I kind of lost track of all the Catalinbread SFT versions and want to know the differences or summarized: which one is/was the best? I used to have SFT v1 but sold it and might regret it now. My old SFT didn´t like my active basses, even with powering it with 18 volts, but now i mostly play passive basses in C-standard tuning (stonerrock). Or should i better aim for an SFT alternative? Most important for me is touch sensitivity: as harder you hit the strings, as more dirt comes out.
I never liked the SFT, too darn compressed. Go for a Barbershop, an Azure Drive, a Valvecaster, or something like that. Some people get good results out of the Beta, but again IMO/IME it was too compressed.
I kinda agree with Blindrabbit. The SFT never sounded all that good. Too furry and not much articulation or definition. At least with the one I had about 4 years ago.
v1 has the big white knobs, v2 has smaller black knobs, or silver knobs. v3 has a switch to go between two gain settings 'stones' and 'stoner'. 18V is definitely the way to go, especially if you have a high output bass. V1 has less low end and top end, but fatter lower mids that really fill out the mix. I had both for a while and thought I preferred the deeper lows and extended highs of the V2 at first, but with the band at volume, the V1 had more low mid grunt. I eventually replaced it with a Bearfoot Blueberry though. It sounds more tube like and responds better when digging in really hard. Fast forward several years and I am using a Solidgoldfx Beta as a dirty boost instead. Sounds very much like a tubescreamer but with massive lows and low mids, and not much top end!