yeah,the older silverface versions of all of these higher gain mts modules had unuseable tones and,in many cases,did sound awful.they had the .0047u capacitors used in them and i,basically,hated most of these original modules.way too bassy/boomy,poor definition/clarity & just plain muddy with the gain level over the half-way mark.once the newer black-stripe versions came out with the .0022u cap mods from the factory-it greatly improved all the higher gain modules,imo... on a separate note,the reg Ultra does have a darker tone to it,but the black-stripe version has more crushing distortion than any other mts module,imo...