Our goal has become pedantic

[walkman]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or perhaps Zen and the art of amplifiers....

Its a quality vs quantity thing too though. Same goes for musicians and bands too as it does for amps.

How may more cars or mobiles or whatever are their in the world and how many people are there to use them or drive them?
And where are they going to drive ? Build it and they will come

Do do we really need another Hendrix ? or Clapton? (and do we need to have exacting replicas of he 335 waiting for him when he arrives?
oh sorry Eric, we know your still alive )

There really are heaps of amps and guitars theses days, there are enough to go round.

However what is happening here is the sharing of information and should be applauded and encouraged.

This sharing is what builds trust and confidence, and helps people to develop skills and may even spark some genuine innovation too.
Isn't that a worthy goal?

On the lighter side, how many amp techs does it take to change a light bulb?

[RWood]

On the lighter side, how many amp techs does it take to change a light bulb?

None.......if you had installed one of these

[Chuck H]

The lumens look to be a bit low. Not to be a stick in the mud. But if I built a lightbulb capable of a thousand watts and ran it at sixty so it never reached any critical stresses, who knows??? It probably wouldn't produce as much light as any other sixty watt bulb though, as I think I'm seeing (not seeing?) here. Still, it's pretty amazing and fun to know that a lightbulb of any lumens can burn for a hundred nine years.

Q:How many techs does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A:Only two. But the lightbulb must be large enough for both techs to fit inside.

Chuck

[madkatb]

Three or four years ago I was in a music store that specialised in vintage guitars and amps... not necessarily high end stuff but mostly from the late '60s and '70s. In discussion with their amp tech he pointed out why the older stuff will always survive. Case in point was an early seventies Traynor YBA1 and a Line 6. He figured that if the Traynor screwed up he could troubleshoot it and repair it, with parts he probably had on hand, in a couple of hours. If the Line 6 screwed up he could troubleshoot it, find out which board needed replacing, order it and then wait for it to arrive. What happens when Line 6 stops making those boards? As he pointed out at the time, he could probably swap in parts for the Traynor from some other amp if need be. If the computer modelling of tube gear really is viable, why? Will it be that much cheaper? It certainly won't be as much fun to work on.
I see how cheap offshore tube gear is becoming the norm but how else will the "torch" of DIY electronics be passed on if young guitarists/musicians/enthusiasts can't afford to get their feet wet. One of the other current threads right now has been discussing the lack of incentive for todays youth to get involved with stuff that doesn't involve sitting in front of a TV screen. Electronic and DIY magazines are nonexistent, components are no longer available at local stores. Cheap tube amps seem to be the entry into the world of electronics. And the mindset that tube gear is not disposable but should be fixed (even if that isn't true of some of the offshore crap) means that people will start looking for repair rather than replace.

[Rumblemeister]

The originator painted a pretty bleak picture. I think this is a golden age of guitars and amps. I'm happy as hell to be on many forums having detailed discussions about tube amp design and modification.
The dissemination of knowledge made possible by the internet is incredible. Information that was previously limited to a select group of people has become common knowledge even among non-technical musicians.
I would have loved to have this info when I was first learning guitar and trying to cobble together a decent sound in the 70s. The boutique manufacturers have either cloned to perfection or improved dramatically the state of the art and this trickles down to us. I think it is evolving and getting more refined. Sure, there is crap out there and the Chinese QA isn't quite there yet but I'm betting it will be someday. The Japanese did it and so did the Koreans. So, I think you can rest easy. It's venues like this that allow the old timers to pass on the craft, crotchity though some of them may be (not me of course.)

[drfunkphd]

I can see both sides to this coin.

As a consumer, I find it hard to get exactly what I want for a reasonable price. Even the "high end" stuff can be mediocre at best. I think there is a generation of new players that feel like the low to middle end guitars and imported digital effects amps are the equipment that constitutes "great tone". The vintage reissue stuff coming out is not even close in a lot of cases to being anything like a vintage AC30 or '65 Twin Reverb. Sure it looks the same, but as soon as you put a reissue and a vintage amp in the same room and play through them, you'll see a huge difference very quickly. The sad part, for me, about that is that people think that is what these great old amps actually sound like...

But the price point is there, most of it sound good, but not great and it is enough for most people who are just hacking away in their bedrooms or garages.

As someone who is trying to make a side business of modding and doing custom builds for both amps and guitars and doesn't own too much gear that hasn't been modded or built to my own desired specs, I think we truly live in a golden age. I can build a Strat clone with a big fat neck profile, in maple or rosewood fretboard, my choice of body colour, contour (50's, 60's modern, etc.), my choice of finish and I can have it look brand new or a little beat up for a vintage feel, I can buy custom handwound pickups that are made the exact same way Fender made them in the 50's and early 60's or I can get some hotrodded pickups to kick things up a bit...and for a lot less than a Fender Custom Shop '57 reissue.

Same deal with amps. I can build myself a spec tweed low powered Twin or plexi Marshall clone, I can make it look like a clone, but tweek a few things here and there to my liking. And I don't have to pay vintage market prices to get that amp. Heck, I can do it for significantly cheaper than you can buy a new Fender or Vox reissue in most cases. AND it will be brand new condition with no worries about de-valuing a vintage amp if a tranny blows or if I put a tear in the tolex.

My point is that the once venerable companies that brought us these great guitars and amps are now huge corporations looking to sell the nostalgia of their past glories. The gift we have now as buyers is that we have options. We have parts suppliers that want to provide quality guitar parts that faithfully recreate the legends (not in all cases, however, but there are some great places out there). We have places that make vintage reproduction transformers and chassis kits so we can make vintage amps the way they were made in their heyday (and iron out some of the bugs...as was pointed out earlier in this thread, they were not without fault).

Our golden age is not because of the once great companies and the products they make now, but the selection and quality of parts we have at our disposal (thanks, internet!) to build our own versions of the instruments that made modern music from. I have yet to build anything myself using decent quality parts and not have it be a better end product than anything I would buy in a retail music store.

My advice to anyone is: if you have good money to spend on a guitar or amp, instead of going to your local music retailer, build it yourself or enlist someone like myself to help or build it for you. That way, you get a good quality instrument or amp, built with good quality parts, built exactly how you want it and as long as you don't mind that it doesn't have the name brand logo on it, you get a better quality product that you can use to find your musical voice.

[Old Tele man]

...which? There's (a) cheap design, (b) cheap materials, (c) cheap workmanship.

..."cheap" is everywhere...just some stuff is 'cheaper' than other stuff.