Muddy sound when cranked

[RyanBianchi]

I’ve built a sort of Vox/Lite2b hybrid. The preamp is Lite2b, but PI and power section are basically Vox. When I have volume and tone cranked the sound gets quite congested. If I back the tone control off a tad it appears to clear up. Is this normal on these amps?

[JMPGuitars]

It should have good compression, but not sound bad. To answer any real questions, we need to see your schematic and voltages. Photos of the build would help too.

Thanks,
Josh

[RyanBianchi]

It doesn’t sound bad as such, but with humbuckers it’s not really a usable rhythm tone. I’ll post photos and a schematic later.

[JMPGuitars]

Ah, I see. You might need to work out a bright/fat switch. I'm guessing your amp sounds great with single coils, but might get a little muddy with the buckers?

[RyanBianchi]

All sorted. Made the bias hotter so it’s bang on 100% and used a smaller preamp coupling cap value. Also experimented between .0047uf and .01uf on the tone control, .0047uf just sounds ‘tubby’, .01uf pretty much always sounded better to my ears. Also sounded good with it disconnected altogether at times.