Sonzera 20 Tone Control

ThatWizardGuy

ThatWizardGuy

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Greetings,
I have a new Sonzera 20 combo amplifier. I am familiar with Fender Tube amplifiers, where the tone control is passive subtractive, ie, setting of 10 is flat. Just from experimenting with the Sonzera, am I correct in thinking it is NOT behaving like a Fender? The tone control does not appear to be flat at 10, at all. I found little documentation on how it really works. Thanks,
 
I use an Audio Interface directly to powered monitor speakers as a baseline for 'flat tone'. My Fender combo amplifiers have a flat tone when set to 10. Lowering the knob, only reduces the tone. On a PSR Sonzera 20, I seem to get a flat tone with the knob at 12 O'clock. So I am asking for confirmation that the PSR tone control is NOT passive/subtractive, like the Fender. If I can fault PRS at all, it's on their lack of documentation. Bryan Ewald, if you're listening, how about a little more detail in your product review YouTube videos, please and thank you, for the more technical people.
 
Is there anyone here that dials tone based on specs? I dial based on sound. Not being argumentative, but Bryan does product demo's, not circuit analysis. He is not the one at fault. In fact, I don't see a "fault" here, as PRS is solely responsible for how much info it chooses to make public on their circuits, and has always been a little tight to the vest with schematics.
 
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The flattest a traditional Fender tone stack can be, is with the mids dimed, but the bass and treble VERY close to all the way down. Technically, once you get the B and T down that far, you can maintain a fairly flat curve while moving the M control from fully dimed to around 4. Interestingly, while maintaining almost the same frequency response, the mids control becomes very much a "volume" control as it moves the whole curve up and down, largely intact, when going from 10 down to 4 or so. The frequency curve stays almost identical, but the level goes up and down with the mids control between about 4 and 10... as long as you don't touch B and T. Leave them off or very close to off (pot variances far exceed those of any other part in amps).

Everything dimed, or everything at "noon" is a BIG mid scoop on a traditional Fender tone stack. Everything dimed actually is a bit brighter on top, and shifts the deepest part of the scoop to around 200hz, and it's a solid 15dB under the level at 3K. Everything at noon shifts the bottom of the 'scoop" up to about 400hz and it's about 13dB below the 3K level.

Again, these are "ideal" numbers and with pot variances of 20% or so, can vary significantly from the design spec'd part.

I only say this to clarify my belief that "everything dimed" is not flat. At least not for a traditional Fender tone stack.

Where's Winger???
 
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Heeeeeeeeee's Back! (The mods are back from the holiday weekend! LOL)

I don't have a schematic for the Sonzera but I think the controls are passive. If anyone has a schematic and can post it I will review it. Just remember that just being passive does not mean flat, and the values chosen for the parts in the tone stack will determine what the shapes are of the actual tone stack and it's tone shaping capabilities. I highly recommend the SD Tone Stack calculator as plugging in the values your amp has can give you a really good understanding of what your tone stack does in your amp.

But, whatever anyone says is correct, and I love you all even if it's not really correct, because that's how WingerRules rolls! TGFWR!
 
WingerRules said:
I don't have a schematic for the Sonzera but I think the controls are passive. If anyone has a schematic and can post it I will review it. Just remember that just being passive does not mean flat, and the values chosen for the parts in the tone stack will determine what the shapes are of the actual tone stack and it's tone shaping capabilities. I highly recommend the SD Tone Stack calculator as plugging in the values your amp has can give you a really good understanding of what your tone stack does in your amp.
Click to expand...
This is all I could find.

 
ThatWizardGuy said:
Greetings,
I have a new Sonzera 20 combo amplifier. I am familiar with Fender Tube amplifiers, where the tone control is passive subtractive, ie, setting of 10 is flat. Just from experimenting with the Sonzera, am I correct in thinking it is NOT behaving like a Fender? The tone control does not appear to be flat at 10, at all. I found little documentation on how it really works. Thanks,
Click to expand...
First, do you have the new version of the Sonzera, or the first version?

Second, which channel are you asking about? The clean channel only has B and T, and the gain has B-M-T. Both are passive. If you let us know which version you have, and I can find a schematic (for the new one, which we know they revoiced at least the gain channel on, maybe both) I may be able to mock you up a tone stack graph.
 
WingerRules said:
First, do you have the new version of the Sonzera, or the first version?

Second, which channel are you asking about? The clean channel only has B and T, and the gain has B-M-T. Both are passive. If you let us know which version you have, and I can find a schematic (for the new one, which we know they revoiced at least the gain channel on, maybe both) I may be able to mock you up a tone stack graph.
Click to expand...
How do you tell which version?
 
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