power tubes

While the construction and design philosophy behind tube amplifiers is a complicated business, the way they work to make music is fairly straight-forward. They take in an electrical signal coming from the guitar cable, amplify it and then turn it into sound through the speakers. There are of course plenty of links in the chain that can affect your tone, but the two that have to most noticeable impact (as far as tube amps go) are the type of speakers and tubes. Today, we’ll be focusing on the latter, taking a closer look at the general sound characteristics associated with four popular power tube types.   Continue reading →