Timeline for when tube guitar amps become obselete

I am a professional photographer and I would never have dreamed that they'd stop making KODACHROME, but they did, last year. The op is correct. This will happen within the next 10 years IMHO. Sorry.

I'm gonna disagree with this. While I love my AxeFx, I'm still buying tube amps and excited to see some of the new models coming out. Same with pedals. Gas is fun and I don't want to be cured of it.
 
I agree, I think that guitar driven music has actually become more popular over the past one or two years. Whether you like djent/new metal or not, there are plenty of players out there that are making guitar oriented music, and they are good to excellent players (Guthrie Govan, Animals as Leaders, Periphery, Keith Merrow, Andy James, Scale the Summit, Symphony X, Chimp Spanner, Cloudkicker, etc). I think the advent of the 7 string guitar is enabling a lot of young players to take guitar in a different direction. If you hang out at sevenstring.org for any period of time you'll see that passion for guitar still exists.

Satriani, Vai, Eric Johnson, Dream Theater, etc are also examples of "old school" bands that continue to survive.
 
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Problem isn't tube amps, it's tubes. We're going to run out of NOS soon, and I think eventually there's nobody going to be making new vacuum tubes.
 
As long as there is money to be made, there will be tube manufacturers. I think the prices will be more of a concern than availability.
 
That's about the equivalent of saying that the invention of the transistor would drive tube amp manufacturers out of business. How long have transistors been around now "Following its release in the early 1950s the transistor revolutionized the field of electronics", and what is the status of tube amp manufacturers today?

Guitar tube amps are still alive, because we have Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Van Halen, and Slash to thank for our love affair with tube tone. Tubes are essentially defunct just about everywhere else. There's some tube hifi gear made by companies like Cary Audio and McIntosh, but they also make solid state hifi systems as well. Mainstream audio companies such as Bose, Altec Lansing, Logitech, and Klipsch will never make a tube product. There will be NO resurgence in tube technology, ever. It is only diminishing. As tubes are more expensive and less reliable than silicon, it makes no economic sense for a company to continue using tubes when there is a stronger alternative. As the Axe-Fx demonstrates, improved DSPs can get pretty damn close to tube tone. The only staying power for tubes is in our nostalgic minds, because we want to be cool like Van Halen. When that wears off with successive generations who care as much about Van Halen as I care about Elvis Presley, the love for tubes dies as well.

It comes down to this, if silicon can do what tubes do for much cheaper, with more reliability, and drastically reduced size, tubes will die. There's no question about it.
 
I don't think Tube amps will die but maybe become less abundant. For now they are hear and we enjoy their company.
 
Simple answer as long as there are tubes there will be guitar tube amps. No tubes no tube amps.

Maybe within 10 more years the tube sales will be more expensive, making the tube amps more expensive and less attractable to the the regular gigging musician.
 
Guitar tube amps are still alive, because we have Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Van Halen, and Slash to thank for our love affair with tube tone. Tubes are essentially defunct just about everywhere else. There's some tube hifi gear made by companies like Cary Audio and McIntosh, but they also make solid state hifi systems as well. Mainstream audio companies such as Bose, Altec Lansing, Logitech, and Klipsch will never make a tube product. There will be NO resurgence in tube technology, ever. It is only diminishing. As tubes are more expensive and less reliable than silicon, it makes no economic sense for a company to continue using tubes when there is a stronger alternative. As the Axe-Fx demonstrates, improved DSPs can get pretty damn close to tube tone. The only staying power for tubes is in our nostalgic minds, because we want to be cool like Van Halen. When that wears off with successive generations who care as much about Van Halen as I care about Elvis Presley, the love for tubes dies as well.

It comes down to this, if silicon can do what tubes do for much cheaper, with more reliability, and drastically reduced size, tubes will die. There's no question about it.

Don't see where anyone claimed there would be a "resurgance" in tube technology, that would be rediculous. As far as solid state components being more efficient than tubes, that's been true for over 50 years, and new designs of tube amps are still being produced. If the argument is that some day, in the distant future, tube amps will no longer be around, then that's a no brainer, but no one knows when that will be, possibly not in our lifetime. In the distant future, the Axe Fx (as we know it) will no longer exist, and that's a fact. Fractal will have moved on to other products and designs. The whole argument of how long this technology or that technology wll be around is really pointlless, because no one knows. Let's just enjoy what we've got, while we've got it.
 
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The Axe FX does an incredible job at producing organic vibrations, and once you get to that stage, all bets are off. If it gets recorded to nice fat analog tape! The warmth of a guitar amp is the first part of the equation; what gets added is that magnetic signal that someone like Todd Rundgren put on his early recordings, where you had a lot of "organic chemistry" since there was not just a single instrument to be modeled, but a bunch, and vocals, all in various ambiances. We're close, but where all this gets blended and put down on analog tape is where I still think we're a ways behind.

