RevF Recto vs. RevG Rackto (Clips)

Yo...just brought Greg's very nice Rackto home and reamped the first comparison clip.

Racktifier: '99 RevG upgraded with Mercury Magnetics transformers. premium selected Sovtek tubes in the poweramp, mesa and sovtek in preamp

Rectifier: '93 RevF, JJ in poweramp TAD (china) in preamp

apparently the bias differs quite a bit, so this is not a perfect comparison....
The Volume one the Recto was at 9:00 and at the Rackto at 9:30...still the Recto was QUITE a bit louder....so I normalized the tracks for better comparison...I'd loved to try them both with the same bias and the same tubes, but I haven't had the time yet.

except for the master vol all knobs were at noon

RectoA
RectoB

I like both..one sounds more open and organic, the other one a bit darker and more saturated....I can't say wich one I like better, what do yous think?

P.S.
I'm aware of the fact that the guitar is not properly tuned and the tones are not the best etc...wasn't trying to get the best tones though...just came home after three weeks and quickly recorded this within like 10 mins...not to show a good tone, but just to have a comparison between these two.

The difference is so small it is barely discernible. I like A better though. More open and bright. Less dark. It sounds like the tubes are crunching more!

Those are exactly the same clip, but the left and right channels are different.

I marginally prefer whichever amp is on the right channel - it's slightly looser, darker and has a tiny bit more of the Rectifier 'octaver' subharmonic; the one on the left is slightly tighter, more focused and a bit more midrangy. I think! They're extremely close though.

Disclaimer: no I can't tell all that just by ear! Although I did think the two clips sounded surprisingly identical, and were both clearly double-tracked. So I imported them into a waveform editor, and you can easily see that both clips are the same recording. I separated the left and right channels, equalized the levels (they're still quite different) and listened again.

I'm guessing you forgot to mute the unused tracks when you were exporting your files ;-).

94Tremoverb said:

Those are exactly the same clip, but the left and right channels are different.

I marginally prefer whichever amp is on the right channel - it's slightly looser, darker and has a tiny bit more of the Rectifier 'octaver' subharmonic; the one on the left is slightly tighter, more focused and a bit more midrangy. I think! They're extremely close though.

Disclaimer: no I can't tell all that just by ear! Although I did think the two clips sounded surprisingly identical, and were both clearly double-tracked. So I imported them into a waveform editor, and you can easily see that both clips are the same recording. I separated the left and right channels, equalized the levels (they're still quite different) and listened again.

I'm guessing you forgot to mute the unused tracks when you were exporting your files ;-).

Click to expand...

sorry, but LOOOOOOOOL

the tracks were reamped using the same DIs (same performance), hence the similar looking waveforms.
ClipA was reamped through one amp (both sides), ClipB was reamped through the other one (both sides)....
sometimes it's better to use the ears, lol

Ha! Lol.

In that case I would have to say there's really no meaningful difference between the two amps. Not only do they sound almost the same, the waveforms are close to identical barring a slight level offset, which means that both amps are adding the same mix of distortion and harmonics too. If you bring the levels to exactly the same I would expect not to be able to see or hear a difference at all.

Which is interesting considering the different transformers and tubes...

Although we are only hearing this over mp3 or course.

yeah, but happens all the time to all of us...how often have I tweaked a knob until it sounded right, only to find out it was in bypass all the time, lol...we hear what we expect to hear

I do actually think clip B sound quite a bit darker and less fizzy, also less 3D though.

A is the RevF Dual and B is the RevG Rackto btw

If they truly are different, I marginally prefer B. There is still a very small level difference though, which can often fool you! I found that if I turned up the level on B slightly it seemed to get a bit more open and 3D, although it's still very difficult to really hear much of a difference. (I am listening on real speakers not computer monitors too by the way.)

I think what this really does show - apart from me being totally wrong about what I thought I first heard! - is that the differences between these two amps are well within what you would expect from different tubes. I'm not normally a fan of Sovtek tubes and I do think they can make an amp sound muddy, so I'm surprised I prefer it although not about the lack of openness.

I was very curious when I saw the thread title because I'd always heard that the Racktifiers sounded significantly different from the regular Rectos. I think this proves that if there is any difference, it's pretty small. Obviously I wasn't there in the room with them either, which may be important.

Good job.

Yes, the difference between the two is negligible at best. I am using Mackie MR5s for speakers so I have a fairly good audio image, but even these little buggers can colour tone somewhat . . .

I rather B

B had less gain and less fizz. B sounded more HIFI

YellowJacket said:

The difference is so small it is barely discernible. I like A better though. More open and bright. Less dark.

Click to expand...

My feelings as well

metalaxe said:

yeah, but happens all the time to all of us...how often have I tweaked a knob until it sounded right, only to find out it was in bypass all the time, lol...we hear what we expect to hear

I do actually think clip B sound quite a bit darker and less fizzy, also less 3D though.

A is the RevF Dual and B is the RevG Rackto btw

Click to expand...

Figures I pick the RevF. That's basically my amp!!

Been advocating Revision G for years. It's the best Recto overall IMO. Best cleans, takes pedals in front great, overall more versatile than C-F, though there's minimal difference between F and G. All IMO of course.

sounds like exactly the same clip to me. I can't tell them apart.

hi lasse!
can´t say that i like one better. both amps have their on character and both sound great.
what i would want to here is a mix of both amps together or one on the left side and the other on the right side.
maybe that A cuts through better in a band with two guitarplayers because it´s a bit more open sounding.

edit:
btw. did a quick x-over with both amps.
on the left side is the RecA and on the right side RecB

RecA+Bnoon

as i told you: if you ever want to sell your 19" recto, let me know.

fing A :mrgreen:

joe web said:

as i told you: if you ever want to sell your 19" recto, let me know.

Click to expand...

not gonna happen..at least not very soon .
but yeah, IF I'm gonna sell it I'll drop you a line.
I've just put new tubes ( =C= ) in my RevF...sounds much better now than with the old JJ.

But I still can't really decide which one I like better...both will find their use in the Studio I guess

I like A a bit more too. It sounded a little more present through my speakers, and my preferred tone has a bit more mids in it than most people, so yeah... Rock on! lol