They sound that way in real life too. The difference is when you put them in the mix. The TS immediately tightens the tone and lets it sit perfectly with plenty of room for the bass.
And see - I'm feeling like the bass cut in combination with some very casual EQ work is taking care of my needs for clearing the low end of the mix. When I put a boost in front of my amp (and I've tried many different combinations with level, tone, drive, etc.) post 11b, I feel like it just starts over-compressing the gain on the amps I'm using. As a result, there's plenty of room for lows in the mix, but I feel like the mids are a lot more scratchy and don't blend very well with the rest of the mix. I also feel that a boost adversely effects the sizzle of the amps for the sound I'm going for. I would also describe the sound of it as being very flat on the note bloom. I know that is desirable in certain situations. It's just not what I'm really shooting for at this moment in time.
Granted, I'm not exactly playing extreme tech-death metal or something. I love the gain sounds of bands like Textures, Tool, The Ocean, Mastodon, etc. It's also probably partly my pickups, which are Bareknuckle Painkillers. They already drive the amp really hard as they are pretty high output, so now that the dynamics are so responsive on the amps, and the compression is so much higher, maybe for me the TS is just overkill (for me).
Then again - I remember the first time I decided I would try a boost in front of my 6505+ in the form of a tubescreamer. Even using it "correctly" as a boost, I didn't really dig the sound that much. So I guess maybe I'm just not a boost guy anymore. Nonetheless, I'm very happy with the tones I'm creating not using a boost. I feel like they are heavier, much more mixable, and sound a lot more alive than when I've used a boost in the past.
