The worst thing about hype, especially when it comes to guitar gear is that we all fall prey to it. I was thinking about all the hype and myths that surround guitar gear today, and doing a search on “guitar gear hype” yielded this interesting article that talks about marketing hype and how musicians are so tired of marketing hype that most don’t believe ANY of it, even if it’s true. I used to get all “gassed” up with all the hype, but I’m a lot more reasonable now. So when a manufacturer makes claims about something, I’ve become accustomed to ignoring the claims, though I admit that I do my best to prove or disprove claims if the gear in question seems interesting enough.
But it’s not just the manufacturers, it’s also players that push a lot of hype around, and I’ve got a few hype topics that especially annoy me:
- “Class A amps are better than Class AB”
This statement is less prevalent now than when I first heard this a few years ago, but it still irks me when I hear it. Class A doesn’t refer to the quality of an amp, but to the type of circuit. I remember hearing that from a dude at GC when I was looking at a used VOX AC30 (and btw, the ACxx amps are really NOT Class A). I thought he was bs-ing me at the time, so I just politely nodded my head, blew him off. Luckily there’s the Internet, and I also know a great amp guy who explained the operating classes to me. - “It sounds like a Dumble”
No it doesn’t. A Dumble sounds like a Dumble, and I know what at least one Dumble sounds like. Dumble tailors each amp to the player, so while as a group the amps may sound similar, they each have an individual character. It’s hard to tell – especially on the forums – who has actually heard and played one, but I’m willing to bet most people’s experience is through sound clips. I remember reading on the forums that this dude claimed he could make his Dr. Z Maz 18 sound like a Dumble (I think because it has a master volume). What a crock of shit! Unfortunately, that dude has thousands of posts and people actually believe him.But despite that, the Dumble is one case where the hype about Dumble amps is something I tend to believe, having heard and played through a Dumble. What annoys me are the comparisons with other amps or players making claims that their amps sound like a Dumble. - Cable break-in
I’ve spoken to electrical engineers, and even the article I mentioned above mentioned this hype item, and all agree that cable break-in is a fantasy. Personally, I’ve never bought into it. Who knows? Maybe my ears are not good enough to tell, but I just get decent cables that are durable and have a reasonably low capacitance. I use Monster cables – but not the super-expensive ones. They work great and they have a lifetime warranty. - Transparency
Lots of builders and players alike bandy this term about quite liberally. The fact of the matter is that anything you add to your chain will affect your tone; some more than others. The most pure tone you’ll get is your guitar plugged straight into your amp. After that, you’ll change your tone. Consider this: If you like to run effects (I usually have at least nine pedals on a board), not only do you have to deal with signal running through the pedals themselves, you have all that cable that ties them together. I think the best you can hope for is retention of your dynamics. Or if you’re like The Edge, the sum total of your effects is your tone.
So how does one get past the hype? Simple: Play it for yourself. Granted, there are some things that you just can’t try out at a shop – especially boutique gear – but most boutique gear builders have a return policy, so if it happens that you don’t like it, you can always return it.
Guitar Gear 
I agree there is a lot of hype especially around amps but I have to say Dumble is the worst offender and no I haven’t heard one but I know that no amp, no matter how good, is worth the price tag of a Dumble, especially when you consider they are based off Leo’s circuit designs.
I myself could never justify paying $40,000 for an amp. But even though it is based upon a Fender circuit, there really is something special about that amp that makes it sound completely different, however subtle, than anything else. If that kind of money weren’t an issue, I’d probably get one.
I like to joke that Dumble may have stumbled on his circuit through constant tweaking, but whatever he did, it made his amps very distinct.
Overpricing is the result of hype and myth, hype and myth thrives in the realm of ignorance of fact. Dumble is a fine example. A tiny Dr Z sounding like a Dumble, ha. No little watt single speaker amp matches a half stack. It’s sound physics, wattage and design. Like a single speaker can match the spread of tone a 4×12 produces. Or a teen watt amp sounding like a 100 watter 4 tube head, not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.
