'Tube' amps ~ confusing nomenclature

[Vorbis]

I just had to look up 'nomenclature'.

[Rog]

Dirty bugger! Looking up nomenclature like that!

You'll get arrested young fella!

[Rog]

Back to the topic, don't forget that, in respect to specific goals, a primary interrelationship between system and/or subsystem technologies adds overriding performance constraints to the total system rationale.

[TMG 03]

Last night I met up with a bloke I know who had just bought his first tube amp. I dropped round to check it out and sure enough, it was a tube amp.

BUT it was a single bottle in the pre-amp stage amp, with the power amp being SS.

Now, there are hundreds of such amps around (I have one) and most manufacturers make them and they are fine, but I disagree with the 'tube amp' nomenclature. To me, they are still a ss amp, with a bit of tube colouration in the front end.

He was so proud of his amp and I don't believe it is a nice thing to burst people's bubbles, being rude serves no-one, so I didn't comment on the manufacturer's wording to him (he doesn't come here). I think the music shop who sold him that amp should not have used 'tube amp' in their description to him, as that's what he thinks he's bought.

To me 'tube amp' infers 'all tube'.

Your thoughts?

Please no endlessly stupid and pointless tube vs transistor amplifier debate in this thread - just nomenclature and marketing strategies.

If it makes you happy saying its a tube amp to your mates and you get the sound you want then its a tube amp.

[1964]

AFAICS:

None of the main manufacturers are particularly deceptive.

None of them claim them to be full-on tube amps.

All are marketed in the somewhat hazy, middle ground, as solid-state/digital *hybrids*.

Some of these amps make real sense in many situations.

It is almost certain that any significant confusion is imparted by the retailers, not the manufacturers.

Those that really care are part of a very very small minority who are especially vocal on forums that give watchers a false sense of the percentage of people who give a damn.

For almost any significant purchase, if you don’t do your own research, and rely on what salespeople and others with vested interests tell you, you’re very likely to be told a load of bull, not necessarily because of deliberate deception, but because of several pervasive factors in society in general.

There’s really little excuse for the majority of people today, as to almost anyone who cares, the Internet provides an infinitely greater amount of product information than was available just 10 years ago!

One way to avoid being conned is to avoid starting ones shopping in a physical shop.

Google is your friend!

[Vorbis]

Tube amp infers all tube. Hybrid amps are a gimmic. Vox did pretty well making the valvetronix, but as soon as you sit an all-tube amp next to it, the shortcomings in tone are painfully obvious.
As phil pointed out, the tube has barely enough juice flowing thru to make any noticable difference. This is the reason you can thrash these things for years on end and never have to worry about a tube change. They don't burn out.

[1964]

I find there's quite a difference between the budget and pro VTs.

[1964]

IMO, tube pedals are the real con!

[Capt. Black]

Y'know what pisses me off most of all?

I forgot to nominate the Tubes for the Rock Wars.




"WHITE PUNKS ON DOPE!!!!!"

[Capt. Black]

Back to the topic, don't forget that, in respect to specific goals, a primary interrelationship between system and/or subsystem technologies adds overriding performance constraints to the total system rationale.

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It's all Greek to me....

[Tulip]

Google is your friend!

Ah, finally. You make sense.

[1964]

Google is your friend!

Ah, finally. You make sense.

Wish I could say the same.

[Tsuken]

I think it's "wrong" for a hybrid (or whatever might be the best umbrella term for these things) amp to be portrayed and sold as a "tube amp", because that really does imply to me that it's all tube, or at least the same as an all tube amp.

Then again, the price difference is quite clear, and is a big factor, as the good Capt mentioned. Also as The Henderson has said, the deciding factor (alongside the amount of dinero you have to spend) should be whether you personalloy like the sound. That was why I got my Laney Tubefusion over the Behringer "Vintager" or Line6 Spider I tried at the same time. Not because it had a tube in the preamp, but because it sounded better.

I don't think the hybrid thing is a gimmick though; there was a significant difference when I changed the preamp tube in mine. There probably wouldn't have been such a change had the original one not been old and a bit stuffed (I wouldn't go changing a new preamp tube in a valvestate to some wonderful groove tubes thing just for the sake of it), but there was a difference, so clearly the tube isn't just there for marketing.

... so what am I really saying? On the one hand I believe it's a bit deceptive of the retailer to (at least through a sin of omission) represent a hybrid as "a tube amp", but on the other hand guitarists can be fairly prehistoric, and so it might be in our interests to have a cheaper technology-driven alternative talked up a bit to us. really though it should depend on our own ears and wallets - whether the tubes number none, one, or twenty-one

[1964]

Of course, the retailer might simply have said that the amp had a tube in it, and that's simply been translated in the buyer's mind that it's a tube amp.

[Tsuken]

Also very true