Am I the only one?

[tone4days]

Re: Am I the only one?

i love SS gear - have never owned tube gear ... i like my tone well enough and it has always been reliable, light weight, low $ to buy and own, etc ... i think i get better tone than the other guy in my band even though he plays a real nice crate tube amp w/ 3x 10" speakers

but i know tube tone is almost always better than mine (it was tough to unplug scott's R8 from joe's bogner at the SDUGD jam) ... i just don't want to lay out the benjamins and take on the weight for the incremental improvement in tone ... that said, i am getting itchy to take on a tube kit project for the winter just to learn about them and have fun putzing around in the shop

but i'll give a big ol "hell yeah" for ss tone !!

t4d

[FamousForSustain]

Re: Am I the only one?

I used to be in the "well, it's not like I'm Joe Satriani or anything, so I don't really need to go tube" camp. The problem was the Crate GT-1200 I was using couldn't stand up to my lead players' Dual Rec during shows, and it didn't cut through the mix unless I practically dimed the mids, which is something I hate to do. Also the more I played through the Mesa the more I started to realize the shortcomings of the Crate, and consequently whenever I was practicing by myself I'd always use the Mesa, since my friend was cool with me using it and it just sat at our practice space anyway. I'm not even a big fan of Mesas but the good tube heads seem to have this "alive" quality that makes it so much more fun to play and listen to. Anyway, I solved my problem on the cheap by picking up an old (92) Peavey Ultra head (forerunner to the Triple X) for $325- figure in another $200 for a cap job and a new set of tubes and I'm still under $600 for an amp that, even before the caps and tubes which I haven't gotten yet, sounds good enough that I'm no longer looking to the Mesa during solo practice and no longer getting dominated by it in band playing. So if money's the main reason for not going tube, buying an older one cheap and getting it fixed is one route you could go down.

Tonally, I have to admit the "in your face"-ness of SS can be very cool in certain applications, but it seems to me like every time I dial in a great tone on any SS amp it winds up being totally unusable when playing with a band. I will say, though, that SS amps seem to get along a lot better with pedals in general. Whatever floats it for ya.

[Mephis]

Re: Am I the only one?

I think that solid state has come a long way; my main gas is the vox valvetronix

...I think it is a socialization thing; we have collectively defined tube amps as the thing to have, and honestly, people look at amps at shows ...if you can ignore all that big ups to ya, and play what sounds good to you cause that is usually what matters anyway

I hate to disagree with people, but I don't think that's it.

I think it has to do with amp builders only putting good quality research into tube amps instead of advancing solid states. Since a tube amp can make them a hell of alot more money.

So far, I've never heard a solid state that can mimic a tube amp, but tech 21 stuff is about as close as it gets.

[LesStrat]

Re: Am I the only one?

LesStrat and the Peavey Bandit 112S were made for each other. They sound VERY good together.

OTOH, the Parker Fly Deluxe doesn't sound so good through the Bandit.