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Post subject: Guitar Amp Enhancer
Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 10:21 am
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Anybody own or use a Sound Enhancer for combo amps?

See the concept and product here:

http://www.soundenhancer.com/the_enhancer.htm

It's an interesting gadget, which effectively turns an open backed amp into a closed back one. It rounds up the sound from the back and ports it out to the front. It looks good and darmatically improves the projection power of my Blues Junior. It does have a marked effect on tone though - you need to re-think your usual EQ settings. It also makes a very good looking stand for your amp and holds it secure and at an optimal angle.

I'm guessing the company have long since closed down, as the website hasn't been updated since 2003. My Enhancer came as one of a few liberated from old trade fair stock and sold through the PMT company.

Anyone care to comment?

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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:58 pm
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Or you could just buy a closed back speaker cab, or find a way to close the back of your combo amp with plywood.

Closed back and open back cab's produce different sounds. a closed back cab sounds more bassy and less mid range than a open back in general.

Some people prefer the open back sound, and its generally a huge part of the Fender sound.

Its not something I would purchase personally, but I bet its serves its purpose

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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 2:21 pm
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Seems like it kills everything I want out of a tube amp. :shock:
I never really liked the sound of horn loaded guitar cabinets except I think it was Acoustic Amps that had their amps voiced for it. Some horn loaded cabs can be pretty harsh.

I hate gimmicks. :? Glad you like it though. The tilt and amp off the ground can dramatically improve you tone. An amp stand or a chair can help.

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Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 2:27 pm
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When I bought extension cab for my Rivera I chose the closed back cab. The amp is open back so I have both sounds at once. Very full. Many Fender extension cabinets are also closed back, likely for the same reason. As far as gimmicky items go I agree with 63 to avoid them.

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Post subject: Re: Guitar Amp Enhancer
Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 5:00 pm
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adey wrote:
Anybody own or use a Sound Enhancer for combo amps?

See the concept and product here:

http://www.soundenhancer.com/the_enhancer.htm

It's an interesting gadget, which effectively turns an open backed amp into a closed back one.

snip

I'm guessing the company have long since closed down, as the website hasn't been updated since 2003.

snip

Anyone care to comment?


Looks like a neat device... and would make a BIG difference in getting the full sound of my Princeton Chorus out in the direction I want...

I went ahead and e-mailed their contact addy... we'll see if they are awake.

Neat find!!!

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Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:55 pm
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If they went under, it just reinforces my gimmick statement. Like BMW says, a closed back cabinet will pretty much yield the same results. Mine are closed back and ported and sound great.

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Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 7:41 pm
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Standard guitar amp = Fender Bassman
Guitar amp enhancer = Marshall Plexi


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Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 9:47 pm
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63supro wrote:
If they went under, it just reinforces my gimmick statement. Like BMW says, a closed back cabinet will pretty much yield the same results. Mine are closed back and ported and sound great.


I don't think so...

It's NOT closing in the back of the cab... it's taking the sound that would normally be lost/projected to the rear and sending it forward...

Looks like the waveguide is long enough to make the phasing match too...

I suspect it could make a big difference in a moderately sized amp...

Closing the back seals the pressure in the box, and usually is ported toward the front with a smaller tube that relieves the pressure and does SOME phasing to keep from canceling the direct sound...

This is a whole different approach, turning around nearly the whole amount of sound pressure that would have escaped to the rear and projecting it along with the direct sound...

There are a bunch of things you could do with this... especially if you played with the length of the passage, maybe using baffles to make it longer or shorter...

hmmmmmmm....<G>

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Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2010 10:21 pm
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rjake wrote:
Standard guitar amp = Fender Bassman
Guitar amp enhancer = Marshall Plexi


PERFECT!

(serious hand-clapping......)

Arjay

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Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:38 am
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So much for the better mouse trap....
The company was bought out and restructured once and the site hasn't been updated in 7 years.
The thing that kills it for me is it's horn loaded, and the other is the thing is big. I's rather have a couple more speakers than a horn. Just me though.

I survived for 40 years without one and I hope I can still survive. I never liked tube amps through horns, just don't work for me. There's a reason amps and speaker configurations are designed the way they are. I've heard plenty of SS amps through horns in the 70's and it was painful. Especially some of the big Acoustic amps. YMMV as well as your ears.


