Our goal has become pedantic

[Chuck H]

Building tube amps... Seems like a good cause. Players have long realized that tubes sound better than transistors and the majority of informed, working or professional players are using tube amps. But...

A trend is starting that I'm more than a little concearned about. Cheap disposable tube amps. All companies, big and small, are introducing tube amps associated with popular trends... Five watt single ended, EL84 power tubes overdrive, reissue vintage, "all tube" modern voicing, etc. My problem is that the majority of these amps are cheapo Chinese crap that is intended to be basically disposable like a Bic lighter. Crappy components and Chinese tubes, and the buyers often post here with common failures trying to fix what they thought was a quality product simply because it used tubes as the amplifiers... Sigh. I know the economy is in the tank and people can't afford "boutique" amps right now. And the big MFG's have been revamping their offerings to suit the income of the buying demographic. Since tubes are "trendy" and budgets are tight we have a huge influx of crap using tubes that is not in keeping with the spirit of the industry as most of us understand it. I fear that even tube audio gear is (or has already been) watered down to the lowest saleable demominator. This can only serve (in the long run) to reduce the sensabilities and expectations of the buying public (whatever demographic that is). Of couse us old timers will be building our own amps and they will sound great. But who will carry the torch into the future??? How can tube amps remain viable if the options are continually being reduced to crap??? I'm doing my best. But the bigger MFG's have nothing but profit in mind (fair enough, who can blame them, it's how the game has always been played). I fear that the recognition and synonymous nature of tube amps with "quality" is about to fade irreperably and the final outcome will be riddled with mediocre "Line 6" type products. Inferior digital replicants of a better time. The big MFG's are becoming our demise. We all eventually end up in a place where we lament loss of the familiar as new technology surpasses our senibilities. It's a right of passage as much as as anything else from younger days, but IMHO ther is a real dilution of quality happening that we may never get back.

Thoughts???

Chuck

[mooreamps]

Guitar amps in the past have always been built with profitability in mind. Otherwise, outfits like "Fender" would never survive. But it's hard for me to ignore some builders in both the MI field and the Home Theater field asking "thousands" of dollars for their products. What else are people supposed to think.


-g

[tubeswell]

The choice of cheap crap has been around since before the dawn of tube amps. Provides a cheapish platform for mods I guess

[Merlinb]

The choice of cheap crap has been around since before the dawn of tube amps.

I agree. Some of the most famous vintage amps were unreliable crap, well known for eating tubes, blowing transformers etc. The only difference between tube amps and any other modern elecrtical appliance is that a tube amp can actually be fixed, and most owners will have them fixed/improved.

[Enzo]

People, ignorant or not, want tube amps. The factories have managed to make inexpensive tube amps. Sure, they are little one-lung things, but there they are. Fender makes the little Champion 600. Now maybe more of them than we'd llike blow up, but Fender DOES put a warranty on the things. The waranty is a simple exchange program, but for the customer, that works. Like so many other things, we can look at the pile of dead ones, but we do that while ignoring the thousands of them that DIDN'T blow up.

What is a more reliable amp? Ten $1000 amps and one of them is bad, or 1000 cheapo amps, and 50 of them come out of the box dead? 50 is a large pile of dead amps, and yes we'd prefer no dead ones of course, but that is only half the failure rate of that fancy amp.

It isn't the tube-ness, crap is crap, and it has always been around. I mean we love them nostalgically, but come on, look at those old Slvertone amps, total junk. I have a clock radio with a bigger output transformer, and the screen door on my back porch is a better sounding reverb than that thing they threw in their amps. But let's look over in silicon land. Certainly there have been enough Gorilla amps out there for DECADES. Cheap junk, parts stuffed on the board at all angles, tin-can stamped chassis. But that hasn't caused the end of solid state amps. I don't think a lot of people look at a $800 SS amp and think, "Oh this must be made just like that $40 Gorilla amp I had."

And while there is throw away junk at the bottom of the tube food chain, you can also still buy a $1000+ made in America guitar head. And it is chock full of tubes.


My brother in law has a degree in classical guitar, and is a professional classical guitarist. He decided he wanted to find out about the world of electric guitars. SO he went out and got a Squire strat of some sort. he is used to gut strings on a neck you could land Navy planes on. SO now he has this Squire with frets that will saw your fingers off, and an action that resembles a bow and arrow. Hey, he didn;t know. But he isn;t stupid, he recognizes this isn;t a good quality instrument, but it did at least serve to make him aware of many aspects of that side of music.

[JHow]

...IMHO there is a real dilution of quality happening that we may never get back...

