"Gabe:
         Again I feel compeled to write you about your amp. I just got
done listening to Steely Dan. You know out of the thousand or two I have
spent in the pursuit of sound your amp has made the most profound change in my
system. This is my first tube amp but it won't be my last. Perhaps I can use
all those transistors on my x-mas tree. I will tell you what my degree is
in Gabe, Recording Engineering. I also freelance in my spare time for a
man whose studio I designed and helped build. So, I'm not going to tell you
I hear things I havn't heard before, you knew that was going to happen. I
want to tell you about the things I hear that most people don't even know to
listen for. Such as the phase difference between the top and bottom
bell on the high-hat. I was wrong about the highs (the retraction. See below), I am
not used to hearing them in such detail. I mistook that top end silibance (in transistor amps)
for clarity. I apologize, I now realize that, after hearing the tones ring off the inner bells of the
rides and crashes. I actually heard the decay on a chorus sweep up through the
octaves and start sizzling at the top before it started back down. I hear
guitar strings being turned loose as the finger moves to the next note.
The overtones ringing out from the soundboard of a piano. The most amazing
thing is that I hear all this during complex passages. I can't decide what to
listen to in a song anymore. I could easily get lost in playing the
same song time and again just to listen to each and every little thing. I don't
think I'll ever listen to a transistor again."

MY COMMENTS

I am deeply moved at the comments made by my customers. Thank you all.

I have heard many say that they like the "crispness" of transistor amplifiers. However, I could never stand it. I know what live cymbols sound like (my uncle plays drums), and other than my SS tube, only tubes can present them naturally, provided that they are designed right and are not overdriven. What Mr. Granger thought was a lack of crispness was actually all the detail of the cymbols and bells coming out undistorted. The "crispness" of solid state is really distortion. He now knows what all other tube nuts know. The other end of the spectrum is also misunderstood. Many think that tubes can't put out the bass. Oh but even I thought that was true, until I rebuilt my first tube amp.

Ah, another convert! ;-)