I know one thing, I still have some vinyl recordings, and they reverberate much differently - way, way better; believe it or not mono recordings reverberate even better than stereo.

It's like the CDs played through a car stereo or conventional CD player. 44100 CDs and even MP3s are okay for gansta rap, pop soul, and so forth, that is supposed to be simple sensual or cynical entertainment. But maybe you're not going to feel the cosmos, find God or have an out of body experience while listening to it (maybe I haven't listened to the right underground artist?) Plasticity in the sense of poorly simulated acoustics is just lack of ordered resonance. And unordered noise is predictable in a sense, since there isn't much of a significant pattern to be noticed. But the real situation is that too much resonance is hard to predict or control, economically, spiritually, so here we are focused on the mundane, rather than the sonic beauty of those early hi-fi years. (I know, a lot of people have never done the test, of running vinyl out of speakers into a room, as compared to CD, but it "stops moving"). Even a 10K square wave modeled at 200.000 Hz isn't going to have the organic breathing sonic influence on other waves in a space as the real deal. The order in a modulated square wave like that isn't predicted, by digitizing software.

Excuse the rant, but its similar to education and culture these days. Going out and buying and reading a bunch of really good books - we don't have freedom to use the knowledge, time to enjoy it, and so we just browse and get a bit of escape here, a piece there, but often miss the whole tapestry. And people who never read are not the same as those who do, and people who read only what's on the "None Left Behind" lists are about as expanded as a dried grain of white rice. You practically have to force them to soak up ideas of any ramification or significance.

I'm afraid there are people who accept the digital fiber-board world in place of a spiritual sense of wonder inherent in nature. The situation reminds me of how the people watching TV in Fahrenheit 451 thought they were all contestants on a game show if they happened to have the same first name as the person being spoken to - but it was a ruse.

I want the real thing where possible. But with some technology, like the Axe FX, I'm getting what is impossible with the real thing - the paradox of virtual life. Both are real, so long as we can appreciate them for what they are. If I decide to record it and mix a recording of a total musical performance with other musicians onto vinyl or a thick analog tape, please don't complain.
 
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Don't see where anyone claimed there would be a "resurgance" in tube technology, that would be rediculous. As far as solid state components being more efficient than tubes, that's been true for over 50 years, and new designs of tube amps are still being produced. If the argument is that some day, in the distant future, tube amps will no longer be around, then that's a no brainer, but no one knows when that will be, possibly not in our lifetime. In the distant future, the Axe Fx (as we know it) will no longer exist, and that's a fact. Fractal will have moved on to other products and designs. The whole argument of how long this technology or that technology wll be around is really pointlless, because no one knows. Let's just enjoy what we've got, while we've got it.

Someone was talking about tube vs. digital being cyclical, suggesting that there was a natural balancing factor that determined which technology dominated. I think digital guitar solutions are going to dominate the market very quickly. I mean, I remember being a kid in the 80s and 90s and not having any idea what the internet was. In the past 15 years or so, the internet has quickly dominated just about everybody's lives. If something is better, it will catch on.
 
That's about the equivalent of saying that the invention of the transistor would drive tube amp manufacturers out of business. How long have transistors been around now "Following its release in the early 1950s the transistor revolutionized the field of electronics", and what is the status of tube amp manufacturers today?
The status of tube amp manufacturers today is that they're almost the only industry still using tubes. Walk out of your house and start walking around the block, knocking on doors. You'll find that your neighbors own hundreds of electronic devices, but you probably won't find a single piece of tube gear.
 
Cars made horses obsolete as working tools; doesn't make them any less useful. Just adds a different perspective on it.
The invention of bronze didn't make rocks any less useful either, but military forces don't issue rocks anymore. :D
 
Seriously, though, technology comes and goes. It arrives, lives its moment and then gets replaced. It's been that way for all of recorded history, and probably long before that.

Tube amps are useful and popular because they can do things with guitar sound that, until recently, were impossible to fully realize with available solid-state equipment. Now the Axe-FX has come knocking on that door, and to many people's ears, it's entered the room — along with one or two non-Fractal products. There are more than a few die-hard tube fans who have sold off their tube gear and gone digital, and they are joined by more people at a steady pace.

Neither Fractal nor its competitors have released the greatest products they will ever create. There will be better processors, and more converts. That trend will take its inevitable toll on the tube amp industry.

Tube amps will continue for some time — first as the great-sounding solution with the highest street cred, then as great-sounding retro-chic, then as collector's items. Eventually, tube equipment sales will be too low to support the tube manufacturing business, and tube-operated equipment will become museum pieces, as the last functioning tubes fizzle out.

