When purchasing tubes from some reputable dealers, I have noticed that you are given the option for balanced triodes--sometimes at a much higher price. How does a tube with balanced a triode effect the tone of the amplifier?
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I can see why, in an esoteric, strictly technical, way it would help, because having the tubes pushing/pulling equally should create better sound. The question I have is, how far out of balance can the tubes be before the sound suffers? When I started playing, way back when, we'd replace tubes by grabbing some from the electronics store shelf and stick them in. If the amp sounded good we were happy. It wasn't until boutique amps were starting to become popular that I remember hearing any mention of balanced tube sets. Maybe that came in from the high-end home-stereo world where they'd stress over things like that, but for regular playing it didn't seem to matter. I figure, the guitarists who had the sound I wanted to imitate wouldn't have cared; Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Freddie King, early Clapton, Beck, Page, Hendrix... I can't imagine them freaking out because they couldn't get a set of balanced/matched tubes. Or maybe that's what they meant about living the blues - not having balanced tubes? |
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