Who wants their hifi rig to push a 300B to distortion? Hmmm...Pass is into "tube like" sound as illustrated by his XA-25. I have one and it sounds great but not particularly like tubes to my ears...I switch between that amp and a Dennis Had SEP. SS guitar distortion pedals into a tube guitar amp can sound amazing. I have various ones including my old 1980 ProCo Rat that is my fave...a supposed magic Motorola LM308 transistor is the key to that tone.
A Black Box to Solve Everything
Tubes vs. solid state?? There's a thread out right now about this exact question (there always is), but I didn't want to take it off subject. So my question is; is there a device that could go between the preamp and amp that has variable harmonic distortion capabilities? I know there are tube buffers, but they are not really addressing the point because they use line level signals and don't have the distortion of a good 300B tube being pushed beyond its limits. My thinking is that of a black box with switches and knobs to adjust harmonic distortion to mimic different tube types. It would also have to have a bypass switch so we could readily and quickly A/B the thing. Any ideas?