I've pretty much played tube amps my whole life. The only solid state amps I have owned are little 12-15 watt practice amps that basically sound like shit.
I'm not familiar with the new digital modeling or the new solid state line of amps. I basically play through an old Marshall MK II and a Soldano SLO 100. I reciently had to replace the output transformer on the Marshall. I do my own retubing and rebiasing. Eventhough I think tubes are cool as hell and love old tube amps, I will be the first to admit they are a royal pain in the ass. I'm finding I'm craving more of a high gain sound now. In my oppionion, many of the high gain tube amps like the 5150, almost sound solid state to me.
We are fortunate that the Russians are making some decent tubes right now but I can remember when good EL-34's were getting hard to find. Marshall even started using 5881's instead of EL-34's because the quality of the tubes in the 1990's was poor. The reality is, guitar amps is a very small market and tubes are antiquiated. As Russia modernizes, is Svetlana or whoever going to be interested in manufacturere for a small market of tube buyers? China has stopped manufacturing consumer grade tubes and I'm afraid Russia might be next.
I think the reality is the availability of good tubes may dry up here fairly soon and the high end guitar market will be forced to give up tubes and use solid state circutry.
I just think for my next amp, I'm going to buy a solid state head of at least 100 watts of power. So what's good for a 5150 type of high gain sound in the solid state line of amps. Some say Randalls are good. Some praise the Marshall Valve state amps.
I'm not interested in anything that chops up and reshapes the sound like digital modeling, but I'm interested in a pure analog shaping and amplification of the sound.
I'm not familiar with the new digital modeling or the new solid state line of amps. I basically play through an old Marshall MK II and a Soldano SLO 100. I reciently had to replace the output transformer on the Marshall. I do my own retubing and rebiasing. Eventhough I think tubes are cool as hell and love old tube amps, I will be the first to admit they are a royal pain in the ass. I'm finding I'm craving more of a high gain sound now. In my oppionion, many of the high gain tube amps like the 5150, almost sound solid state to me.
We are fortunate that the Russians are making some decent tubes right now but I can remember when good EL-34's were getting hard to find. Marshall even started using 5881's instead of EL-34's because the quality of the tubes in the 1990's was poor. The reality is, guitar amps is a very small market and tubes are antiquiated. As Russia modernizes, is Svetlana or whoever going to be interested in manufacturere for a small market of tube buyers? China has stopped manufacturing consumer grade tubes and I'm afraid Russia might be next.
I think the reality is the availability of good tubes may dry up here fairly soon and the high end guitar market will be forced to give up tubes and use solid state circutry.
I just think for my next amp, I'm going to buy a solid state head of at least 100 watts of power. So what's good for a 5150 type of high gain sound in the solid state line of amps. Some say Randalls are good. Some praise the Marshall Valve state amps.
I'm not interested in anything that chops up and reshapes the sound like digital modeling, but I'm interested in a pure analog shaping and amplification of the sound.
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