headphones are very important + electrical compensation devices

Headphones are very important!

The quality of the sound you will hear is dependent on the type of headphones you plug-in to the sore-throat amplifier.  

TYPE

Over-the-ear headphones are the best, and, if they are eight OHMS type, even better.  These headphones will get the loudest and have the best bass response. Special hi-fidelity headphones that have high impedance of over 100 ohms will produce excellent sound and provide better high frequency response.

Down

Size

If you need to go portable, you can put a 3.5 mm-to-1/4 inch adaptor in the headphone jack, and use the common small 32 ohm headphones. Volume will usually be reduced, but its good enough to use in guitar stores and check out the sound of various pick-ups. Just use a short guitar cable on the input, and the whole thing will fit in your coat pocket.

Hear a Buzz

When you switch to a single-coil pick-up, you might hear a buzz in the headphones. That’s normal, SCPU’s can get electrical noise and over-head light buzz, if they aren’t shielded or too close.  Locating to a different spot in the room might help.

Bass Response Headphones

If you need to play a lot of low “E” string notes, turn the GAIN control down to 20-30 percent, and turn the VOLUME up.  The lows will be cleaner and more up front. Larger strings produce more output in the pick-ups, which makes more distortion. It’s the nature-of-the-beast, ‘cause we don’t use any filters or tone circuits in the amps.

You hear what your pick-ups really sound like, which is why Guitar Tech’s keep STGA’s in their toolbox.

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WE LEARNED the HARDWAY over the years to compensate the little amps for dealing with real-life situations of Guitar Players and their Crews.

Here is a list of some of the features, and why they exist.

The “Penniless Rocker” Mono Plug Shorting Resistor: you can plug-in a mono (tip/sleeve ground) guitar cable into the headphone jack (TRS) and the output will not be shorted to ground. OR, spend money on a new 3 conductor guitar cable!

The “Careless Roadie” impedance matcher: a nice L-pad with a 5K resistor to ground, and the 620 Quad carbon composition input set that works well with almost any guitar/pick-up type.

Lets the sound quality through, and keeps the “Signal Path Purists” happy.

The “Mad Scientist” RCA Jack- works as both an input-from another pedal or a spring reverb- and also an output-to a pedal board chain or a computer adaptor.  The gain control will act as a volume/ stage-1 mixer.

“The Vintage Buyer Cloth Wire” is really from the 1950’s- is that “vintage” enough for you?

The “Brainless Battery-Jumper” Protection

Diode- keeps the IC safe from reverse-polarity external power, and bi-polar people! Located on the circuit board.

The “Stupid Consumer” Compensation Resistor: the volume control can be on “0”, but it won’t make the output zero. Saves us from answering angry phone calls. No offense!  

The “Non-Matching Cell Twins” Ballast resistors: if the batteries don’t match, the amp stays stable. For a while…