04/07/2014
To folks that use solid state amps: i've recently been getting a lot of vintage ss amps in for repair and spending ridiculous amounts of time trying to track down parts. i've explained this countless times lately so i thought i would post it here. SS amps use transistors to amplify the guitar signal in a similar way that tubes do and like tubes they are usually the first thing to go bad. But while there are maybe 15 or so tube types that are used in 99% of guitar amps, there are thousands of different types of transistors, most of which are long out of production. In addition to that, there is currently a huge problem with counterfeit parts that will burn up as soon as you install them. This is not a "you should buy a tube amp" lecture, but a heads up if you are considering buying a ss amp and especially an older one.
