[markchatwin]

Starting using the STD today... First impression - OK quality - Guitar through special purple cable into the box and then one 20' Monster cable into Amp A and a 20'Monster cable into AMP B. Sounded OK to me, kind of chimey, brilliant, trebly tone out of both amps. Both amps are Mesa Boogie Mark II C's set on the same standard clean tone setting. Same cabinets as well.

Then I just listened to one amp and again bright detailed tone. When I switched to direct patching into the amp the tone seemed to be a touch louder and fuller-bodied. My preferred tone was just a guitar patched straight in.

But feeling that the differences were subtle I decided to record one amp with and without the STD. Mic placement and gain and guitar settings were exactly the same. The only variable was my actual playing of this chord progression. I tried to play exactly the same on each track.

Going back and forth listening to each track, set at the same volume with no effects or EQ, the results were loss of warmth and roundness of tone with the STD. Even a bit less overall volume. The trebly chimey nature of the guitar part was still there. The direct track still had enough brightness but the body was there in the tone. Again these differences were subtle but there.

A similar test done on the Lehle P-Split purchased a month ago showed obvious high end loss. Not so on the Little labs STD. However some warmth and body was lost. The Lehle tone was definitely clouded over. This STD tone I think I can live with for the pricepoint.

These initial thoughts are not tested enough to be conclusive to my ear. But on first impression there is signal loss and even an impression of more high end with the STD. Quite possibly an effect of having a bit less body and warmth.

My questions are: Could the extra cable length (essentially the purple cable length) have effected this? When using the STD should I run as short as possible cable into the amps? What would happen to the tone if I added length to the purple cable? Would the $1000+ units with more splits be better quality or should I say replicate the original tone more accurately? Is it simply true that you cannot split the signal without some change in tone?