It is obvious that you are deaf to the high frequency harmonics of sound that is produced by severe distortion.
I have no idea where you got that from. If you re-read my post -
Jon Wilder said:
Moreover, guitar speakers only work within the 70Hz - 5kHz range anyway...which is more than the usable pass band for guitar frequencies (82.41Hz - 1.32kHz at the fundamentals, leaving plenty of room for upper harmonics).
That is to state that the normal frequency range that a guitar speaker itself is designed to work in is between 70Hz - 5kHz. This had nothing to do with my hearing, but everything to do with the frequency pass band that the speaker itself responds to at the -3dB (half power) points. It's a 12" speaker...what more do you want from it? Look at the frequency response specs for a typical Celestion guitar speaker sometime.
The reason I don't hear the "fuzz" is because I know how to properly tailor the voicing an overdrive circuit. A well voiced overdrive circuit for guitar does not distort all frequencies within the pass band the same amount. The proper way to do it is to shelve the highs and lows early on in the circuit to keep them from getting clipped and focus on overdriving the midrange area of the spectrum. This keeps things nice and smooth in the highs yet nice, tight and punchy in the lows.
audioguru said:
Your "70Hz to only 5kHz" is the awful muffled sound of an old AM radio. Normal people hear frequencies up to 20kHz.
Not if the frequencies aren't there in the first place. Or in the case of building an overdrive circuit you may wanna shelve out the high highs again to keep them nice and clean while everything else below that gets clipped.
Rock guitar is a very mid-range sound. Add those upper highs to it and it's not a usable sound. The sound of rock is a "powerful" sound. It's supposed to sound "big and full" more than it is to sound "loud". It's a sound that hits you...all about impact and sounding "big and full"...not "clean and chimey". As such most of us rock guitarists are actually quite sparing on the highs to keep those upper frequencies from becoming overbearing, which keeps things sounding nice, big and smooth rather than harsh and tinny.
I know you're a hi-fi enthusiast...however in the world of electric blues and rock and roll, guitar and hi-fi do not mix. They never did. It's a completely different world. You may not like it...and as such you may not fully understand it. But it is what it is, it's the sound we like, and that's that. Furthermore, not every instrument in a band is supposed to cover the entire audible frequency spectrum in a flat nature. If they all did we'd have one hell of a time trying to place each one in the mix.
For the record we humans don't even hear flat and the frequency pass band that our ears respond to changes with volume, becoming less sensitive to lows and highs at lower volumes (Fletcher/Munson curve).