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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 6:35 pm
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I agree... nothing is built to be repaired or refurbished anymore. Everything is built to be used a few years and disposed of for a new edition.

What incentive does any manufacturer have to build and sell you something you only have to buy once?

Its true even with houses now!

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 6:52 pm
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If modern technology is so great, we should all be microwaving our soy burgers, not slow cooking steaks over a smoky fire. How prehistoric! We should have abandon fire long ago, except it tastes so good. Same with tubes.


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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 7:51 pm
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01GT eibach wrote:
There will always be people who think tubes are better no matter how good the digital gets. But this is similar to when Porsche changed the 911 from air-cooled (as per its original 1963 design) to water-cooled in 1997. Porsche-philes were shocked to their bones. How could this happen?? Guess what, people are still buying 911's and you never hear a mention about the water cooling.

(BTW trivia: Who owns the very first and very last Porsche air-cooled 911s ever made? answer: Jerry Seinfeld, and he has personalized license plates "FIRST" and "LAST" for each of them, respectively.)


Dunno about the death of vacuum tube amps. That's been stated since the early 1980s. 30 years later, amp companies are still making tube amps.

As for the Porsche Q: 996 is the last production air-cooled 911. I LOVE these cars. Exhaust note is nothing like the turbocharged, water-cooled 997 and 991.

First 911 was the 901. 1964. Porsche had to change the 901 to 911, because Peugeot had their 901 model auto already in production.


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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 8:00 pm
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TimsAudio wrote:
We should have abandon fire long ago, except it tastes so good.


:mrgreen:

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 3:43 am
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BMW2002Ti wrote:

As for the Porsche Q: 996 is the last production air-cooled 911....


It was the 993 actually. :wink:

I agree with all the above in respect of modern waste and design obsolescence. I have a real hankering for a Champ from 1962. I can't imagine anyone will want a 2015 Fender Mustang in 50 years, any more than anyone wants a VHS video recorder today.

Technology moves on and silicone based digital technology is still evolving. Valve design perhaps peaked 50 years ago so everything subsequently has pretty much been a tweak on what was the best that could be achieved.

But, if you are a kid buying an amp, and that amp cost you $100, and two years later there is an amp which is 4 times better, and costs $80, kid is going to ditch his old amp for a new one. The second hand value of his 2 year old $100 amp will probably be $5 so he wont even bother to put it on ebay.

50 years ago an new amp was a significant purchase compared to a weekly wage (as were most things) so they would have been looked after and would have retained their value over time because you couldn't otherwise afford to replace them. They were bought with the intention of keeping.

I go into a hardware super store and they have power drills for £25, when it would cost me more than that to replace the brushes on my 20 year old drill which then cost me £200. What happens? Do I mend my old knackered drill or buy an new one which has more facilities, and more torque. The £25 drill wont last me another 20 years but in five there will be another £25 drill which will be better. It is the way with almost everything today and amps are no different.

Will (good) valve amps still have value - to those of us who appreciate them, of course.

Will amp manufactures continue to invest in valves over digital...of course not. They can sell a digital amp today and 2 years down the line sell another amp to the same person because its will be better. What do you think they will do?

My Marshall MV50 is 20 years old. Will I be buying another Marshall 50 Watt valve amp? No, I have no reason to because it is no different to the one I already have.

What valve amps do Fender sell these days? Reissues and subtle tweaks for those of us who hanker back to the glory days of valves. One day those of us who remember valves will either have more valve amps than they can handle or be dead. That is no basis for Fender to invest in the further development of valve amps. Why would they bother while ever they sell regurgitated old classics made cheaper and sold for the same.

Solid State couldn't quite match the sound of valves, despite their best endeavours. Digital will, I have no doubt, so why would you buy a valve amp when it does?

Kids today cant tell the difference. Why would they buy a valve amp?

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 3:50 am
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Retroverbial wrote:
TimsAudio wrote:
We should have abandon fire long ago, except it tastes so good.


:mrgreen:

Arjay


But not sufficiently better that you want to cook like that all the time. :wink:

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 8:07 am
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John Sims wrote:
BMW2002Ti wrote:


Solid State couldn't quite match the sound of valves, despite their best endeavours. Digital will, I have no doubt, so why would you buy a valve amp when it does?

Kids today cant tell the difference. Why would they buy a valve amp?


Uh, Digital IS solid state. While the processors are improving speed and bit size, they have a long way to go. Then they are surrounded on both ends by solid state op amps and converters that haven't been improved in 20 years.
It's not that there aren't better chips, it's that they cost too much for the price points of the cheap digital amps.

