I SO agree about tubes being a way cool thing for acoustics sometimes. Fallacies already posted here are that tubes distort (they can but don't have to, my McIntosh tube driven preamp and power amp will attest to that), tubes wear out often and cause problems (transistors wear out also and can cause as many problems). I would MUCH rather fix or have fixed a PTP or Turret wired component board with vacuum tubes then pay to replace a PCB mother board.
Most acoustic guitar amps these day are solid state and SO many are SOO good.
But, do you think James Taylor or Jackson Browne, Taj Majal (substitute most any of the guys from the early years..) did NOT record through analogue/tube driven preamps......and probably power amps????
Both have GREAT characteristics......and down sides.
Quote:
Originally Posted by olrocker
The previous posters have valid points in that, tubes do, in fact, color tone, but this can be a desirable characteristic, even for acoustic guitar. Tubes create "compression" which is almost universally desirable for elec., but still being investigated for acoustic. Basically, the more juice you send thru a tube, the more compression it creates. That's why Vox put a 12ax7 in the pre section of the 150, because it was successful in creating compression in their line of ADxxVT amps for electric. An additional reason is arguably for marketing reasons. I have the AD50VT. There are a couple of tube amps designed for acoustic, which, coupled with their ability to accept the Taylor TRS signal, yield fantastic tone. As I've said before, "the guitar is what you play, the amp is what you HEAR". If you want truly transparent tone, look at some of the great PA's out there. Amps tend toward colored tone anyway, and usually come with effects, like chorus, reverb, feedback suppression (yes, that colors tone too) I love the clean warm tone of my Rivera amp, which work really well for vocals too (makes me sound better than I am) and much prefer it to the colder, thinner tone of my solid state acoustic amp. Is the Vox worth trading the Loudbox for? Probably not, because in that price range, the Loudbox is alot of amp. But one day, you might consider ADDING the Vox to your collection.  |