What are the differences between tube amps and solid-state amps? Which should I buy?
This is a question that gets asked in various forms quite regularly. The short answer is that each seems to have their advantages and disadvantages, in terms of portability, reliability and sound. As with any piece of musical equipment, the ideal thing is to try several amps of each type and decide for yourself which camp you belong to, but comments on both sides of the issue have been summarized here to help guide you in your own testing. First, a little history: early jazz guitarists necessarily used tubes (or “valves” as our members in the UK like to say) to amplify the signals from their guitars’ pickups. They had no choice since transistors had not been invented. One of the first guitarists to use amplification, Charlie Christian, used an EH-150 (EH, for “Electric Hawaiian”) Gibson amplifier for much of the 1930’s. The EH-150 featured 6 tubes, produced 15 watts and drove a 10-inch speaker. As a side note: the $150 price included an ES-150 guitar! Christian also used an EH-185 Gibs
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