Don't sell your tube amps

Sure, that could change, but only when Class D really can seriously replicate the harmonic content and feel of tubes.

@wolf_garcia Class D can do that now. I've measured a class D that has harmonics such that you would think you were looking at a tube amp, except that overall the distortion is lower. It sounds like one too, except owing to less distortion, its easier to hear into the rear of the soundstage.

There are lots of 15 Watt class D amps. If you give them a decent power supply some of them sound pretty good too.

Its not a matter of 'if' its when, at this point.

As a long time pro guitarist I can say for certain that class D will not be replacing tube guitar amps for those who care about tone. I’ve tried various modeling amps and others including those with tube front ends, and the necessary distortion characteristics from a tube output stage aren’t ever likely to be replaced by class D.

@wolf_garcia If you play guitar then you know how heavy a Fender Twin is when loading out of a club at 2:AM.

Class D was not ready for prime time when all those junky ’modelling’ amplifiers appeared some years back. But there are class D modules available now that are quite musical. For those guitarists that don’t rely on overdriving the output section of their amp to get their ’sound’, the idea of a 100 Watt amplifier that allows the sound they have/want that only weighs 15 pounds is attractive!

I play in a band and when I meet guitarists from touring bands, if they find out who I am this is something they ask for. Since I’ve heard class D amps that sound for all the world like an excellent tube amp, I see class D in the guitar world as inevitable- its only a matter of time at this point.

It seems as though I've heard this statement before.... 😉

Yes- I'm sure you have. I have too.

What's been keeping tubes alive is how they make distortion. If you were to put the solid state amps on the bench that have been lauded for 'tubelike sound' and measure their distortion characteristics, you'd find that their distortion looks different from actual tube amps. That means that they might be 'tube-like' which is not the same as saying they actually sound just like a tube amp (sorry for the Santos-ism). IOW they sound like tube amps, sort of...

That has changed. In a class D amp, its possible to design the circuit such that the major non-linearities that cause distortion tend to make lower ordered harmonics, just like in tube amps.

I'm not saying this is true of all class D amps. I am saying that I've seen it, heard it and measured it in some.

I've been hearing about the demise of tubes since the 1960s. Like all tech though, tubes have a rise and they will have a fall. Right now things are looking a bit dark- 20 years ago the Tesla plant got bombed; the war in Ukraine hasn't helped at all; a fire that destroyed a plant in China didn't either since its apparently not getting rebuilt, but on top of that, class D is invading the guitar world in a way that it was not even 5 years ago. That's because most guitar players these days use effect pedals to get their 'sound' whereas 40 years ago they relied on the tube amp for that.

So now for a guitar player all they really need is a simple class D amp that doesn't sound harsh, and possibly with a 12AX7 input. Those amps already exist and weigh 15 pounds instead of 85 for the same power. In ten years there will be a lot more of them.

Whether we like it or not, tube production is still going on because of the guitar market, not the hifi market (at least as far as the major producers like JJ are concerned). As the guitar market dwindles, we may well see the major players get out of the market.

Add to that, there are people like me that make tube amps that openly admit that class D allows for a better product. I don't miss the tube amps in my system at all.

So yeah, we've all heard it before, but just like the boy that cried wolf, eventually it happens.

Tube amplifier are on borrowed time due to a different threat. Its now possible to build solid state amps that are just as smooth in the mids and highs with no glare and the same sense of musical involvement.