Oh my god. This is fucking stupid. I think the OP has asked a straight forward question here and deserves a straight forward answer. Many of these parameters have rather loose or subjective titles that often beg some explanation. Crunch is one of them. Please stop goofing around. If you have nothing constructive or relevant to add then please don't post.
Are you referring to post #2? That was straight from the inventor, so anything after that will of course be less informative. Then we got another answer from him later. For whatever reason, cliff himself was not specific in his answers and that's what we have. This is a public forum and people took his lead and expounded upon it.
A straight forward question does not "deserve" a straight forward answer. It seems that some people here take advantage of how transparent the owner, inventor, designer, CEO, etc. is, and demand things all the time.
Regardless, do we need to know "exactly" what it does? Exactly what real-world counterpart it is affecting? It's just like the Cab preamps. We don't know what is what. And that's ok. Turn the knobs until it sounds good. There are so many people who let the numbers and model names affect their judgment of tone.
I worked with someone recently who said his clean amp sounded too distorted. I suggested to turn the input trim down in the amp block. He had it set to 5.5 or so. He told me "oh I can't do that. 5.5 is how I set it on the real amp so it HAS TO stay there." I said ok let's pretend I'm a complete idiot and I set up my amp with a trim of 1.5 and I boost the output level up 6 dB. He did it just to laugh at me... and there was his clean tone. He just could not fathom how a setting of lower than 5.5 could sound "good" - but it was exactly that which was holding him back from his request.
It'd be hilarious if the amp models were called "Amp 1, Amp 2," etc with no names. Perhaps more work up front to find amps you like, but I also know many using a Recto because they've always wanted to play one, when using a Plexi is actually the best amp for the sound and breakup quality they are seeking.
Make tones with your ears, not your eyes; the results are usually always better.
Regarding the Crunch parameter, yeah maybe if we knew it juices the transformer which makes the power section do this and that and the treble knob therefore does this... Yeah knowing things is cool. But all I know is if I turn it up I don't like it, and if I turn it down I don't like it. So I don't use it currently
