soje wrote:
How much does the cathode-follower color the sound? Is it normally beeing operated close to clipping?
If not, couldn't you substitute it with a mosfet? I read somewhere they should be rather transparrent.
The Cathode follower does not color the sound that much. Its main function is the convert a high impedance signal into a low impedance signal.
Check out this link:
http://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... sound+loop
Where Gary 'Glasman' has posted frequency graphs showing the effect of each loop stage
Most of the loop 'color' stem from the second triode/recovery stage.
However the point in using a dumblelator is not to get a transparent loop, but to get some high end damping and a little compression.
For a long period of time I convinced that a parallel loop was the route to great sounds and I believe that the lastest version of the parallel loop (in this threat is quite ok, but the serial mode still sounds way better IMO. It really adds that certain 3D effect to the sound.
If you prefer parallel mode you might as well use a Kleinulator, which use two mosfet transistors and is quite transperent, but with no 3D IMO.
Diva or not? - Respect for Mr. D's work....)