"guitar amps sound different with different sets of tubes from different manufacturers. Damned if I know why, but they do. Sometimes radically different. I almost feel that I have a split personality by making that statement, but it's true. It seems that audio/guitar amplifiers are just "tone controls", the tone being the result of the sum of the parts."
As a hobby I have a small (very small) recording studio and I would agree with you even after my earlier post on the hype in Audio. My reason is based on the idea that the guitar/amp constitutes a total instrument and what comes out of the "buzz box" is how the artist wants it to sound. You will note that guitars are always miked rather than patched directly into the mixer you want to capture all that crud the open backed, poorly coupled speaker is producing. Also take a look at the circuits in any guitar amp they tend to be nonlinear, poorly coupled with starved power supplies and I contend that if you used a "audiophile" preamp and amp you would not get the tone you would want, it most likely would sound like a acoustic guitar. basically what we are talking about is the difference between a Strad and a Yamaha violin both sound correct but they sound different and one is not necessarily better than the other just different.
Jim