December 14, 2002
Corporate Buyout & Restructure
On December 11, 2002 Sound Enhancer, Inc. and Sound Bridge Acoustic Labs officially dissolved the partnership. Sound Bridge and its staff were fully removed from the management and manufacturing process. The company began restructure immediately after the separation and is now fully underway with new manufacturing facilities and the management has been turned back over to the founder and inventor of the Enhancer. The company is now a family owned and operated organization and has plans for great success.

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Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:50 pm
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A Marshall can enhance/unleash the inner beast of any guitar especially the Plexis or JCM 800s

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Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 10:40 am
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Try a BBE Sonic Maximizer or Aphex Aural Xciter. :wink:

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Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 7:07 am
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I don't need more "wind" with my BDRI. nevertheless I will try at dealer when possible to know what is changing in the sound.

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Post subject: Re: Guitar Amp Enhancer
Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:37 pm
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Hi,
i copied this letter from the owner of the sound Enhancer. I wanted to reprint cause it seemed some were quite harsh on the guy and his idea. Hope this gives you a little more insight.
Hi guys this thread got me thinking about buying a sound enhancer and I ended up calling the owner of the company. We talked about the enhancer and its great success and unfortunetly the downfall of his business, not because the product doesn't work but nobody is willing to pay what it is actually worth. I told him that there is a place that I know where people search for there perfect tone and he might be able to get a few sales from fellow tone freaks (he says "I'm a musician first, business man second"). Any how I told him I would help him out in anyway I can so he wrote us a nice letter so we can all hear first hand about the enhancer!

Hello Tone Friends,

My name is Harold Smith. I am the inventor of the Enhancer amp stand/ported cabinet thing, for combo amps. The Enhancer has been a venture that goes back a few of decades now… and man what a ride it’s been! Here’s my story in short form.

I built my first Enhancer in 1978 as I needed to solve all the sound problems I’d been having with my open back amps. Always being too loud was a major hassle for me…as the guitarist in the band, when at the same time, I couldn’t hear my amp very well, but yet everyone else was holding their ears at the amps volume. It was costing the band gigs and I needed a way to control the amps uncontrollable volume. I discovered it wasn’t the sound from the front of the speaker that was the trouble but the sound coming from the back of the amp that was the real issue, and no one seemed to even notice that “it” was the problem but me. I looked around for a product that would help, but no one had anything for the acoustic control of the speaker for these open back amps, so I built the Enhancer for myself. I knew about acoustic tuning and collected books on the subject and started reading. I researched ported cabinet designs and selected what I thought would be the necessary design to go with.

It worked so well that the whole band and I were in shock! Not only did it control the volume, but added low end thump and high end sizzle and made my amp loud as hell in my ears, but to everyone else it was softer! The Enhancer was like the Frankenstein monster coming to life…I was thrilled that it worked so well and did exactly what I needed it to. Managers of venues were happy, the drummer was ecstatic and my tone was awesome. My amp now had much more power than needed and I ended up turning it down to compensate for its added volume the Enhancer produced, thus lowering my volume even more to everyone else, but man could I hear it!. This was long before amp stands and I knew I was on to something really important.

Realizing it was a truly big deal, I hid it away until I could figure out what to do with it or risk the idea being stolen. I hid it away in my attic for almost eighteen years hoping to raise the money for the patent.
For years I would wake up in the middle of the night in an anxiety attack, just knowing opportunity was knocking, but I never could afford the Patents. I had a carpet cleaning business and have been poor.


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Post subject: Re: Guitar Amp Enhancer
Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:39 pm
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In 2001, my sixteen year old son prompted me to bring it down out of the attic for a test drive and we took it to Guitar Center so I could demonstrate its technology to my son. The store was buzzing with curious onlookers and one of them was the regional buyer for G.C.. When he saw and heard it, he was blown away and placed an order to test the concept in his stores. With the G.C. order, we (my son and myself) formed a company and called it Smith Sound Products, mortgaged the house to pay for the patent and built the fourteen pieces for the G.C., to test sales.

