than both the 70 and the Plexi modes, which have no problem in a band context, tho it might not reach the loudness of legendary loud amps like a Splawn QR. Mmm let me know how things go with the Winged C, I'm honestly curious. Gonna swap the E34Ls for a couple of EH El34s anyway tho, I need some more cut in the high mids
Buzzard, I have the Chupa 50w head and when I order my new one it will be a 100w version. (And I mostly play at the house these days.) It's really only a little louder but has better head room for clean and the big iron punch I like. The set up on the Yeti & Chupacabra allow you to play at any volume and with any amount of drive you like. I would say go 100w for sure if you play out a lot and don't mic the cab, they just seem better all around. Having 2 gain stages and a MV is a real treat, you can dial it anywhere you like at any volume you like.
I may go for the 100w yeti. Doug Steele has a video playing a bunch of different guitars through it. Really got a nice vh 2 and wacf tone ,more on the browner side. Whereas the chupacabra seems more on the aggressive brighter side.
That is true, slightly “darker” I would say, maybe a touch of Friedman-ish tone. Can’t go wrong either way, I would love to see a switch on the amp to go from Yeti to Chupa.