Originally Posted by
tunghaichuan
Valves (or vacuum tubes as we call them here in the USA) are full of nasty chemicals that are harsh to the environment and hard to recycle. There are only one or two very specialized tube factories left in the US, and they put out a fraction of what factories produced back in the 50s and 60s. I believe one produces transmitting triodes for radio stations and the other makes tubes for audiophiles. Most guitar amp tubes are made in countries with relaxed, or non-existent environmental regulations, i.e., Mainland China and Russia.
OTOH, guitar amps when built to be serviced can last decades. There are still amps from the 40s still in operation. The tubes are the weak link.
To reply to the topic at hand, back in the 90s I had one of those Ibanez Talman guitars made of "resoncast" which was basically sawdust bound with resin binder. It had a wood neck but the body was all composite. It sounded great, and wasn't any heavier than a all-wood guitar despite resoncast being a close relative of particleboard/MDF. Nobody bought them, and they soon started offering an all-wood version. I remember playing one of the all wood ones and it was very bright and piercing, nothing like my guitar. Ibanez soon stopped making them altogether.
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