Guitar players know where to go for the best sound - tubes. Sixty years after transistors supposedly killed tubes off, tubes are still with us, and still producing the best guitar tone. This is not likely to change. Ever. But when it comes to listening to music in the tube amp workshop, it's not tubes, but transistorized amplifiers pushing tunes to amp builders' ears. Why? Simply put, tube-type hi-fi audiophiles and tube guitar amplifier aficionados are in camps with mutually exclusive goals and they rarely interact. One has extreme fidelity as the goal, and one intentionally fosters different kinds of distortion for the pleasing musical sounds it produces. |