A musician just starting out probably won't buy a valve amp. A modeling amp is a great way to find the tone that suits them. But as their ears develop, they will notice that part of their music is missing.

Musicians are in a different situation than the casual music listener. They spend a lot of time practicing and hearing the same song over and over. It While trying to improve their playing, they hit a sonic wall where no matter how well they play, it doesn't sound any better.
Then they discover that valves will suddenly make them sound better. The effect of the digital Kool-aid wears off and now they can take their tone to the next level.
You can play devils advocate, but it sounds like you use tube amps as well. Would you go back?

I think the manufacturers know this and it's why they continue to build both technologies. Otherwise they could do what Microsoft did and just declare XP is dead and make us all buy something new.


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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 8:43 am
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"It was the 993 actually." :wink:

Dang it! That's what I meant.

As for solid-state amps (both hi-fi and guitar amps) --- it's been harder to keep them running for 20-30 years, than many tube amps. Difficult to find specific discrete ss parts.

I don't like working on the guts of pure ss amps. Different set of parameters to adjust. A friend had this nice Conrad-Johnson hi-fi amp. Hybrid ss and tubes. When it started acting up --- and that would be often --- fixing the analog section was easy. But, the ss sections were a bear. Voltage regulators and the front end was all ss. After many fix attempts, even by C-J, he had to toss the amp.

He went to a pure tube, 50 year old McIntosh MC60 restored monoblocks. They have been very reliable, the last 10 years.


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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:35 am
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I love old things. Old stereos, old cars, old amps, and old guitars. Still I have a relatively new car, newer guitar, newer amp, and an old class A stereo with new digital players.

My brother no longer has his Beemer, and I no longer have my early 70s Charger (bought new)(talk about constant repairs).

Technology will change, and as for air cooled or water cooled . . . here's some different amps. :shock:


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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:50 am
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Tire smoke from an electric car may give *somebody* wood but I prefer a vehicle that, at idle in the garage, rattles the dishes in my wife's china hutch......

Image

"She's wearing new colors and lookin' pretty good, I got four hundred horses sittin' under my hood......"

:mrgreen:

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 10:38 am
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Retroverbial wrote:
Tire smoke from an electric car may give *somebody* wood but I prefer a vehicle that, at idle in the garage, rattles the dishes in my wife's china hutch......

Image

"She's wearing new colors and lookin' pretty good, I got four hundred horses sittin' under my hood......"

:mrgreen:

Arjay


Hey, Arjay.

Nice wheels. I'm old school with you. I only posted the electric as info. My Charger was originally ordered in electric blue, but it went missing as some unscrupulous dealings sent it elsewhere across the country, and I reluctantly made a deal on one on the lot. :( My other rides were a '64 2door midnight blue Parisienne with killer audio and first year raised white letter Goodyears; but, my fave was my '63 black Mercury Comet with a 289, raised 6 inches in the back and lowered 6 inches in the front. It was the fast choice of many police departments back then. So I hear you, Bro' :D

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:17 pm
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I would liken this entire debate to some impetuous child prodigy attending Julliard who would assert that his chicom-made fiddle sounds just as expressive and nuanced as a hand-crafted violin made by Amati or Stradivarius during the Italian Renaissance era.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 4:54 pm
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TimsAudio wrote:
....

Uh, Digital IS solid state...


And that's just being pedantic. I think we can all appreciate the difference between old school analogue solid state and current digital conversion amps as being completely different beasts.

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 5:22 pm
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TimsAudio wrote:
...it sounds like you use tube amps as well. Would you go back?....


90% of my amps are valve. I did have a brief flirtation with a modeling amp but it didn't light my fire. Just because digital didn't work for me then doesn't mean it won't in the future as they improve and components which are currently expensive become cheaper.

As noted by others above, if I was gigging again I would go digital for my gig rig. It is too convenient to ignore. For my own enjoyment I have no need to change from valves.

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Post subject: Re: The future of analog amps
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:29 pm
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Probably inevitable, just as high end audio is mostly solid state these days. I remember using a Tandy color computer with 15 volume levels and 255 discrete tones years ago and laughing at how primitive tunes sounded. Same technology now in digital only there's a lot more than 255 stair steps, so it approaches a smooth curve. But they still aren't quite there in modeling the rich odd harmonics that tubes naturally generate and as long as that's true, I think analog will be with us.

As with vinyl, younger people have taken to the analog sound too. That will add on years; along with that, the fact that while high end solid state audio is already there, it's still way out of the price range of a gigging amp.


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