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Kia ora
Have a Kaosamp eye of horus 30 watt amp
Currently pushing it with a JHS Angry Charlie as only source of additional gain/drive.....the Charlie didn't seem to have the effect i was after....have used EP boosterand SD1 in the past on my other amps to good results.
Amp has real good quality glass in form of Svetlanas etc
It is described by the builder as more akin to a classic rock amp circuit, and they build more high gain amps which this obviously not.
Wanting to know what would be work involved and cost to add an additional gain stage mod?
Or should I just look at a higher gain distortion pedal in front end

Any advice is good advice....love the amp but just want a bit more grrrrrrrrr

Adding a gain stage within the amp is doable but expensive, give relatively little tonal versatility and I'd imagine reduce resale value.

Adding a boost/OD/distortion/fuzz up front gives you a thousand options to get the sound you like, and chop and change later if you feel the need.

I know you can buy things like the hot mods for Marshall amps, it’s like a proper extra tube gain stage that you add in place of the V1 but not sure if that would work here.
If you had the schematic I’m
Sure there will be people on here that can advise on potential mods, Mike C?

The cheaper option is to try some different pedals: buy one and if it doesn't work, you can sell it on; rinse and repeat. Then at least you'll know whether it's an option or not. Then you can decide if you want to invest more in this amp trying to get it to do what you want, or move it on for something that does.

I had a tendency to use distortion pedals for heavy tones rather than boosting the amp, I guess that could be an option to investigate too?

If you want to borrow a Source Audio LA Lady (boost/OD/fuzz modeller) to see what flavour float your boat, I'm sure we could work something out. It has about fifty different pedal models in it, and they sound more than good enough.

Personally I’d just go with the pedal option and leave the amp as how it was originally designed. Pretty confident you’d be able to get what you’re after with a carefully considered pedal or two running into the front

Thanks for the feedback everyone....
Me thinks ill just go with the consensus and just start trialling some distortion pedals
Have sold the Angry Charlie so got a bit of cash for some pedals now

Hooroo

Reg18 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 17, 2023 10:41 am I know you can buy things like the hot mods for Marshall amps, it’s like a proper extra tube gain stage that you add in place of the V1 but not sure if that would work here.
If you had the schematic I’m
Sure there will be people on here that can advise on potential mods, Mike C?

What Reg said.

Have you heard the demo on the kaosamp site? The Horus sounds pretty hi-gain to me (sounds bloody nice), are you getting similar gain to the demo and you just want more? http://www.kaosamp.com/?page_id=91

I had a heavily modded Marshall jcm800 that Ryan modded for me. He added an extra gain stage. It was handy to have the gain stage there as it worked well with all of the mods that he'd done, but in reality, you could achieve the same result by using an overdrive pedal

MikeC wrote: ↑Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:07 pm Have you heard the demo on the kaosamp site? The Horus sounds pretty hi-gain to me (sounds bloody nice), are you getting similar gain to the demo and you just want more? http://www.kaosamp.com/?page_id=91

Er... for some of us on here, that is low gain...

(assuming you're referencing the soundcloud clip)

Danger Mouse wrote: ↑Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:22 pm

MikeC wrote: ↑Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:07 pm Have you heard the demo on the kaosamp site? The Horus sounds pretty hi-gain to me (sounds bloody nice), are you getting similar gain to the demo and you just want more? http://www.kaosamp.com/?page_id=91

Er... for some of us on here, that is low gain...

(assuming you're referencing the soundcloud clip)

Yeah I was

Concurrent EL84's and 6V6's. Cool!

I'd start with a Graphic EQ pedal, you can sculpt the ToAnZ as well as the gain.

murky wrote: ↑Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:46 pm Concurrent EL84's and 6V6's. Cool!

I'd start with a Graphic EQ pedal, you can sculpt the ToAnZ as well as the gain.

Definitely interesting!

Depending on the circuit you might find an additional preamp tube will add more noise along with more gain, I had an amp which had a push pull for extra gain stage and I preferred running an OD into it instead as it got the same gain but way less noise... YMMV... Try a joyo sweet baby, makes every amp sound betterer!