Amazing what wire can do

FractalAudio

Administrator
Fractal Audio Systems
Moderator
The Axe-Fx is designed to recreate the signal at the speaker jack of a tube amp and it does this tremendously well. If I do a Tone Match to the output of the amp vs. the model it's almost always nearly a perfectly flat line.

So today I was playing around and did a quick tone match to one of my Plexis and then a Suhr Badger and the results showed a significant mid-scoop (2-3 dB). I was puzzled. Had I messed something up in the new firmware? I repeated the tone match using a DI off the speaker jack and the result was a perfectly flat line. Then I realized that the difference was due to this 30 ft speaker cable I was using because the speaker cab was remote from the amp. Just a bit surprised that that little resistance could have that much effect.

Fortunately the new Cab-Lab addresses all this by allowing you to capture reference IRs and we've included reference IRs along with our latest Cab-Pack.

To double-check I then captured a reference IR off the speaker and corrected the IR using the new Cab-Lab and viola, perfectly flat.
 
The Axe-Fx is designed to recreate the signal at the speaker jack of a tube amp and it does this tremendously well. If I do a Tone Match to the output of the amp vs. the model it's almost always nearly a perfectly flat line.

So today I was playing around and did a quick tone match to one of my Plexis and then a Suhr Badger and the results showed a significant mid-scoop (2-3 dB). I was puzzled. Had I messed something up in the new firmware? I repeated the tone match using a DI off the speaker jack and the result was a perfectly flat line. Then I realized that the difference was due to this 30 ft speaker cable I was using because the speaker cab was remote from the amp. Just a bit surprised that that little resistance could have that much effect.

Fortunately the new Cab-Lab addresses all this by allowing you to capture reference IRs and we've included reference IRs along with our latest Cab-Pack.

To double-check I then captured a reference IR off the speaker and corrected the IR using the new Cab-Lab and viola, perfectly flat.

Wow that is so cool!
 
Goes to show that we all take for granted the importance of wires in the equation, even the master himself.
 
So it begs the rhetorical question... when will we be able to experiment this for ourselves with the new Cab Lab?... I know, I know... SOON! :p
 
So good to get scientific evidence on this point. The guys at my Church always gave me a hard time because I was so fussy about my cable length and whether I was using a buffer or not (pre Axe-Fx days); they always said cable doesn't make any difference but I had no way of proving it. :)

Love that the Axe-Fx picks up on this!
 
There's a big difference between a long cable between your guitar and amp and a long speaker cord. A long instrument cord loads your guitar's pickups with a reactive load that's mostly capacitive. This changes the resonant frequency of the pickups and rolls off the highs. A long speaker cord increases the resistance between the amp and the speaker which decreases the damping factor. A lower damping factor means the response follows the impedance curve of the speaker more than a high damping factor.
 
Fortunately the new Cab-Lab addresses all this by allowing you to capture reference IRs and we've included reference IRs along with our latest Cab-Pack.

To double-check I then captured a reference IR off the speaker and corrected the IR using the new Cab-Lab and viola, perfectly flat.

Cliff, if you have the time (and the patience for non-technical types like me) could you please try to explain what you mean by "reference IRs" and how they will be used to achieve various results in the new Cab-Lab app?

E.g. A reference of what (if that even makes sense)?
E.g. How does one capture a reference IR of a speaker?
E.g. What are the reference IRs included in that Cab-Pack based on?
[I don't own that Cab-Pack yet and there's no info about reference IRs on the fractal-Store web site that I can see.]
Etc.
Etc.

Thanks
 
and viola, perfectly flat.

Not only flat, but you also suddenly had a large violin too
thumbsup.gif
 
Back
Top Bottom