Does my 1971 Ampeg V2 sound okay ?

[borisiwanow]

hey Boris,

These amps do hit the power stage really hard.  if you use the preamp out jack on the back of the amp,  you can plug the preamp into a mixer to see what the preamp is doing.  my guess is that it is clean. you can even record some signal coming out of that and post it here. might be helpful to determine if things are wonky.
I have seen resistors go way off value in the mid circuit,  which has caused some unpleasant sounding distortion/muddiness.   I wouldn't assume a 6k11 is bad.  

now as to your feelings about the treble, mids.  
This amp is not a fender.  so when you put the treble, mid and bass at 12 o'clock,  that should be a flat frequency response. from 20hz to 20khz.  This is not always desirable for guitar and for someone used to fenders/marshalls this may feel like very unfamiliar territory,  this is because flat frequency response on a fender/marshall isn't  really possible.  
so you need experiment the EQ to shape your tone.  a few tips:

1. As I mentioned before the controls are flat at 12o'clock,  so start with treble/mid bass all there,  and think about what frequencies you want to remove,  and try subtractive eq first.  this is especially true with the mid eq (see #2)
2.The mid has a switch that selects the frequency band.  300hz, 1k or 3k.  this mid control has options.  I have never found boosting 1k to be pleasant but I did know people that liked this. you mentioned your kids were at 3.15... this is a considerable boost. and if your switch was set to 1k,  I bet it was unpleasant.
3. turn the ultra-high off.  the ultra high uses 120pf ceramic caps. I don't like the cap value or type, I switch it to 250pf 500V silver mica.  These sound much less harsh and will tame the ultra-high considerably
4. please check out my EQ mod http://www.vintageampeg.com/ampeg-tone-s...n/#more-22  This can help a lot with the harsh sounding treble, and the fluffy lows.  replace with tubular film capacitors and you will be much happier.

also, what kind of guitar are you using?

Wow ! Thanks for this detailed answer Hangman ! You shared a lot of great informations. 

I think the main and most important problem I have with the amp, as you pointed out, is my lack of knowledge and experience with it ! Not really that it's sounding bad. (when you listen to "Stay with Me", Ron Wood tone is pretty harsh). The fact is that I've always played with "conventional" amps so this kind of controls and tone feel really out of this world for the Marshall "normie" I am haha. That's also why I boosted the mids pretty hard. I'm used to the Marshall EQ where you put the bass at 0, mids at 9, and treble on 6-7. 

But that's what I love with this amp, it's different and unique. And I'm trying to distance myself from the modern amps sound. Nowadays all guitarists (including me) all look after the same tone from every amps. In the 70's everybody sounded so different ... because utlimately, the gear was really different, and there were 1billion ways to shape your tone ! So I have to learn more about this amp and accept that it will not behave like a Friedman BE100.

Anyways, I'll try to record the preamp out when I'm back at home to figure out if the preamp is doing something weird. That is clever. And in the future I'll also try my hand on the tone stack mod.

For your information also I was playing on a Greco Les Paul custom copy, with creme brulee pickups loaded in it (A2 magnet PAF style).

One other little thing I wanted to ask and that seems weird is how the treble control behaves. If I go from 6ish to 7ish, the sound instantly become more distorted, it sort of jumps. I wondered if this was typical with this V2 too ?

Many thanks for your help and I'll comeback with sound demos from the preamp out as soon as possible !