NAD: CAD Custom MDT!

[sergiodeblanc]

To add to this discussion, would adding casters help with the issue, but reducing the bass, even just slightly? I've considered doing that to my 4x12 although I rarely plan on actually moving it around. My room is about 1/3rd the side of Pete's so obviously I don't have the option of moving it out from the walls. I have amp stands for my smaller combos and have always preferred the sound of them off the floor and angled back a little.

Casters can help a little, if you can find some with thicker rubber treads I would choose those rather than plastic. Head up to Ogden ave. and drop three bucks on some used hockey pucks!

[alantig]

Well now I know what to bring if I ever need to get you tipsy enough to allow me to touch the "Only blue guitar cool enough to be seen with".

As Les has already mentioned, pulling the cab out of the alcove and decoupling it from the floor would be the best way to make a comparison. Used hockey pucks from your local "Play it again Sports" are a cheap and effective solution for cutting down transmission.

Interesting idea about the pucks. My two-channel C through an Orange 4x12 has seemed a bit boomy most of the time, and my setup means everything is in the wrong place - outside block wall (with paneling), concrete basement floor (with carpeting). I did put the cab up on wooden blocks, which seems to have helped a bit. Would something like pucks do a better job (and at a much lower price than the Auralex stuff!)?

[sergiodeblanc]

It has been awhile since I bought some pucks, but I recall buying a butt load used from a resale sporting chain for twenty bucks. I used them to float walls, float the drum riser, and make a bunch of amp isolators for my old studio, and they worked great!

The old Boogie Colosseum cabinets used to have similar rubber bumpers mounted to the bottom for decoupling them, and was a brilliant idea that got lost along the way. If you don't mind a couple of holes on the bottom of your cab, you could deep- countersink a wood screw through the puck for a cheap similar design.

[LSchefman]

To add to this discussion, would adding casters help with the issue, but reducing the bass, even just slightly? I've considered doing that to my 4x12 although I rarely plan on actually moving it around. My room is about 1/3rd the side of Pete's so obviously I don't have the option of moving it out from the walls. I have amp stands for my smaller combos and have always preferred the sound of them off the floor and angled back a little.

With casters, it's going to depend partly on the material in terms of how much vibration is transmitted to the floor, but even lifting an amp a couple of inches off the floor can only do so much. A 100 hz wavelength (about the lowest usable frequency of most guitar speakers) is 11.3 FEET long. And the upper limit of a guitar speaker's usable frequency response is about 5000 Hz, and the wavelength at 5000 Hz is STILL longer than a couple of inches! So I don't see casters doing much.

Interesting idea about the pucks. My two-channel C through an Orange 4x12 has seemed a bit boomy most of the time, and my setup means everything is in the wrong place - outside block wall (with paneling), concrete basement floor (with carpeting). I did put the cab up on wooden blocks, which seems to have helped a bit. Would something like pucks do a better job (and at a much lower price than the Auralex stuff!)?

Pucks aren't really a very good choice. They might help a tiny bit to isolate a heavy thing like a floor from, say, concrete, but they aren't going to do squat to isolate something relatively light like a guitar amp because they're too stiff to be significantly compressed by the weight of the cab. They can't therefore really absorb vibrations, they're just going to pass them along.

I suspect that even isolating a floor with pucks only served to create a bit of a bass trap in the air pocket between the original floor and the isolated one. My brother installed a floor at his home with ASC rubber isolation mounts made for the purpose of soundproofing, and they are far more easily compressed than a hockey puck.

[MA Pete]

Well now I know what to bring if I ever need to get you tipsy enough to allow me to touch the "Only blue guitar cool enough to be seen with".

Ha! Pinot Noir to be more specific!

[LSchefman]

Ha! Pinot Noir to be more specific!

Guys, you might want to lay off the cork-sniffing with all that paisley around...

That stuff's caused strong men to start wearing tuxedos, leave their loved ones, and go on the supper club and cruise line circuit.

[Soul&Tone]

I was speaking with Junior about the MDT last month. I'd really like to have an MDT Custom head to go with my 25th and then run an amp switcher or a pedal where I can blend between them (one clean and one with some hair on it).

Hans,

I have been thanking the same thing. I have been torn between the MDT Custom and HX/DA.

Pete that is one sweet setup.

[sergiodeblanc]

Ha! Pinot Noir to be more specific!

California okay?

[sergiodeblanc]

Guys, you might want to lay off the cork-sniffing with all that paisley around...

That stuff's caused strong men to start wearing tuxedos, leave their loved ones, and go on the supper club and cruise line circuit.

And that is a bad thing?

[LSchefman]

And that is a bad thing?

Haha! You, lounge music...the perfect combination, right?

[sergiodeblanc]

Haha! You, lounge music...the perfect combination, right?

You know it! I'm like the modern day Dean Martin crossed with Morris Day!

[MA Pete]

California okay?

Sure, California or Oregon!

Pete that is one sweet setup.

Thanks!

I have been thanking the same thing. I have been torn between the MDT Custom and HX/DA.

Tough choice! I love my MDT, Sewell and Blistertone, but miss the HXDA. I may need another one!!

[LSchefman]

I have conflicting feelings about having several amps.

For the studio itself, where I do have session players come on occasion, more amps = good.

For my ad work, more amps = occasionally necessary.

For my own work as an artist, however, more amps = time wasted amp-tasting, instead of making a single amp my "voice." There's simply too much temptation to flit from amp to amp (or for that matter, from guitar to guitar) and make it about that choice instead of getting down to business and establishing what I'm about.

For my entire music career spanning the last 22 years, this has been a back-and-forth dilemma.

What I can say, however, is that I've owned some wonderful amps over the years, and that the HX/DA is on par with the very finest. It's a true professional's instrument in every way. I'm very, very happy with it.

[ExpatGirl]

Beautiful mate, congratulations!

[aduayer]

I am only familiar with the "H" and "C" amps. I hope I can test those Super Dallas, Blistertone, MDT and HX/DA ones. I can only imagine how good they sound