Sound City Lead 105 preset

Verified · 82/100 confidence. Complete schematic. All component values readable. Parameters derived directly from the circuit.

The Lead 105 is the 100-watt head Dave Reeves built for Sound City in the late 1960s, before he moved to his own Hiwatt brand. Four inputs each have their own gain stage, voicing and Volume, mixed into a recovery stage, a simple Treble/Bass circuit with no Middle or Presence, and a Master Volume. A cathode follower drives an ECC81 long-tailed pair and four fixed-bias EL34s. Its four-input layout is the one Hiwatt carried into the CP103.

Known for: Pete Townshend.

Tags: british, vintage, el34, high-wattage, crunch.

Schematic-derived preset files for 16 Fractal and Line 6 modelers: Axe-Fx II/XL/XL+, Axe-Fx III, FM3, FM9, and the full Helix family (Floor, LT, Rack, HX Stomp, HX Stomp XL, Native).

Gridleak extracts amp parameters from original circuit schematics using AI vision — component values, gain staging, tone stack topology, tube types — then generates native preset files for every supported modeler. Every extraction is scored 0–100 and the score is published.