Kingslayer sounds "honky"

[zilla]

Maybe it's just me, but I find that when I have the soft clipping bypassed and i turn the level and treble up to about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way up the sounds gets kind of honky.

It gets better when i engage the soft clipping, but red LEDs and no soft clipping are really bad. 1n34a and no soft clipping is better, but still annoying.

Is this just the nature of the beast?