Axe-Fx overriding tone characteristics?

Dimi84 said:
Ok, but how?
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A Les Paul standard from the 90s and a 60th anniversary R9 in to a Two Rock jet and axe. Also Marshall JTM45 vintage, VH4, Twin, MK4, SLO,HBE, very easy to tell the two apart in the real amps compared to the axe and a Kemper.
 
They all sounded great but the difference in the two LPs was very much more apparent in tube amps. Sorry but fact.
 
Putting any signal through a DAC diminishes it. You may get a sample rate that makes it so you can't hear the difference but it is there. In the real world the Axe is good enough but don't think it is the same, at can't be. It is just a different way of doing things. Embrace the difference instead of pretending it is an exact reproduction of old technology in a new shaped box. Axe has parameters that tube amps could never have and endless versatility. Now put that in a small box and play it at any volume, configure it any way you like and control it all with one small foot controller. BUT pick one amp one sound no FX and one guitar with a cable and the amp is better.
 
Andy Eagle said:
Putting any signal through a DAC diminishes it. You may get a sample rate that makes it so you can't hear the difference but it is there. In the real world the Axe is good enough but don't think it is the same, at can't be. It is just a different way of doing things. Embrace the difference instead of pretending it is an exact reproduction of old technology in a new shaped box. Axe has parameters that tube amps could never have and endless versatility. Now put that in a small box and play it at any volume, configure it any way you like and control it all with one small foot controller. BUT pick one amp one sound no FX and one guitar with a cable and the amp is better.
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What do you use for a stereo? Something that doesn't involve DACs?

I used to be an all analog tube stereo guy, and hung with a guy who designed state of the art versions of that stuff. He only played LPs from select labels, and those were significantly degraded after maybe a half dozen plays.

But that ship has sailed for me, not worth it IMO, not the money or the hassle.
 
Dave Merrill said:
What do you use for a stereo? Something that doesn't involve DACs?

I used to be an all analog tube stereo guy, and hung with a guy who designed state of the art versions of that stuff. He only played LPs from select labels, and those were significantly degraded after maybe a half dozen plays.

But that ship has sailed for me, not worth it IMO, not the money or the hassle.
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Totally agree, I play my axe every day but I know it's different to my analog rig and that's fine.
 
Andy Eagle said:
Totally agree, I play my axe every day but I know it's different to my analog rig and that's fine.
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My point is just that we can't really say that having a DAC in the chain turns audio into an undifferentiatable smear -- it's what we listen to pretty much every time we hear recorded music.
 
Dave Merrill said:
My point is just that we can't really say that having a DAC in the chain turns audio into an undifferentiatable smear -- it's what we listen to pretty much every time we hear recorded music.
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Listening is different from playing through. I don't think anyone can spot an Axe recording from a tube amp one anymore but playing is still another thing.
 
Andy Eagle said:
Listening is different from playing through. I don't think anyone can spot an Axe recording from a tube amp one anymore but playing is still another thing.
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So you're saying that people hear more defects while playing through an FRFR setup designed for high-ish volume, than through an audiophile rig built for critical listening?

I get that you're really talking about that magikal something a great tube guitar amp does, but the whole DAC thing I think is a red herring.
 
Lohengrin said:
Sorry but this is simply mathematically not true.

You'd literally need superhuman hearing to appreciate a difference if sampling is done properly.
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In what way is 'sampling' all the signal??? So yes true, what sort of maths did you learn?:tearsofjoy:
 
kushdingies said:
Understanding the math behind how sampling works is different from knowing that with a high enough sample rate it's indistinguishable to the human ear. No need to be a dick.
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Telling me that it is not mathematically correct is just wrong and you can hear the difference I describe night and day. So no need for you to be a dick .
 
Andy Eagle said:
Telling me that it is not mathematically correct is just wrong
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Andy Eagle said:
Well you can tell in the way I said.
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Absolutelly not. I stand 100% behind my point. The way you're chosing your words seem to imply that there is some "magical" feature in the "analog world" that cannot be replicated in the digital domain. I don't know if this is your case, but when thinking about sampling, many people picture themselves the stair-shaped digital signal, and this is 100% wrong. For a band-limited signal, if sampling and reconstruction is done properly, the reconstructed signal coming from the speakers, in strictly mathematical terms, is exactly 100% equal to the native analog signal.

It is not really rocket science, but if s(t) is an original analog signal, h(t) the impulse response of a low-pass filter with a given cut-off frequency, and r(t) an appropriate sampled and reconstructed version of s(t), s(t) * h(t) = r(t), for every t.

Honestly, I don't have a clue if differences among guitars are smaller through the Axe Fx or not. What I know is that it is not related to digital-analog conversion. And, honestly, I am curious to know where do you think there is that information you are "missing". If you think it is related to digital conversion, then you are indirectly implying you can hear frequencies over 20KHz.

There are specific phenomena related to phisical implementation of digital audio processing that could be the source of some differences, and I'd be curious to know if you are referring to some of them specifically. One "hot topic", for instance, are intermodulation products when passing through the amp that could result in aliasing in the digital domain. The Axe Fx fights this with internal oversampling and there is a very interesting post by Cliff explaining explaining this (including real life experiments) that I can't find at the moment. I don't remember the figures, but the distortion coefficients might be comparable, or even below, the influence of the position of your head in the room.
 
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