Why are tube amps so expensive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg_L
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Greg_L said:
A better question would be, why the fuck does anyone want an axe fx?
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Not even going there.


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Greg_L said:
A better question would be, why the fuck does anyone want an axe fx?
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Yeah I really don't fucking get it, every clip I have heard to date hasn't done shit for me. I honestly would rather have the free shit than an axe.

I've also never seen a product with such a stupid cult fallowing. Tell an Axe owner his 101010101011010011s are stupid and watch how fast he goes sandy vagina on you. It's the easiest user base to troll right now haha.

There was a pretty funny thread on HCAF about the Axe using batteries for backup memory. Some dude lost all his presets because they didn't bother to use ferroelectric caps in the design of the Axe.
 
miroslav said:
Because decaffeinated coffee costs more than coffee with caffeine....
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but they have to go thru an extra process to remove that caffiene.
They DON'T have to go thru a similar process with a 10 watt amp with a minimal parts list.
 
lol...

2 threads about the axe fx dumping all presets over at HCAF.
 
Lt. Bob said:
but they have to go thru an extra process to remove that caffiene.
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True...but then they sell it in a smaller can then the caffeine coffee....so you get less and no caffeine.
:D


I know if one just looks at the simplicity of a high-end tube amp or the minimal number of parts that are in it...it makes it hard to understand why they cost so much, but I think it's also about the quality of the parts, the quality of the build, the builder's rep, the sound of the amp, and whatever the market will bear.

I've had a bunch of inexpensive tube amps, the sub-$500 stuff, and ended up selling all of them in favor of better stuff. They weren't all bad amps, just nothing that stood out.
I really wanted to buy amps that I would keep for a very long time. I've got a pretty good line-up now.
 
The kind of guitar nerd dweebs that would use something like that deserve all the headache and frustration that comes with it.
 
Back in the 60-s when I was a kid you could go into any drugstore in the country and find a big tube-tester machine with a cabinet full of all types of tubes. Because every radio and TV needed new ones all the time. Dad's spent their Saturdays trying to save dollars keeping the TVs going. You could also find Heathkit stores in almost every major city where you could get kits to BUILD your own TVs and electronic projects, most of which contained tubes.

From the 1970s on, it's all 'dixie-cup technology'; cheap IC make stuff cheap enough to throw away.

It's been over 30 years since the bulk of consumer electronics had tubes.
Yes, they are a known tech, but they are NOT widespread anymore.

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You can buy used tested 12AX7s all day long on eBay for about $2 a crack, which in real dollars is probably way cheaper than they were in the '60s. Every radio did *not* have tubes in the '60s, they had these things called transistor radios (I had a Snoopy transistor radio, but that was in the '70s). I think Van Morrison sang about them in the '60s. As I recall he was naked in some field banging a chick with his trusty transistor radio nearby. Hard to do that with a tube radio. Not impossible, you could get a submini tube radio run off a reasonably sized battery--but the battery life would be short, so you better finish banging that chick before the battery dies.

Tube amps don't help guitarists bang chicks in the 21st century either, but guitarists think they do, or they are shockingly non-self-aware, one of the two.
 
Don't seem all that expensive to me in the grand scheme of things
Cheaper than a car, more expensive than a loaf of bread, less than I would spend on a guitar

Plus if you make em too cheap all sorts of people with no business playing a guitar loud enough for people to hear start getting their hands on them and then all kinds of chaos ensues :(
 
Individual component prices aside, tube amps are so expensive because there's a big enough market of people willing to pay that price. It's not exclusive to the tube amp industry.
 
Bristol Posse said:
Plus if you make em too cheap all sorts of people with no business playing a guitar loud enough for people to hear start getting their hands on them and then all kinds of chaos ensues :(
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This is so true. Same can be said with home recording and youtube. 99% of the clowns out there shouldn't be recording anything and then they throw it up on youtube.
 
But BRO it does like a meelioon amps BRO. LOL

Actually I think I would dig one if I was out on tour or gigging regularly.
 
Bryan316 said:
Still waiting for you to be right in a thread.
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Well, for starters, I was right in the thread that created your intense butthurt. You know the one that got into engine talk? The one in which you show that you have terrible reading comprehension and/or don't have a clue wtf you're talking about.
 
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