About

You may think just by looking around this site that I’m some stickler for “pure” tone, or that I snub my nose at solid state amps on principle.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

My name is Josh – thanks for coming by my site!  I’ve been playing music and enjoying tube amplifiers for over 20 years.  I started playing guitar on a tiny, cheap practice amp, and when I could finally afford to upgrade my amplifier, I ended up choosing a 2×12 tube combo amp.  Let me tell you – that was a life-changing moment!

As I grew older that love of tube amps expanded to my hi-fi setup as well, and I discovered just how much more enjoyment I could get out of my favorite music just by using a tube amplifier.

I’ve got nothing against digital music or solid state amplifiers, or anything of the sort.  To me, music is music and anywhere it sounds good is fine with me!  However, sending your audio signal through a vacuum tube gives it that extra magical flavor that is so hard to quantify but so easy to enjoy.

I started toptubeamplifier.com because, while there are lots of really great resources for audiophiles on the internet, I found that often they expect the reader to have a strong grasp of electronics of the histories of different vintage tube brands.  There wasn’t a single place that offered product reviews and information about tube amps that covered the fundamentals, hi-fi tube amps, guitar tube amps, DIY kits, and all the other sorts of vacuum tube topics that I love.

I made this site for other tube amplifier enthusiasts, audiophiles, and musicians – whether you are just starting to learn about them or have quite an ear for tone already.

While I’m not able to personally use all the cool gear out there, I collect the best information out there on the internet to put together informative reviews that hopefully will help you choose awesome tube amplifiers.

If you have a question or need some information about how to fix your amp or why it may behave a certain way, I hope you come back for the information and do-it-yourself articles!

Feel free to click on one of the category links on the homepage and browse our archives.

If you need a place to start, here are some of my favorite articles:

===>  Tube Rolling – A Step By Step Guide

===>  5 Best Tube Amps For Turntables

===>  How To Identify Vacuum Tubes – An Infographic Reference Guide

===>  Beginner’s Guide To Vacuum Tube Amplifiers

===>  How To Bias A Tube Amp

===>   5 Best Guitar Amp Kits

Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter: @toptubeamp or send me a message here.  To check out my music and stay up to date on my latest releases, follow me at Bandcamp here: https://jthomas.bandcamp.com/follow_me

Thanks, have a great day!