Micropro Mach 2 8” vs Aviator Cub
To start off, this isn’t really a “versus” situation, since
both amps are quite different and each has its own place. Certainly the way I
have my MP2 set, it would not be a fair fight. I usually have the Boost set to
Loud with the level control at minimum (the Chuck Becker “Beast Mode”) and the
voice set to Brown or Smooth. The Cub can’t compete with that tone-wise, so
I’ll be adjusting my MP2 to match the Cub and won’t be using any of the
features or voices that the Cub doesn’t have.
The basic test plan: First, spend enough time with the Cub
to develop settings for a tone (or tones) that I find usable. Second, adjust my
MP2 to match, as closely as possible, the tone of the Cub and compare the
sound. Third, run some audio tests on both amplifiers to uncover the
differences, identify the similarities, explain what I’m hearing and get a
better idea of how these amps behave. I’m an EE currently working for a company
that designs audio signal processing gear, and in a past life worked at an
audio power amplifier company, so I’ve got a little experience in this area,
and it should be fun. I’m just doing “black box” tests so I won’t be opening up
these amps (the Cub’s not mine, and I don’t want to let the magic out of the MP2),
and the only “mod” will be to disconnect the loudspeaker in the Cub so I can
attach a precision audio load for power testing. Loudspeakers (and my
neighbors) aren’t keen on having high power sinewaves applied to them.
For the knob tweaking exercise I’m using my four main
guitars: Gibson Custom Shop ES339, Comins GCS-1, Godin Summit HG w/single P90
(think Les Paul Jr) and a Godin Fifth Avenue Kingpin P90 Archtop.
Everything here is my opinion and as they say “your mileage
may vary”.
The Aviator Cub
I spent several hours with this amp, changing guitars and
trying out the three voices. I started out with the EQ flat, Limiter Off and
adjusted the Gain and Volume controls for a comfortable clean sound. I noticed
immediately that the Cub is a very bright sounding amp – going from brightest
to warmest sounding is Blonde, Black then Tweed. Too bright IMO. I tweaked the
EQ section and got the Tweed voice tuned to a bit warmer sound that I liked. No
amount of adjustment tamed the Blonde however. The Black voice remained
somewhere in between. I settled on using the Tweed voice for the remainder of
my listening and playing. Comparing to the MP2, the Tweed was very similar
(although on the MP2 the Tweed is about half the output power of the other
voices, and that’s not the case on the Cub) and the Black voice was a good
match to the Surf setting. The MP2 does not have any voice that matches the
Blonde on the Cub.
As far as overdrive/simulated output saturation, the Gain
knob doesn’t really get much dirt until about the three o’clock setting and
beyond. With the Gain set high, the sound is a bit harsh and fizzy with the
Limiter Off. I ended up leaving the Gain set at the three o’clock position. As
with the MP2, the Limiter is a key feature, and bringing the Limiter up to
about one o’clock really helped tame the fizzies and I could hear that nice
squish when I pushed the amp. It sounded pretty great – but still bright. I
really believe that this amp would benefit from having a High Cut control
added. It doesn’t need to be a chicken-head knob, it could just be a recessed
adjustment pot, or even a pushbutton with a fixed level.
I keep a small amount of Reverb active on my MP2, roll the
Tone off a little to avoid hiss and set the Dwell time fairly short just to
give everything a little bit of air. The Reverb on the Cub only has a level
control and for my use, the reverb tail is just too long. Even with the reverb
nearly off, there was just too much in the Cub. I’m also not liking the sound
of the reverb in general, and I’ll need to do some more testing to flesh out
why.
One feature the Cub has that is lacking in the MP2 is the
line out level control and headphone jack. I found that in order to get any
decent level in my headphone I had to crank the level up pretty high, so I was
a little disappointed.
The MP2
I matched the settings of the Cub on the MP2, keeping the
High Cut off, voice set to Tweed, and the Boost Off and then matched the levels
by ear. Other than the obvious difference between an open and closed back
cabinet, the two amps sounded very close. I usually kept the Gain at about noon,
and used the Boost to get that output saturation sound but I liked this better,
especially with the Limiter always-on. I was able to get that nice squish and
enhanced sustain that I wasn’t really getting before. Even with the High Cut
off, the MP2 sounded a bit warmer though and had less brittleness to it. Adding
a little bit of high cut back in did help. As an experiment, I disconnected the
Cub speaker and wired it to my MP2 (with the internal speaker unplugged) and
still noticed some added brightness just from the speaker. It’s possible this
will be reduced with some more time on the Cub, letting the loudspeaker break
in further.
Next Steps
I’m in the process of running some audio tests on both
amplifiers, starting with the Cub. I can already see why the three voices sound
bright based on the frequency responses and I’ll be running the same tests on the
MP2 to compare. I’ll be looking at limiter response and functionality,
distortion and other parameters. I’ll have to figure out the best/easiest way
to publish the graphs…
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