When does "authentic" not matter anymore?

[talbany]

Rooster

Thanks for the story as well as the kind words..There are some advantages to being a fairly small company.. There have been several instances where the amps go in the other direction for the worse... You can send the amps out that sound good but the amps that sound bad you have to try and track down the issues and fix them..(sometimes un-fixable)
Believe it or not the biggest improvement in the tone of our amps came when we went to PC boards..which I opposed viciously..


Tony VVT

[Structo]

Believe it or not the biggest improvement in the tone of our amps came when we went to PC boards..which I opposed viciously..
Tony VVT

Perhaps the reduction of crosstalk between stages or lack of inductance that wire exhibits.

I like a well designed pcb with big traces.

But when I look inside of some contemporary amps and see the myriad of surface mount components and all the "extra parts" just to make it sound like a real tube amp should, I have mixed thoughts about pcb's.
Then to have to trouble shoot one of those things from a schematic and try to find R1,458 in the maze is frustrating at best.
I know it's a production thing and like mentioned probably more consistent results are achieved by using them and wave soldering.

But stories like Rooster posted intrigue me and others as to what could have caused the certain sweetness exhibited by that one amp. Maybe the tolerances of that that particular amp just all aligned to where they all worked well in concert for the best.
Who knows.....