From tonysounds@yahoo.com Tue Nov 23 19:03:25 2004
Subject:Re: XK-3 with Speakeasy or not (was: Help mail ordering an XK-3)

Thanks for responding; I kind of figured you hadn't tried a Speakeasy for yourself. Having used a Tube Driver (a great product, but was even better when it was put out by Chandler instead of Butler), I know what you're experiencing with low-end roll-off. Let me state unequivocally that this is the OPPOSITE of what you're getting with the Speakeasy. You don't know what's missing if you haven't heard it.

But swapping tubes is definitely worth exploring.

T
jjmcs49 wrote:

I have not used a Speakeasy Preamp. I have a Tube Works Blue Tube II
Preamp that has an overdrive channel as well as a clean but
overdriveable channel. The overdrive channel can be fed into the
clean channel in stacked mode. I also have two different Blue Tube
pedals. Each one sounds different. One thing they all have in common
though is that they tend to roll off the low end so that there is a
trade off in the overall tone ie: warming up the high end on my XM-1
came at the cost of loosing some of the bass tones. These preamps
were advertised for bass guitar and keyboard. I tried them with the
XK-3 and to me, they actually degraded the sound. I'm not trying to
disparage the sound or the value of the Speakeasy products. My
understanding of them and similar products is that their purpose is
to improve or add something that is missing/lacking in the keyboard
it is attached to. To me, the XK-3 doesn't need to have something
that is missing added, but that different tubes can shape the tone
more to the users personal taste. I think that the tubes that came
in it are a good balance between the Sovtek 12AX7LPS's that I tried
which seem to overdrive slightly even with the knob at zero and the
GE's that I prefer which seem to start overdriving later but enhance
the tone before they do. I wish I could describe what the change is
better, but they seem to sing in harmony with the notes I am playing.

Regarding the civil servant, her position was that just the fact it
cost more made it feel better. We had been basically building a
house inside the convention center since 6 that morning and it was
almost midnight so none of us would have been up for it even if we
were interested in availing ourselves of her gracious offer of
social comfort.