Amps sound different due to the design. It’s all design. You do not change tubes in a Fender type amp and get a Marshall sound or vice versa. “Based on a Fender” There is, in reality, precious little difference in how a tube amplification circuit is designed and works. The cascading preamp design yields higher gain of the modern amps. Most of them are getting their “magic tones” merely from the organic tone and normal reaction of the tubes. Old tube circuits are not magical they are actually quite primitive in design and really low tech. The distortion the little first amps produced because the guitar simply clipped them at above mod volume was a bad thing for Leo Fender, he hated it. It was a design flaw that only really worked because of the behavior of tubes and that no one had ever really heard how cool an electric guitar would sound w proper overdrive or gain.
The chemistry of the guitar to the amp is of the utmost, you might plug a particular guitar into a wonder amp and it just does not match well. Some guitars sound good with a varity of amps. An LP HB type guitar might not work well with easily clipped out amps which is why a strat sounds great with about anything. It’s not really about the wood the guitar is made of, it’s pickups, strings and pots, and the design of the amp not the tube types. There is precious little difference between 5881/6L6 power tubes and EL34s, it is the design of the amp itself.
Also any pedals you use might sound great with some amps and some guitars and not others. It’s all a chemsitry mix of componenets. That is exactly why there is so much diversity of likes and dislikes in pedals. It meddles down to the guitar and amp being used and the interaction. Much less the ability and technique of the player.
Most players have a lack of knowledge of electronics and sonic theory. That is where myth lives. Like “vintage sounds better than modern”. There were some really crappy tones in the old days, hum, noise, flubber, and terrible quality strings.
I’ll take 2010 tech any day and my brand new custom built guitars (all Carvin builds), over worn out vintage guitars, worn frets, worn out parts, denatured pickup magnets, and amps that need rebuilt.
I like tubes but I like new amps, tubes are not all myth, they do respond and compress with touch and feel that no modeler or trans amp has yet gotten close.
And please, these little single speaker amps w low wattage, why do so many think these sound so good? Thin and tinny, it takes WATTS to push low end and a larger speaker to produce low end, a multi-speaker cab will sound BETTER than any single. The magic of a ’59 Champ for $900 or more, I’ll take a twin VOX or a Fender, even a 4×10 Bassman clone over that little crappy, one trick thin tone pony. Sure you can record things and make them sound better, as recording is an illusion. But using little amps on stage, it just does not come across well. I was just watching Master Beck and his tribute to Les Paul with an array of the small classic amps. Sounded bad, did not sound like Jeff and nothing like Les.
Paul, you’re letting your “bigger is better” bent come through again… 🙂 You may not like lower wattage amps, but many of us do. If it ain’t for you, not a problem, but please give the rest of us a break.
As for me, I like it all, but I like what I like, and THAT is more important to me than anything else. Doesn’t matter if it’s new or old, small or big. If it moves me emotionally in a positive way, then I’ll buy it.
Great topic Goofydawg. Your content reminds me of some of the posts you read in the forums.
On just about any guitar gear forum you will find a handful of members who live on the forum and they make themselves out to be an authority on “tone”, without any proof, other than their thousands of posts. Yet, many blindly follow their advice.
They will talk about the tone (good/bad) from this or that brand/model guitar, amp, & speaker, plus every component from volume pots, strings, boutique guitar cords, tubes, boutique speaker cables (broken in and not) and on and on. (I did read about someone stating they will only use one brand/model of speaker cable and it has to be fully broken in). Eventually someone will disagree about their “opinion” (which is more than that to them) of a certain product and the thread ends up in a pissing contest.
In contrast, there are those on the forums who have displayed their skills and shown they have a great ear for tone. These are the guitarist to take their advice seriously.
Their guitar heroes from the 50-70s did not have access to the high tech “boutique” products that we have today, such as cryogenic tubes and mega diameter “broken in” speaker cable. Yet they got awesome tone. They also did not spend hours each day on the internet forums, since it was not invented yet. Instead they spent their time mastering their skills.
I once read an interview with Santana and he said that he can take just about any guitar and amp and get a good tone out of it.
I think that is the mark of a good guitarist, they will take any combination of guitar and amp and sound awesome. I had a friend like that in college, it drove us all LSD how he could such a great sound of the crappy college Laney Linebackers!!