[LAD] (Modular) Synth and Clipping

[John Rigg]

On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 08:50:39PM +0200, Dominique Michel wrote:
> As example, when you push guitar amps in clipping at full volume, half
> of the clipping you can ear is, with some brands, not the clipping of
> the electronic, but the clipping of the power transformer. That sounds
> very bad -:(, and that imply you may have to change often this
> transformer when such amps are used to play blues or rock like styles
> of music. 

An output transformer will saturate if the frequency is low enough, but
the signal level required to saturate it is directly proportional to
frequency. In a properly designed guitar or bass amp there will be some
transformer distortion at the lowest frequencies but not much above that.
If you lowered the frequency enough to fully saturate the transformer it
wouldn't sound very good, as you say. (I design guitar amps among other
things).

John