What don't you miss from your old amps before you picked up an Axe?

Traveling heavy! Now its....One 3u rack case, one guitar case and one bag-o-stuff and I'm gone. My lower back has never looked back.
 
I don't miss anything about any of them, other than how awesome they look. I'm still keeping them, though. As much as I love my Axe, I still love my Recto and Transatlantic. I have yet to find anything that gives the clean tone I can get with the Transatlantic.. I should probably just tone match it.
 
The size and weight, mostly. A Mesa Road King II is as heavy as a head as most combo amps are. Then add in a ATA case, and a 2x12 or 4x12 in a case, pedal board and, you guessed it, case. Loved the sound most times, as versatile as a single amp could be. But the weight... and did I mention how heavy that beast was? Brutally heavy.

I still have tube amps, but they are for using at home when the mood strikes. If the gig requires movement, it's the two small cases, a monitor, a stand, guitars. All fits in the back seat of most cars. Lighter (let's face it, ATA racks or cases are heavy empty) and much smaller.

Sounds great, less filling.
 
I don't miss thinking, "I wonder if it would sound better with different tubes, rebiasing, different speaker/cabinet." Or relatedly "Do I need to change tubes? Which amp should I put my next chunk of $ into sprucing up?" Don't miss "wow, it sure sounded great yesterday. I wonder what happened." Don't miss "Crap, if I'd realized that we couldn't turn up at all onstage in this venue I would've brought the DR instead of the Vibrolux. (substitute any smaller/larger rig that fits)" Don't miss, "Damn, I wish I'd brought that one other pedal that does (fill in the blank)" Don't miss, "Wow it's a long way to the power for my pedal board. I might have to move it over there." Don't miss the "love the clean headroom of my 50 watt amp for rhythm, but it's too damn loud when I hit it with the overdrive or not organic enough if I keep the volume down on the drive pedal." Don't miss the "if I'd known we were going to do (whatever) I might have brought a different amp." Don't miss knowing that a particular amp I'm using might be great with my humbucker guitar, but not as much with the telecaster.

And on and on and on.
 
The volume needed. Buying new tubes. Looking for the faulty patch cable on my pedal board. Wondering whether that other amp would be a better choice for what I wanted to achieve at the time.
 
Tube amps can be flakey - retubing costs money and it's a hassle. Sometimes fuses go and you're not sure why. Then you can only play them at a certain volume to hit a sweet spot. They weigh a ton.

But we put up with that because we feel we need need the sound quality. But with Axe-fx not any more - for me it's better than good enough. It's great.
 
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