Comment by kahawe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kahawe | Hacker News Reader

This is a very inspiring "so I just made my own stuff" story but then again, I think the music instrument business and especially the market of guitar players has got to be a horrible example for hackers.

Imagine your customers swearing by and specifically asking you to produce hand-wired tube-based computers with punch cards that run as fast and reliable as modern PCs but at the same time they will shun pretty much any innovation you try to introduce and then just spend 4 to 6 figures on some old tube-thingy from the 50s or they over-spend on some very small boutique shops that swear they are building that tube-computer just like they did in the golden days and they swear they only solder during full-moon and its only done by virgins, so they charge you triple-premium for it. And then they tell you "hey, RMS is actually using that thing" and then they pay RMS lots and lots of money so he will take pictures with that thing while actually working on a small modern *NIX PC behind the stage/under his desk.

Aside from HiFi gear, I doubt there is another industry SO full of emotional marketing, dark obscure magic and so much mis-information accepted as fact as guitars and especially guitar amps.

"Aside from HiFi gear, I doubt there is another industry SO full of emotional marketing, dark obscure magic and so much mis-information accepted as fact as guitars and especially guitar amps."

Similar industry -- so it might not count as a separate example -- but the high end of the market for speakers and stereo equipment is nuts. There's not as much romanticism and near-mysticism as there is in the guitar market, but there's plenty of uberexpensive, tube-thingy tech from the 1950s. A buddy of mine has a setup in his living room that could reasonably pass for an ENIAC panel at first glance.

Nice rant, but, what if there's a perceptible difference between tube and solid state technologies?

Just because it cannot be objectively measured doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I have to admit, I just emphasized on what is strange or downright wrong about selling guitar-related gear. There certainly are a lot of great companies out there and if you swear you hear the difference or just like their products and can afford it, then by all means, more power to you! I myself am prone to spending big bucks on gear myself...

I just find it funny when you take a cynic look at it from the view of a hacker and not a musician/artist. Guitar players and selling gear to them is somehow a whole different ball game compared to, say, bass players who are generally much more open to new stuff.

There's a certain mystique specific to the guitar, it seems...or there's a billion more guitar players, perhaps?

That's not what he wrote. He's talking about hand-soldering (vs PCBs) and using certain components or technologies that work really well when marketing but have no effect or even a detrimental effect on sound. For example, people want Class A amps, not Class AB ones, even though the designation is purely a technical one and is not correlated with sound quality.

The difference between a tube amp and a solid state one, by the way, is one that you can objectively measure through spectrograms.

Ah, I see now. Thanks.

Re: A vs AB.

The difference is the fundamental mode of operation with different distortion characteristics. Class A amps will have both odd and even-order harmonics but class AB will be mostly even-order. That is both an audible and and electronically quantifiable difference.

If you are talking sound reproduction then A vs AB is insignificant because you only see the difference when the amplifier starts distorting. If you are a guitar player who drives an amp to distortion as a matter of course this difference is germane.

It can be objectively measured. Tubes tend to produce even harmonics, which are pleasing to the human ear. The even harmonics sound like octaves of the original pitch, creating a rich sound. Solid state tends towards a mix of even and odd harmonics. The odd harmonics are not pleasing to the human ear because they produce pitches not easily resolved to the intended pitch.

Ironically, solid state amps can have a lower total harmonic distortion than tubes but produce a sound less desirable to humans (in general).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com