Isn't there a kind of "remember the good, forget the bad" effect going on? I always feel that 90% of anything is probably mediocre at best. We remember Mozart, we forget Salieri. We remember Hendrix, but what happened to that Iron Butterfly album I used to have? To me, more than amp quality I worry about the way pop music has become very compartmentalized - there are few songs or bands that are known and listened to by everyone these days. Also, good guitar playing seems like a niche thing - it is not a mainstay of pop anymore. My youngest child sometimes watches this horrible show on TV called the "Fresh Beat Band". It really came to my attention because a friend of the family's daughter is a some-time backup dancer on the show. It features shlockly tunes with imitation guitar-playing. I feel I have to play records of real music to counteract the TV pop culture.

[spiffpeters]

I'm sure that if Leo had access to todays manufacturing technology he would have been first in line. Leo was the ultimate pragmatist.

Regardless, I agree with the thrust of your concern. The race to the bottom is in effect on many fronts.

[Chuck H]

Thank you... I realize that I spoke a bit hasty, but I still think it's true that what passes for status quo today would have been considered a "budget" item yesterday. True that the effort to profit selling cheap crap has always been around. But this crap has become the indusrty standard now instead of the lower end. Well, this may be a perception based on recent trends due to the economy. Overall I don't think the current offerings from Peavey and Fender are all that bad. But getting worse as they try to cheap out on certain components to stay competitive. Anything made by LOUD Technologies should have a label on it that indicates that "This is a disposable piece of slave labor built garbage made with the cheapest parts available and should not be misconstrued as a real amplifier or have any association with quality simply because it uses tubes".

Chuck

[overtone]

I still cannot afford the cheap rubbish

30 years ago, as a naive teenager, I learnt the hard way, that I just did not have the money to afford the cheap rubbish.

As an aside:
The Countries who produce the "cheap rubbish" could indeed emerge later as the best in their field. The English 1887 legislation, to have all foreign produce marked with the country of origin, eventually back fired. Made in <elsewhere> eventually served the "foreign" producers better, because the home market actually could not deliver better quality itself. In the case of Made in Germany it became more or less a beneficial trade mark - and that was only ten years later. I am wondering how long they can keep it going.

But geographical generalities do not ultimately hold up for me. In the end, all of this is produced somehow by human beings, and we all know about their reliability. You have to do your homework to find the 10% that is worthwhile investing in, which ever location it is supposed to originate from. The "mediocre at best" 90% will always be there. Even after the homework I still manage to buy complete lemons.

Back to the topic:
What ever direction the tube amp markets, marketing and tube-folklore are now heading, I do think that all the contributors here are helping to build and maintain an extremely valuable knowledge base on tube technology for musical instrument amplification. I do not find that pedantic in any way.

This resource would not have been possible when I was young. It is invaluable to anyone who wants to take responsibility for what is going on inside the box. I raise my hat to all of you, pedants and all, a hearty thank you.

[Merlinb]

I rather like the influx of cheap Chinese tube amps. It will encourage more and more guitarists to discover the magic of tubes, and get hooked on them (at which point they can think about buying better quality), rather than being stuck with cheap SS and no other option. Without the opportunity to take a gamble on a cheap valve amp, plenty of them might never realise what they're missing.
The more the market grows, the more secure is the future of valve manufacturing and the easier it will be to get related components.

[jrfrond]

Hey Chuck, you are surrounded by companies like Behringer, Mackie and Jet City in your area of the country. They have exemplified and set the bar for low-cost manufacturing, with Behringer far and away leading the pack, and I mean "leading" in every sense of the word. Most other companies have followed the business model (it's no wonder that they've ALL excahnged the same emplyee base over the years too). However, Jet City amps are low cost in LARGER packages and I can tell you that the build quality is excellent. If you opened one, you wouldn't think it was a Chinese amp, however part of it has to do with the fact that they are Soldano-designed.

This thread, the way Chuck presented it, sounds more like the ol' offshore manufacturing argument. Let me say THIS then: even the stuff that is still built in North America (counting Mexico in there) is utilizing the cheapest of Asian components. I say "the cheapest" because primarily, ALL of the components we use are sourced from there, save perhaps for transformers. But there are GOOD components, and there's crap, with a whole lot of mediocrity in between. THAT my friends is the MAIN difference between old and new i.e. component quality. Not whether or not a tube amp can be built as a disposable item. My biggest argument with Chinese tube amps has nothing to do with price or viability, but the quality of the tubes themselves, and THAT is what has cost most of the failures with these new cheap tube amps, followed by crappy tube sockets, which by the way, are the SAME tube sockets imported and used by many large USA and foreign manufacturers. There ARE good import sockets made by Belton in Korea, but they are pricier. It ALL has to do with money.

