fredpb
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2001
- Posts
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Well MG HEAD OTL owners. What's your favorite hole (jack) and position (switch position).
1) We have the OTL output on the far right. The feedback or hi/lo switch really has no effect on this.
2) The left hand hole, or jack. With switch up (no feedback).
3) The left hand hole, or jack, with the switch down, with feedback.
First, #1. The output transformers are used as inductors, not transformers, and the sound is picked up before them by a capacitor that goes to the output jack. Gives deeper bass, but muddies up the rest. Also, when you turn on the unit with the headphones plugged in, or first plug in the headphones, the capacitor does take a charge through the fine headphone coils with a loud pop. Not good. I have a gadget I made to prevent that.
#2. Transformer out. Headphone jack is connected to secondary winding of transformer. No negative feedback loop.
Most people seem to like this. You will get more of the "tubey" sound than #1.
#3. Transformer out, but with negative feedback picked off the transformer and fed to the first stage. Lotsa people say this corrects many amp design deficiencies. So what? What amp ain't perfect? What happens is, the output is fed, out of phase (does some cancelling out) reducing some of the gain of the amp.
It reduces the sound, but also reduces all the nasties the amp stages create, like some noise and distortion. So some of the volume goes down, but it is a "purer" sound. Most prefer the extra distortions allowed by #2.
Me? I started with #1. Now I stick with #3, as the MG Head was originally designed. Love my feedback. Love my transformers. I guess a lot of the fat from my head got into my ears or brain sound centers.
1) We have the OTL output on the far right. The feedback or hi/lo switch really has no effect on this.
2) The left hand hole, or jack. With switch up (no feedback).
3) The left hand hole, or jack, with the switch down, with feedback.
First, #1. The output transformers are used as inductors, not transformers, and the sound is picked up before them by a capacitor that goes to the output jack. Gives deeper bass, but muddies up the rest. Also, when you turn on the unit with the headphones plugged in, or first plug in the headphones, the capacitor does take a charge through the fine headphone coils with a loud pop. Not good. I have a gadget I made to prevent that.
#2. Transformer out. Headphone jack is connected to secondary winding of transformer. No negative feedback loop.
Most people seem to like this. You will get more of the "tubey" sound than #1.
#3. Transformer out, but with negative feedback picked off the transformer and fed to the first stage. Lotsa people say this corrects many amp design deficiencies. So what? What amp ain't perfect? What happens is, the output is fed, out of phase (does some cancelling out) reducing some of the gain of the amp.
It reduces the sound, but also reduces all the nasties the amp stages create, like some noise and distortion. So some of the volume goes down, but it is a "purer" sound. Most prefer the extra distortions allowed by #2.
Me? I started with #1. Now I stick with #3, as the MG Head was originally designed. Love my feedback. Love my transformers. I guess a lot of the fat from my head got into my ears or brain sound centers.
