stupid pedal trick.... sharMall 5xxx preamp in a box

[iainpunk]

Jimi, what do you think of MOSFET opamps?
i personally love the CA3130 / CA3160 for their soft-but-bright clipping character. i still need to finish up my overdrive idea i had which is based off of its output being a CMOS inverter. their biggest appeal to me is the abusability of the comp/strobe pin, haha

im also increasingly sceptic about the slewrate's claimed effect on tone with the 1458/741/308 etc, and being more convinced its due to other factors like the clipping characteristic/knee which is way softer with BJT's

cheers

[pinkjimiphoton]

for some things, those can sound great. the "struzz" circuit can sound devastating with a ca3130.

but for guitar based stuff, i stick with the 1458 99% of the time. to my ear, just plain sounds better. i even replace the "holy grail"4558's with them usually. they just plain sound better under distortion, and can react like a good fuzztone to the guitar knobs.

[anotherjim]

TL08x do find use in hi-end audio, but there the source impedances are low and gain is moderate. As I understand, TL07x only wins for high source impedance circuits. Passive guitar is a high source impedance and a tone stack might be too if copied from a tube amp. Putting a TL08x in the front end seems perverse!
To my mind, unless you use single amp packages or carefully mix among different dual amps, you can't avoid having the wrong type in some position and for high gain amp clipping distortion, I wouldn't pick a JFET amp leaving Jimi's choice of the best sounding clipper for all of it.

[PRR]

Is there really any difference TL07x and TL08x? In 1973 it was a bin-sort, but I think all chips meet spec now, and the two part numbers maintained for the convenience of purchasing agents.

[GibsonGM]

Even at 9V, I swear a 1458 sounds better in this Guvnor that's on my bench (orig. is TL072).  Warmer, less brittle on 10.   Maybe FETs are too cold for some things   This can stay in the socket.

[pinkjimiphoton]

Even at 9V, I swear a 1458 sounds better in this Guvnor that's on my bench (orig. is TL072).  Warmer, less brittle on 10.   Maybe FETs are too cold for some things   This can stay in the socket.

exactly, parks. they just plain sound more... for lack of a better word... "marshally".
there's a touch less brittle, a bit more "ooh", and it acts more like a good fuzzbox in term of interaction with the guitar. i really like that chip a lot.

[pinkjimiphoton]

Is there really any difference TL07x and TL08x? In 1973 it was a bin-sort, but I think all chips meet spec now, and the two part numbers maintained for the convenience of purchasing agents.

i've never noticed any difference between them tonally. i dunno if the specs are different