The benchmark for longevity is BF amps. Although we revere them today, those were the budget workingmans amps du jour. However, as CBS moved in and put the bean-counters to work, they moved towards using cost-cutting measures such as cheaper components (which ironically were better than most of what we can purchase nowadays) with the amps becoming a bit more problematic and sterile-sounding as a result. But even the SF amps are head-and-shoulders above most current stock in terms of reliability and value.

So therein lies the issue, to me anyway: poor component quality. It CAN be helped, but you get what you pay for.

[Chuck H]

+++ Capitol on that consideration.

[cminor9]

In the US we're still enjoying the cheapness of foreign labor. That might well change someday as the US continues to slip. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I bought an Epiphone Dot a few years back for $400. I put some better pickups on it, but it's a $400 guitar made in Korea that, for what it is, is a mighty fine instrument. There are no obvious flaws, and the neck plays really nice. Sure, it's not made of carved wood like its $3000 cousin the Gibson 335. It's got a laminate top on it. That means plywood. But you know what? It sounds pretty good. I played the Gibson side by side with the Epi. The Gibson wasn't 8x the guitar for 8x the price. It's diminishing returns. I could have paid another $2600 for the last five or 10 percent of the 335 vibe. Since that money tree hasn't even sprouted yet, I opted for the Dot. Four years and countless gigs later, it's still a great sounding guitar that sounds and plays just as good as the day I bought it.

There will always be a good market for tubes until something comes along that is better. Considering the 6V6 was invented in what, 1930, that means that nothing better has come along in 80 years. Transistors alone will not replace tube amps. Computer modeling *could* come close to imitating the idiosyncrasies of tubes, but they sure aren't there yet. It's at least 20 years away. Know what else is 20 years away? Flying cars, jetpacks, and cloaking devices. In other words, saying something is 20 years away is as good as saying the Tuesday after never.

Also consider that higher end consumer goods are fashionable. Go to Lowe's and you'll see $2000 washing machines designed to last a lifetime. I am typing this, not on some low budget crappy glued together plastic laptop, but on a $2400 MacBook made from a water cut slab of aluminum. Want a TV? Well, now instead of marching down to Walmart and getting yourself a $200 25" CRT TV, you would go buy an ubėr definition plasma screen as large as a drive-in screen. Or, for a better analogy, an amp is akin to a craftsman's tools. What professional carpenter goes out and buys tools he will use every day from somewhere like Harbor Freight? That $20 drill might be OK for someone who has an apartment who needs to hang a mirror once in a while. But not for a guy who drills holes all day. A line6 pod or whatever crap they are peddling nowadays might be ok for a teenager jamming in his room, or for a real musician enjoying abusing the thing for the sonic possibilities. But if I showed up to a black tie event with the jazz trio carrying a line 6, I'd be a fool.

No, I think it's a good time for tubes. It says a lot for a "technology" when its still in use after 80 years. Especially when it is clearly obsolete for most applications. Until something better comes along, we'll all be making tube amps. It's maybe a fading art, but not a lost art. In some ways, that's better for those of us who know our way around a tube circuit. I look forward to the day I can make more money repairing tube amps than I can as a software engineer.

[Chuck H]

This resource would not have been possible when I was young. It is invaluable to anyone who wants to take responsibility for what is going on inside the box. I raise my hat to all of you, pedants and all, a hearty thank you.

Tipping a beer to you right now. But I have to say that the above statement really depends on how old you are. I can't even remember how long ago it was that I first became an AMPAGE member. The format changed and many long time members didn't re register right away, so the post count and join dates aren't even accurate. I think I may have been twenty four, give or take a year. I'm fourty two now. When I first logged on I was greener than a bullfrogs nipple and I'm pretty sure I asked some boring, stupid question (and surely many since). Point is, this resource has been available for a long time. I was very excited to find this site then and I've come to love this place (and it's membership) like an old friend. For example, I don't ever see contrary arguments as assaults. Like this post. The posters that disagree with my initial statement aren't saying 'Shut up, your wrong.' instead I see it as recognition that my mind and heart are in a dark place on the issue and they're trying to talk me off of the ledge. Good, smart folks here.

Chuck

[overdrive]

Blame it on the MBA's who are simply looking for their ROIs (aka the Nike Business Model)...build cheap (oftentimes overseaS0 , then overcharge stateside while relying on name recognition & past legacies.