> Are you sure that tube amps don't sound better than solid state amps? This is such a common knowledge in the "guitar world" that I can't believe that it's not true.

Poets around the world throughout history have tried to quantify beauty and failed. I always find it humorous that guitar players think they can succeed when they are far less well-equipped to the task.

However, a couple of points:

1) Old solid-state amps were mostly built to be cheap, so they sucked. Modern ones are constructed significantly better.

2) Vintage tube amps often have more variation (and may or may not have been repaired faithfully which increases the variation) so you occasionally get one that has "magic".

The downside is that most of the amps don't have that magic--you will probably never encounter the "stage queen" personally. Another downside is that you can lose the "magic" pretty easily.

This is something that the vintage amp guys all gloss over. If you got the "stage queen"--congratulations! Of course the other 300 in the production batch don't sound anywhere near as nice.

3) Dimebag Darrell, for example, liked his solid-state Randall sound very much. Who are you to argue?

4) Modern modeling amps are getting REALLY good at mimicking the tube amps. This means that you CAN have that "stage queen" that you will never encounter personally. And you can create sounds that the stage queen can't. Whether they're "pleasing" is a different story.

5) Each individual amp has a "sound"--whether solid-state or tube. The question at the end of the day is: "Do you, personally, like how that amp sounds?" And, if the answer is "Yes", plug your guitar into the amp, play what you want, and tell the poseurs to go pound sand.

> Dimebag Darrell, for example, liked his solid-state Randall sound very much. Who are you to argue?

Dimebag was paid to play Randalls. When the deal expired, he swtiched to tubes.

I think you have this backward.

Those Randall JFET amps sound like "chainsaws" when they break up, and I'm pretty sure he liked that. And he used them from way back when he wasn't famous.

The KRANK stuff came MUCH later in his career and KRANK paid him quite a lot. And there's lots of discussion about how he didn't really like the KRANK stuff all that much.

I will bet you $1000 that not a single person can reliably determinate which tone is from a real tube amp vs a solid state Axe Fx 3 in a blind A/B test. Why spend 6k on a real tube amp when you can have hundreds of physically modelled amps and pedals, not to mention all the effects and "fake" things you can do like modify internal circuits and stuff... makes no sense

This is just my two cents, but if you break it down into two components - frequency response and latency - then it's easier to imagine. With the latest modelling techniques (neural nets etc) it's possible for solid state amps to get very, very close to the frequency response of pretty much any tube amplifier in my experience. Expensive modelling amps and plugins are really nice. The second issue though is latency - when players say it "feels" different playing through a tube amp, my hypothesis is that they are noticing the latency (or lack thereof). Any kind of digital processing is going to impose some kind of delay compared with a tube amp which is a direct electrical signal. I'm aware that the delay will be on the order of milliseconds (sound travels roughly 1 foot per ms through air) and the effect could be replicated by moving the amp further away etc. It would also help to explain the change in sympathetic vibrations within the instrument. Shorter delays and high SPLs could have a non-trivial effect on the resonance of the guitar body for example.

Emotion. I have been able to tell a difference between a digitally modeled amp and a tube one but I have failed to do so for my own amp modeled by a Kemper. I suspect good players will be able to tell even that difference. Playing a tube amp is a different experience, you feel the sound as well as hear it, your instrument works with it as well altering the sound further. Also, the pedals as well as the guitar form a singular circuit (when they are unbuffered) that acts in unison. I don’t think there’s an off the shelf model of my ac15, my sunface fuzz and my LP working together. Too many combinations. Once again, music is a very emotional thing. If the knowledge of playing a good roaring tube amp makes you feel better, you’ll play better. If the knowledge of having a reliable tone stack on a usb stick works for you, awesome.

Experienced guitarists can and they have videos all over YouTube. Most common giveaway? Aggressive pick attack. Valve amps and modeling amps respond in subtly different ways. They also respond differently to volume - that's important for guitarists who set their amp near the breaking point and use the volume pot to control their tone.

Having said that, for the average bedroom/small gig player these subtle differences are too minor to bother with. Especially when a modeling amp can accurately emulate so many different valve amps. Sounds good and you can save a lot of money!

BUT - I would be remiss to say that you shouldn't own at least one valve amp. Take the one you emulate the most and buy it. You'll be happy!

I'll take that bet... and I've been playing through modelers for years.

They've gotten quite good, they're about 90-95% of the way there... but that 5% is pretty stark if you know what it is.

That said, convivence, portability, reliability, etc...

My "real" tube amp was only $200. A $200 modelling amp on the other hand doesn't get me anywhere close to this tone. Believe me, I've tried.

"...I've heard that solid state amps are used in metal more commonly because they have a different tone"

Partially false. The general trend in metal has gravitated towards tube amp distortion (and digital modeling of it) precisely because of the different tone and responses vs solid state amps.

As a guitarist there's a certain response you get with a tube amp vs digital and solid state.

As an HN reader, I struggle to describe and quantify this quality besides the generic descriptors of 'response' and 'feel'.

I think this used to be true, but these days tube amps can be very faithfully modeled. E.g., the fender tone master amps sound great.

You’ve also got stuff like the keeper modelling amp and newer axe FX models that can sound indistinguishable when coming through good full range speakers.

One thing that can make even modern solid state amps sound bad is crappy speakers. The bulk of solid state guitar amplifiers are combo amps with a single crappy 10” or 12” inch speaker in a cheap cabinet.

Even when it used to be true, I feel like what was true was that tube amps sound more like tube amps than solid state amps.