Grumpy Tube Rant
During the paleolithic period, primitive man made tools out of stone and everything “electronic” used vacuum tubes. We’re talking all those ancient computers, televisions, radios, audio amplifiers, spacecraft and so on. Vacuum tubes were everywhere and you could find a tube tester in pretty much every grocery store, along with a stock of tubes in case you needed a replacement. Most importantly to guitarists, vacuum tubes were the lifeblood of guitar amps, delivering amazing tone and the occasional burned fingertip. Noble, savage, paleolithic rockers reveled in the awesomeness of tube tone, crafting epic rock anthems to commemorate successful mammoth hunts and the discovery of fire. Thousands of years later, a competing tribe of lab-dwellers invented the practical-yet-soulless transistor and lots of guitar amps went over to the solid state dark side. Many purists feel you just can’t get great guitar tone without tubes. Not that I have a strong opinion on it. I’m just saying…
In the 21st century, the overall demand for tubes has radically shrunk. It’s reasonable to expect there are fewer sourcing options and that the price may creep up a bit. In the 70 and 80s I could get 12AX7 preamp tubes for about ten dollars, and 6L6GC power amp tubes for around fifteen dollars each. Yesterday I went to a local guitar shop to pick up some tubes for my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I told the salesperson I needed 3 12AX7 and 2 6L6GC tubes, which were fetched for me and left on the counter. When I went to pay they informed me my total was over $140 ! I was gobsmacked and asked them to explain the individual prices to me. They told me the 12AX7 tubes were over $20 each and the 6L6GC tubes were $70 for a matched pair. When I balked they offered to sell me a less expensive (less boutique-o-riffic) version of the 12AX7 preamp tube for $9 each but they didn’t have any options for the power amp tubes. I purchased the preamp tubes and decided to do some looking around online for the others. It turns out I got a good deal on the 12AX7s and it was smart to shop online, where I found the same 6L6GC tubes for $18 each. It’s completely understandable that local stores have additional overhead to recoup, and that prices may vary. But seriously… $70 in the store for a pair of output tubes vs $36 online for the same brand items? Ironically, this retail chain owns the mail-order company where I ultimately purchased the items, and they wouldn’t match their own prices when I pointed this out. In the words of Jack Black, “rock and roll is all about sticking it to the man”. Am I “the man” ? Maybe I shouldn’t read too much into this… purchasing vacuum tubes shouldn’t become an allegory to my recent arrival at middle age. But dammit! Back in MY day we had real music, not this crap the kid are listening to nowadays (shaking my cane in the general direction of society). And we made that classic rock and roll with tubes. And we were thankful.
Now, where’s my mastodon-hunting spear?
Do you suppose that digital modeling technology will ever be good enough to capture the tube aura through a solid-state amp? Or is there a reminiscence that cannot be overcome with technology?
My Line6 gizmo does a reasonable job of emulating the tube sound. There is something romantic about vaccum tubes, but modeling is very good at this point.