Opinions and Credibility with regards to gear.

[gibson5413]

Other peoples' opinions only contribute to my overall impression of an amp. An objective review holds "more water" for me in terms of an amp review. If an individual can convey their impressions of an amp, both positive and negative, in a non biased way then I most certainly use that as part of my decision making process. The key word is "part". Ultimately, I have to play the amp to know for sure. There have only been two times where I purchased an amp blindly based off user reviews (both of those times worked in my favor).

The benefit we all have is a great forum in Rig-Talk where we have a plethora of very skilled guitarists with excellent ears. The list goes on for me here in terms of player credibility. In fact, I bought my Mark IV based on a users help. I had played the combo version several years ago and wasn't very impressed with it. Last year I became intrigued with it again and decided to speak with Ivan (Robotechnology) offline. He spent almost an hour on the phone with me reviewing what my likes and dislikes were. Gave me some suggestions and I decided to move forward with the decision. Needless to say it was the best amp purchase I've made in a long time in terms of it matching the tone I was looking for to match my playing style.

Great forum here!!

 

[Rob Tahan]

To me the more stuff he or she has owned the better. More experience. Therefore you can compare products to previous products youve played.
Also, i do think that the skill and tone of a player is just as important. Good tone means that they have a good trained ear. Bad tone means they really dont know jack about tone and therefore have no idea what sounds good and what doesnt. Ive heard some harsh brittle thin sounding garbage that people thought sounded good. And while tone is in the ear of the beholder, most people can agree as to what sounds decent. For example, ive never heard anyone say that Eric Johnson has bad tone.

 

[JamesPeters]

btw do you build any Marshall type amps? i'm looking for a good quality Marshall type of amp.

My amp models can accomplish some Marshall-type sounds although they don't aspire to be like any Marshall amp model in particular. You can hear sound clips on my site to get an idea how the amps sound and contact me for more information from the "prices" page.

 

[Zachman]

Owning OR having owned tons of gear doesn't guarantee that the person has any in depth understanding of the operation of said gear or how said gear may interact in various rig designs or with a variety of other gear. Ex. I know guys who (No matter what gear they're playing through), have a savant like ability to dial in the WORST possible results for any given application.

That being said...

Opinions and credibility with gear, as I see it, are first and foremost result based. IF the person who is using "____" gear, and are obviously using it with an understanding and are achieving results that are similar to my own desires or display a level of proficiency that leads me to believe that they may be of use/assistance to me, then it matters to me, if NOT... well, onward and forward.

Those who are clearly more like a collector than a player or engineer or producer, may have credibility from the investor quotient perspective and not so much from the practical player's perspective.

Perspective, it is the key in determining the amount (IF any) of credibility or whether or not an opinion will have an impact on me and what I do.

For the most part, if something looks interesting to me, I check it out. Heck, often I check out stuff because I just want to know for myself what it does, how it reacts etc...

My $.02