Rockman Guitar ACE - Vintage SR&D vs Dunlop

The cheapest and least respected Rockman headphone amp was introduced by SR&D back in 1990 then reworked and released by Dunlop following the buyout of Scholz Research & Development around 1995. Still available to this day, the newer Guitar Ace has the reputation of being inferior to the SR&D original. Neither of these headphone amps have the same sound as the iconic X100 heard on Boston Third Stage, Def Leopard Hysteria, and Joe Satriani records (and many more 80's recordings).

But with some mods and creativity can you even get usable tones from these devices? Do the new ones sound worse than the vintage SR&D units? That's what I set out to learn in this shootout full of A/B comparisons and my dubious guitar playing.

Timecodes:
00:00 Introduction
03:18 Circuit Boards
06:42 A/B Setup
07:08 Mackie Onyx 16
09:02 Raw Clean Sound
10:09 Dunlop Resistor Mods
11:40 DIST/SEMI
14:13 DIST/HVY
18:17 With Chorus & Delay from DAW
19:53 Clean with Chorus & Delay from DAW
22:03 DIST/HVY + FX
23:23 Old & New Panned Wide
26:37 Single Coil Sounds


Tracktion Waveform Affiliate Link:
https://affiliate.tracktion.com/traff...

Mackie Onyx:
https://mackie.com/en/products/mixers...

Guitar Ace Amazon:
https://smile.amazon.com/Dunlop-GA-Ro...