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car analagy

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1/20/2001 6:48 PM

car analagy

I repair cars for a living and this analogy is fitting but..... I work on everything from as far back as the 40's and as new as a few years ago so I have had the privlege to drive a lot of different cars. New high tech cars with digi fuel injection and multi-valves with computer controlled trans are nothing to scoff at. They deliver real performance! and get decent fuel economy while keeping with emission regulations. That is a long way from what we had 30 and 40 years ago. However, the feel of a carburated high compression big block in good running order is a thrill to drive!!!!

But I also have to say I honestly feel bad for my customers that are in every 6 months for a tune up because the points are out of adjustment and the spark plugs are fouled from driving on the choke 1/2 the time. For them life would be a lot easier if they had a newer car with FI and computer controlled ignition. Those cars go 30k to 100k between tune ups! Yea they don't make em like they used to for sure!

Having said all that I have been to the music stores and tried modeling amps and to me they don't sound all that bad @ music store levels and up close. I also dig the convenience of the built in effects and a radical change of tone just by turning a knob. Would I buy one? Heck No. I love to tinker with my tube amps. To be honest guys I thing we are a moving into the minority when you look at the big picture.

As far as getting computer amp repairs in the future, I have spent a huge amount of $ to repair modern cars(training and equipment) and I'll bet that there are plenty of computer techs that will step up to the plate and work on musical equipment

But what will it cost? Will the these modeling amps get cheaper, so much so that they are not worth the repair bills? We can only speculate. I guess that is why we are all here.

1/20/2001 7:42 PM

Re: car analagy (rambling)

Hey - another Joe who loves cars.

I worked both as a mechanic and later ran a restoration shop. Mostly 50's & 60's stuff (Muscle cars & English sports cars) but we did some flathead Fords too. My dad had a '29 Model A for a long time that was a trip and a half..

I still have my antique Triumph, and when it is running less than wonderfully I can blow $8 on some blue streak points and in 20min I'm golden. If the car breaks down, I can get plugs that fit, points or an oil filter (PH8a fits great!) in any podunk town anywhere and probably be on the road in an hour. (the simple joys of a generic Delco distributor!) When it's time for inspection, I tweak the mixture with a screwdriver until the tail pipe smells right and has the right color. It takes maybe 15 minutes. If it runs rough from being on the choke, you give it what my Sicilian friends jokingly call "an Italian tune up" - take it and wind it out on some good roads. Get the revs up. My mom still insists our cars ran better when I was home from college.

On the flip side, I drive a modern car to work most days. It's a '97 so it has OBD-II and then of course ABS etc on the brakes. I can barely do anything to it, and it really pisses me off.

You can do brake stuff, but you have to worry about the ABS pressure resevoir etc since you can't just bleed 'em. My Bentley manual says not to touch them at all! I can't touch the engine which is good and bad I suppose. I don't miss the valve jobs, don't get me wrong.. I put in a K&N filter and change the oil, but whenever something is up, it has to go the dealer..

I guess where I'm going is right where you went.. this is maybe part of why I'm a tube amp guy. Blow a tube, and 10 minutes later you're back on the road. They're simple, reliable, inexpensive (in the long run - amortize that SR over 30+ years!!) sound like God, and for my money there's nothing better. A digital amp will never be more than someone's approximation of what a tube amp sounds like. Yeah, they sound ok in the store, but put one on stage next to a '59 Bassman and watch it fall down. Hard. When you can have and maintain the real thing pretty affordably, why bother with a simulation? A turbo charged 4-banger feels good until you drive a '67 Vette with a big block.. is there any going back after you see the light?

Maybe I'm showing my age, but I just don't get it.

1/21/2001 10:06 PM

Re: car analagy (even more rambling)

Yeah cars are a good analogy. It's hard to have passion for for something that was stamped out on an assembly line like a can of tuna. I still dream about my old '62 XKE roadster but somehow have forgotten about the '76 Civic .I think the history, the happy memories, and elegance in design and manufacturing are a big part of the charm. The fact that they did and still do work great is the reason that we hold on to the old amps and tube technology.

Even if the digital amps did what they claim to do I would still prefer the real thing. A while back I rescued an old Hammond B3 from someones garage, which I intend to restore. Friends tell me that I can get the same sound from a digital synth but It's just not the same (BTW I can hear a big difference). Now If I think back to when I was 14 years old when my dad and I bought my first amp, a BF Pro-Reverb, a '65 I think, I had no idea what I was buying. All I knew was that I'd seen pros on stage with a Fender combo just like it and I wanted one too so I could be as good as them. Now if a line 6 or Yamaha DG was available I probably would have bought one instead especially if it was cheaper. It would have seemed like a better value to my untrained ear. Now 32 years and 6 Fenders later, not to mention Ampeg,Boogie, etc... My ear is tuned to tube amps. I think that many years of exposure to great tube amps has spoiled my ears.

The people buying digital modeling amps probably just havent played alot of great amps or maybe they just aren't passionate about their tone.

HMMM I wonder how that '67 vette 427 would run with EFI and distributerless ignition?

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