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/traffic.php?id=105 Mackie Onyx: https://mackie.com/en/products/mixers/onyx-series/Onyx16.html Guitar Ace Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Dunlop-GA-Rockman-Guitar-Ace/dp/B0002T60NU/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1VKNJMOP3FHPW&keywords=guitar+ace&qid=1645403314&sprefix=guitar+acce%2Caps%2C105&sr=8-2