qbertsoul wrote:The current industry trend is the opposite, and very hung up on "vintage" designs. People are much more interested in reissues of '52 Telecasters and old Bassman or Twin Reverb amps than of newer technologies. In some ways I can't blame them, but at some point newer technology should be able to do the job that all the older tech can and more. While at the moment people might not be buying that technology, I believe there is still effort to develop it, and the trends in demand will at some point migrate to something else.[/i]

I understand what you're saying, and I can't pretend I speak for the average consumer out there, but what I'm referring to is the fact that basically all the Guitar Player magazine 'timeless greats' (Hendrix, Page, Van Halen etc.), not to mention EVERYONE in rock's golden, pre-1975 era, was using tube amplifiers.

To some extent, everyone wants to sound like that, even if indirectly through second hand influences. So far the only functional way of achieving that sound is using tube amplifiers, so that's why they're still around. There was a point in time when solid state was a new thing, people were interested in maybe getting something better than what they had before, but evidently it didn't take.

tarandfeathers wrote:Really? I've had a couple of good quality, expensive stainless knives and they never get as sharp as my old carbon ones.

Sabatiers? They're fine, but I never had any problems with stainless not being sharp enough.

Plus there's the tradeoff that the old knives get dull faster, and require a bit more maintenance.

zom-zom wrote:

qbertsoul wrote: I read an interview with Greg Sage of the Wipers who said that in the 80's, everybody was selling their old tube amps to get solid state or digital technology, so you could get some really great sounding tube amps for really cheap.

In the '70s, certainly true from my experience. There was a music shop in Eau Claire WI when I went to college there, that was a Peavey dealer.

They had dozens of old Fender tweed amps, as well as old Ampegs that Country dudes in the area traded in for new Peaveys. They also had dozens of things like Country Gentlemans, Jazzmasters, various old Gibsons that were also traded in. There was a time when some people regarded tube gear as unreliable. And you certainly could get great tube gear for cheap in the '80s. Hardly anybody wanted Orange or Sunn, and Hiwatts could be had for cheap .

I second this as well, I paid $500 for a pics only Orange halfstack in 1986. Also during this time, I would walk into Daddy's and regularly see Ampeg V-4's and Sunn's selling for $250, which is also what I paid for a 100 watt Sound City Mk3.

I also remember seeing Tweed Fenders sell for around $350, whilst with guitars, you could pick up a '56 Stratocaster for $1600, and a 50's Les Paul for about $2K, which back then was relatively expensive, but nowhere near the ridiculous amounts that they go fo these days.

Is it absurd that people still use tube amps? No, because currently, no amount of digital modeling will even come close to the way that tube amps respond, though they come somewhat close to the way that they sound. Also, with the exception of some bass amps and GK guitar amps, I really can't think of too many Solid State amps that have been heavily played that have lasted for 20-50 years, whereas I can easily point out a bunch of tube amps that have lasted that long.

I guess there's really only 3 reasons why.

1. easier to repair tube amp than solid state amp.

2. tube distortion. Although it can be approximated in solid state, there is a difference.

3. became the standard by simply it's being the first developed.

there are other more debatable reasons:

4. voltage drop of tube rectifier.

5. output transformer.

Hey, that's 5 spurious reasons and "Looks Cooler" isn't even one of them.

zom-zom wrote:Hey, that's 5 spurious reasons and "Looks Cooler" isn't even one of them.

because it ain't true:

Oh man. I'd totally go see a band called The Mellow Sound of Space Age Design.

The 80's were probably pretty well split. New-wave type folks probably wanted the less-oldschool of solid-state. But metal, which was gigantic in the 80's, was all about the JCM800. Marshall stack. Tube.

Punk people, solid-state, sure. Or tube.

Really, why are tube amps always gonna be around? Because they pretty much rule.

Should laptop computers be all-tube? Of course not. Should guitar amps? Maybe.

And I have to agree with zom-zom's sentiment. The glow, the heat, the smell, and even the look, the beautiful beautiful look of a hand-wired circuit... no robot-assembled and ultimately disposable piece of solid-state gear has it. Even just the idea of knowing that the amp is 40 years old and sounds fucking incredible, it's kinda heartwarming.

For the most part, I think guitar amps were pretty well perfected by the 1970's. Most of what's come in the last 30 years has been about building them as cheap as possible, resulting in inferior designs and inferior build quality, and also trying to invent new and usually unnecessary bells and whistles, ways to market them as being some kind of must-have new thing. In short, most of it is bullshit.

Boombats wrote:Now if somebody could invent a funny punchline...

Some variation on The Aristocrat. For christ sake, it IS a banana joke after all...

In the 70's everything went solid state. I have a ton of tube amps but I also have solid state amps. I like the old fender solid state amps even, and use a couple of old Roland Cube amps for small shows.

Solid state won in some ways PA's which used to be tube Crown heads that were arround 200 watts have been replaces with more efficient sold state heads. The heads have become so efficient that they are specialized and mounted in the speaker cabinets they power. You never hear singers saying I want a 1 ton rack of tube Crown heads cause they distort my voice better I need more feedback.

The Fender solid states have a 12ax7 preamp tube to get distortion sounds good. The Music Man amps also solid state hybrid have 6l6 power tubes and a solid state preamp - the Fender sounds nicer in some ways.

The Peavey Standard is a 70's amp that I like 400 watts Lenard Skinard used them live loud and sounds massive. Used by Bad Brains also.

Solid State offers lower maintenance, my TVs last until I give them away or send them to the thrift store. A lot of people touring would complain that they had to have 4 Marshall heads or more for a tour due to problems due to transporting them that at any time at least one or two could be working. Bass players who had ruptured disks from the great sounding SVT I think welcomed the age of GK amps and Traynor Mono Blocks - amps that were loud and weighed less than a hundred pounds.

EH made a lunch box Solid State amp in the early 80's which sounds great I think it is 200 watts. I knew a guitar player who used this and different cab setups and sounded great.

The Yamaha Solid State amps - black and silver with big knobs - sound good the latest ones that have the odd wicker fronts and amp modeling sound great to me to.

JC 120 amps are very rugged and have a special tone to them. They are predictable especially with lots of boxes.

I think that presently we are in a solid state simulation vs tube mode. I think both are good. I use my supro amp for lots of my recording and a bunch of small amps they have a special tone, but I love some of the old small solid state amps too especially ones with old style cap transistors.

What about Gorilla amps the Royal Trucks sounded fine through those. I saw them play CBGB's with two of the small ones and man it sounded huge. Touring with those amps and your instruments could not be finer.

I think it is great that tubes are back there was a period where people were saying that they were not going to be available any more. Any military use of tubes is due to their resistance to EMF pulses not because they are better audio wise. Presently I am playing with a band all of us use vintage Roland cube amps even though we have black face tremolux amps in the rehearsal studio with the exception of the drums we can go to a show in a sedan. The volume is nice you can always hear the voice.

That said I would still use my Traynor or twin for louder shows but there seem to be less of those available to me these days.