Will that take twenty years or a hundred? There's no way to really know, but my guess is toward the long end of that range. Guitar players are a surprisingly conservative lot; mythology and nostalgia live strong in their hearts. Their momentum will keep tube amps alive beyond the age expentancy of other consumer products. But the handwriting is on the wall.

In the long run, it doesn't matter whether that happens sooner or later. As James Oppenheim said, "The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance. The wise man grows it under his feet." Roll with what you love, whether its insides glow in the dark or not.
 
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Eventually guitars will disappear too.... now that's a scary thought.

:roll

Certainly up until just before the financial crisis the sale of guitars in the UK was the highest it's ever been. The biggest market is the 'mid-life crisis men' - of which this forum is overflowing. The demand will almost certainly drop as they have put a lot of guitars up in price while there is a financial crisis - how that makes economic sense is a puzzle but it'll be interesting to see the figures for this year if they get printed anywhere.
 
My Dad was a gigging accordion player in a 'western' dance band in the 1950s. He's 77 now. He says accordions were everywhere then, and not just for Lawrence Welk polkas. It was a versatile, portable keyboard instrument that could be LOUD even without an amp. And it was a whole new skillset, guys dedicated their lives to mastering the thing. Then came Farfisas, elec pianos and digital keyboards. Now, after only a few generations of becoming prominent, the accordion is all but dead as a serious, fundamental instrument.

Could guitar die out the same way eventually? I don't see why not. Not that I care, I'll be playing guitar and chasing tone until I croak, no question! Same way my Dad still digs accordions.

Technology has given us the power to create any sound we can possibly imagine, and a number of new ways to interface with (play) those sounds to make music out of it. We recently saw a big resurgence of guitar interest driven by Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games, but that seems to be trending off now. Clearly there's a lot of current popular music that is completely devoid of guitar.

This makes me wonder if there's any forums where guys discuss accordion rigs all day and how to nail that vintage Frankie Yanckovich tone.. :)
 
I think tube amps will always be available. High end audio guys and boutique tube amps will always be around and there will always be people who like stuff just because it's different, old, or collectible (just like a lot of other "obsolete" technology).

I think the important question is when or *if* modeling will be the mainstream and widely accepted without constantly having to be presented as a compromise in terms of tone. When you'd just have to be totally hardcore and in denial a little bit to argue about it that much anymore.

For example, after getting the Axe, I'm really not that interested in what VST plugins are coming out or what L6 is doing, I have zero interest in new amp head announcements, which I used just be absolutely stoked about and follow like crazy. My surfing of the Gear Page and the HC Amp forum has dropped to basically nothing where it used to be a daily/obsessive thing. It's just not interesting any more because I've arrived. There's no point in fighting about whether the sky is blue or not because you know where you stand on the issue and don't have any doubt on the matter (even when the sun isn't out).

So, basically, the majority of the people would have to get to that point with modelers. So, I'd say it's most likely when there are several Axe-quality amp modelers in the general consumer price range and also when a majority of big name pros are playing modeling rigs in preference to the tube gear (getting rid of the bias here could take another 15-20 years). So the trend setters and the trend followers both have to be on-board and have the opportunity/availability covered. I think it'll take more than one manufacturer producing this level of quality for it to happen.

Tube prices going up or manufacturers going out of business would likely accelerate the process.

It feels like it is probably inevitable but the tube bias runs *deep* in the guitar player psyche. The technology will hit this point sooner than the psychological barrier will be overcome.
 
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imho I think they will go away.. look at tv's / radios, used to use them, gone. there are kids that have never seen a non flat panel tv. die hards will keep it alive, much like people restoring classic cars, airplaines, tanks, guns, whatever. My son who is 15 could care less about a plexi. It's just going to take time.

Think of some of the stuff in my lifetime i've seen go away.. vinyl (yes dj's use it.. blah), 8 track, cassette, beta, vhs, crt tube tvs and monitors, and soon the hard drive.
 
The status of tube amp manufacturers today is that they're almost the only industry still using tubes. Walk out of your house and start walking around the block, knocking on doors. You'll find that your neighbors own hundreds of electronic devices, but you probably won't find a single piece of tube gear.

That's exactly what I'm saying, guitar amplification (namely tube amps) is a different animal than most technology. The tube still lives in that domain because there is a demand. Why? because the ears of guitarists all over the world hear something special when they plug into an all tube amp. Of course that will change some day (not in the near future), but the point was that you can't really compare guitar amplification to most technologies (TV's, computers, VCR's...), it's unique.
 
The "uniqueness" of guitar amps is irrelevant. As Rex points out, tube amps will be available probably as long as tubes are available. To me, a more important question is: Once tubes are no longer profitable, will anyone make them? Each year, I care less and less. I'm far more concerned about the incandescent light bulb.
 
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