Decent somehow doesn't sound encouraging! ;-) My experience is that with an Alembic, a good cabinet and a clean amp, not much tweaking is required out of the preamp. The Carvin's front-end is more gimmicky than I'd like, I prefer simplicity, but the amp is clean. I'll even fess up to using 3 of their power amps in my PA and home studio. Do the Eden cabinets have their own attenuation settings? The Acme's have them and they are a major part of getting the sound. YMMV. Good luck on your quest, BTW, besides simplicity, what else do you like about the Time Traveler? I'm considerig the 550 for my Acme Low B 2.