Finding manufactures that would build small quantities has always been a problem. For example, we paid $250.00 for each Enhancer for the G.C. order and we sold to G.C for $80.00 each, as they wanted to sell them for $129.00 retail. It wasn’t good business on our part, but we saw it as a necessary opportunity that we could not pass up to get our foot in the door. They sold them out in about three weeks and placed an additional order for 125 more units and expanded us to fourteen stores and Musicians Friend.

We sought out a new manufacture in an effort to get the cost down and found a nice guy in east Texas that would help us out. He built us a very basic cabinet at a price that put us into business with a very small profit. $12.00 each. We made the delivery and within a few months they were sold out too. Now, G.C. wanted 250 units with further expansion. With the second order from G.C. the “nice guy in east Texas” raised his price to almost double of that of the first production run, because he said, “they were so complex to build and our order numbers were so low”. Manufactures want to build thousands of units, not dozens. So the search for yet another manufacture began as we had a number to hit to stay in business with G.C.. We found another builder and started from scratch with them, only to have the same problems with price points before the G.C order could be delivered. We did produce a few to take to trade shows and we attended the NAMM show and orders began to soar. The Guitar Center order was never filled as in time new people took office and didn’t know who we were when we called them back. At this time we changed the company name to Sound Enhancer Inc. to help promote the product by using its name. The only problem still was the high manufacturing cost. It’s always held us back.

Between 2001 and 2004 we went through eight manufactures with these same issues. Trying to get the cost down. Even had them built in China at one point. Only saved us $10.00 per unit after freight cost. The true retail price for these units should be around $375.00 but musicians are a poor bunch of tone nuts and have driven prices down on all music products over the decades to next to nothing, wanting more for less. We can thank China and Wal-Mart for that. It’s put us and many a U.S.A companies out of business, even though the Enhancer has been so successful as to have such users and endorsers as The Grand Ol Opry, Rolling Stones, Eagles, Eric Johnson, Carlos Santana, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Joe Perry, Colin Hay, Ring Starr, Kenny Burrell and the list goes on and on.

It’s not that the Enhancer is not desirable, it’s that to run companies with quality products like amps, cabinets and guitars, etc; a profit has to be made to afford the necessities, like manufacturing and staffing. So we’re trying to hang on, we’re looking into redesigning the Enhancer into a plastic “pop apart” cabinet that will ship in a smaller box in a flat configuration and assemble once purchased. We’re hoping the cost will be lower than that of the nice wooded birch models that we have produced in the past, but only time and more money will yield those answers as development has to be completed and testing has to get under way.

I think it might make everyone happy?! I can’t tell any more with what musicians want. It wont be a beautiful, custom wood cabinet built by human hands but “might” be cheap…that’s what everyone wants…right? Until then we are blowing out these beautiful birch wood cabinet that are left in stock for $150.00 each, in an attempt to turn the money for the development or the plastic proto type. If it is successful, and we can raise the funds quick enough, (as bills keep coming in) we will once again start from the beginning with a new model and attend the Summer NAMM to get the dealer base back on line. It’s an expensive gamble… we will need your support. We had developed several new products that never got to production due to manufacturing issues. A line of P.A. cabs, pedal boards and a new folding amp stand with a reflection shield for the amp owner on a budget. It’s called the Quickstand. We have the proto types of all this gear sitting in storage. If we can ever get the Enhancer to sell in volume, we will re-introduce these items.

Your support is vital if the Enhancer and its friends are to live. We have an E-Bay story under Sound Enhancer in the musical instrument section. If you want the most for your money, you better snatch up one of these beautiful birch cabinets before they are replaced with the plastic model…even if that can happen at all. The world’s musicians are in control…Sound Enhancer is simply the provider. Without your support we will be closing our doors soon for good.

I now drive a school bus six hours a day and work a second full time job at Hewitt Associates. I have two bands, playing on weekends and hardly have any time left for the Enhancer Company. Demand can change that!

To all who have supported the Enhancer in the past and future? I want to thank you for helping make this dream a reality. It’s never been about the money to me as it has been the search for tone. And the Enhancer has been a real blessing in that department!

Thank You,
Harold Smith
Inventor/President
Sound Enhancer Inc.
281-793-3439 cell


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