U
ntil recently, hybrid amp
technology seemed to have
been on hold. I remember in
the mid-to-late ‘90s one of my
first half stacks was topped with a Marshall
VS100 head. The Valvestate technology
was all the rage for budget-minded
guitarists back then. To this day, I
know a few folks who still get a perfectly
serviceable Marshall crunch through their
blunt-burnt, beer-stained Valvestates and
early AVT amps. I also used to have a Vox
VR30 combo that sounded amazingly rich
and chiming considering I picked it up for
around $50. In fact, it was my go-to practice
and home jamming amp for years—even
when I had some serious all-tube jobbies
about the house.
Tube preamps working with solid state
power sections was and is a clever means
of getting decent dynamics and tone at all
volume levels, so why was the development
of this approach abandoned for so long? I
remember around the turn of the century
when the intermediate-level amp market
shifted focus from hybrids to the then
new-fangled digital modeling approach
– needless to say I stuck with my hybrids
for low-wattage applications and vintage
Marshall JMP for gigs. Then, toward the
end of the ‘00s, the lunchbox amp craze
kicked off and guitarists of all budgets and
skill levels could enjoy an all-tube signal path
and cook