Removing knobs of my bugera amp changes the tone a bit

[mbengs1]

What I tried was removing the gain knob on the clean channel. After doing this, the first thing I noticed was the sound was less bright. I tried to record a song with it and it sounded pretty nice. My singing was a bit unfocused and all over the place. The next knob I tried removing was the reverb of the clean channel. It sounded a bit better than the first knob removal. The distortion pedals sounded much clearer and the character of the pedal came out nicely. The last is the presence knob of the clean channel. This is the one that the amp was on since I bought it 5 years ago. I put it back on and I think it sounds the best. The lead channel sounds most organic and the gain pedals are warmer. It's taken so long for me to try these things I don't know why. 5 years? wow... 😁

[Phil O'Keefe]

Did someone tell you that you’d hear an improvement by removing various knobs on your amp? 

The reason I ask is because you seem to have expected that to happen, and therefore, for you, it has.

Try this: have a friend help you, and remove the knob or put it back on while you’re playing... but have him / her do it while you are turned around and not looking. See if you can tell when the knob is on, and when it is off. Try it a dozen times or so each way, but without looking to see if it is on or not. Have your friend keep score. I’m betting you won’t be able to guess correctly - at least not a statistically significant percentage of the time - because removing knobs, or replacing them with fancy, hi-fi knobs made from "special" materials or with special lacquer coatings or whatever will make ZERO difference to the sound of your amp.

NONE.