Can an amp’s tone change if it’s in a head box or a combo?
This is gonna sound like an Eric Johnson claim, but I recently bought a Mesa DC-5 Dual Caliber amp. The guy had two of them, one in a head box and one in a combo. They’re different revisions so they sound sound like two different amps and he said I could keep whichever one I wanted and put it in the combo housing.
Yesterday I did some deep critical listening comparing the two amps
and landed on the one that suited my playing style better. In every test, it came out the winner. It was less compressed, had more note definition, and a more usable gain sweep compared to the other amp. It was in the head box and so I swapped out the amps. Today I listened again just to make sure I picked the right one and now the other amp sounds better now that it’s in the head box.
So my question is, can the housing change the tone? The only variable I can think of is the speaker in the combo and wondering if somehow the magnetic field is interacting with the tubes or some other component and changing the response. Sounds crazy, but I can’t figure out why the amp I chose sounds so different in the combo housing.
@FractalAudio have you ever experienced this or have any idea what might be causing the change?
This is gonna sound like an Eric Johnson claim, but I recently bought a Mesa DC-5 Dual Caliber amp. The guy had two of them, one in a head box and one in a combo. They’re different revisions so they sound sound like two different amps and he said I could keep whichever one I wanted and put it in the combo housing.
Yesterday I did some deep critical listening comparing the two amps
and landed on the one that suited my playing style better. In every test, it came out the winner. It was less compressed, had more note definition, and a more usable gain sweep compared to the other amp. It was in the head box and so I swapped out the amps. Today I listened again just to make sure I picked the right one and now the other amp sounds better now that it’s in the head box.
So my question is, can the housing change the tone? The only variable I can think of is the speaker in the combo and wondering if somehow the magnetic field is interacting with the tubes or some other component and changing the response. Sounds crazy, but I can’t figure out why the amp I chose sounds so different in the combo housing.
@FractalAudio have you ever experienced this or have any idea what might be causing the change?