Audere vs. Series/Parallel

[RebelBass117]

IMO not very smart

But fun haha

 

[Slater]

I'd say comparing a push /pull series/parallel set up to a 3 or 4 band EQ with an active pre amp is apples and oranges.

I don’t disagree, but it was the OP that suggested one or the other. I’m merely suggesting to try the option that is about 10x less expensive first.

 

[eastcoasteddie]

I have 2 jazzes wired in series/parallel and 2 jazzes with audere’s. I prefer the Audere’s. They’re very versatile and uncolored. I started my preamp ventures with John East retro J’s and couldn’t stand how much they colored the tone in active mode. Sold them off. Then, I went to Audere Pro JZ’s with the Z-mode knob and 4 band EQ, Vol/Blend. I liked them a lot but never used the Z mode. So I sold both of those and for the Audere Jazz 4 band preamp with the passive tone knob. THAT preamp is perfect IMO.

I’ve been keeping that Jazz plate with passive tone in the back of my mind for two years. I’ve just decided that i will go for it after reading your post.
If I like it enough, I will get another one for my fretless, but the fretless doesn’t have a side jack. I’d have to either drill it for the side jack or get the one w/o passive tone.
How does the active treble control sound when cut in comparison to the passive tone control? On the fretless, I typically keep the tone control at 50-75%.

 

[MoeTown1986]

I’ve been keeping that Jazz plate with passive tone in the back of my mind for two years. I’ve just decided that i will go for it after reading your post.
If I like it enough, I will get another one for my fretless, but the fretless doesn’t have a side jack. I’d have to either drill it for the side jack or get the one w/o passive tone.
How does the active treble control sound when cut in comparison to the passive tone control? On the fretless, I typically keep the tone control at 50-75%.

I had a Standard Jazz with a side jack at one point as well. I put the standard Audere 4 band in that one. If you keep the tone between 50-75, simply rolling the active treble off and maybe pulling a tad of hi mids will probably net you similar results. You just won’t get that tone rolled off 100% thump tone.

 

[Wfrance3]

Something else to think about is linear vs. audio taper on the volume pot. The difference is how the volume behaves in deference to turning the knob attached to the volume pot. For linear, imagine a square with a diagonal line drawn from the bottom left corner to the top right corner. Further imagine, the left side of the square where the line starts=dead silent. The right side of the square where the line ends=loud as it will go. Now, back to that line. As you turn the volume knob, you travel along the line. because it's perfectly diagonal in a perfectly square, square, volume will get uniformly louder/quieter as you turn clockwise/anti-clockwise.
With an audio taper pot, the line is not perfect as in a linear taper pot. The line has a little "swoop" to it. Instead of the loudness increasing proportionally equal to the the turn of the knob, it will be disproportionate. Volume will increase faster part way through the rotation and slower in the other. For me, audio taper amounts t me finding that I have to hunt for the "sweet spot", which is a little wonky to do on the fly. I'm imagining that there will be some folks that prefer audio taper for vol and linear taper for tone. I'm the opposite FWIW... Hope this helps!!

 

[eastcoasteddie]

I just replaced the two Volume pots in my fretless from Audio taper to Linear taper. I can actually hear the difference. Seems that the Audio taper tone pot behaves differently with the Linear Volume pots...it just sounds so much better now! I can’t believe it. Blending pickups works much better and does not have that “on-off” effect that Audio volume pots have...like if you back off one of the volumes, after 10% down it sounds like you hit an “off switch”.
This is all using headphones, haven’t plugged into a real amp yet...
The Audio pots were CTS. I couldn’t find CTS Linear pots and wound up getting Bournes pots. A bit worse on quality, but the end result in sound makes up for it...