While you are I are old enough that tubes becoming scarce is not a problem, you owe it to yourself to keep n open mins to advancements in solid-state analog guitar sound electronics. If you like Fender blackface amps, the Quilter amps do that tone in spades. They even do a decent emulations of the blonde and brownface amps. Where Quilter falls down is on mid-gain tones. I do know where Pat Quilter's mind is with respect to tone, but he appears to be stuff in the sixties.
I need to stay current on the technology, given what I do for a living. If there's a better mousetrap, I want to have it in my studio. So I try most everything that gets mentioned on forums, in magazines, and in ads.
This was why I started trying out modeling amps even before the original POD; Roland had one called the VG-8 that was introduced in 1995, and I had an early one in my studio for a time. The VG-8 was expensive, and state of the modeling art at the time, but it didn't stay long. Neither did the POD a few years later.
I could go on, there have been a bunch I've tried, and still try, but so far no-go.
Back in the early '90s the SansAmp, a solid state non-modeling device, was the Next Big Thing. I had the rack mount version. It left the building after a short time.
Indeed, in addition to trying the Helix, the Kemper, and a few others, I've got a crap ton of plugin amp models that sound fairly mediocre, and two that are pretty good but not quite "there" yet, both from Universal Audio. I have all the Softube, Waves, Plugin Alliance, Native Instruments, IK Multimedia, and a few others. I use them as scratchpads when I can't make a lot of noise, and then re-record the parts with real amps later, because the models aren't happening for me.
I mention all this because I'm pretty open-minded. I'd love it if modelers were truly equal to tube amps! That'd be great, since I'm too feeble to be shlepping around 100 pound amplifiers!
But when one is open to new ideas, one has to also be open minded enough to say, "No, this still isn't very good, the old idea actually sounds better."
During the summer before last, I compared a hardware Neve 1073 mic preamp clone made by BAE - a box that's actually more authentic than the current Neve reissue, using the original St. Ives transformers - with the Universal Audio 1073 software model that works to control the physical properties of the UA mic preamp as well as adds its own modeling. This was the cream of their plugin line.
Same Neumann mic, same cable, same acoustic guitar, measured the distance to the mic, etc.
Not only was the hardware version nicer-sounding, I wasn't the only one who thought so. I posted the recordings to Soundcloud and linked the tracks on my own forum. People could hear what I was talking about, and everyone agreed the real thing was superior sounding. Not that the UA model was bad; just that the hardware sounded more immediate, punchier, and generally better.
I know I'm not alone in this stuff. There are plenty of players who prefer tube amps, and for good reason!
I'll make one last point. I have a close friend who's spent a long time putting together an all-tube hi fi system. My reproduction system in my studio is solid state, because it's crazy-accurate. But when I visit my friend and listen to music on his system, I'm transported. It does things nothing else will do.
