single coils are a hum with a guitar attached. you can argue the tone, you can argue the dynamics, you cannot argue with the buzz. the gibson plugs in, the room goes quiet, the show happens.
i hear the tube argument every practice. it gets warmer. it sounds bigger. and yes, fine, on a recording with a good engineer and three takes, maybe it does. on a friday night in some bar with a single coil through a 100w marshall trying to cut through a kit, you want a humbucker and a transformer, not a religion.
solid state amps don’t fail. they don’t need rebiased. they don’t go down forty minutes into a set because something glowed wrong. the kick still kicks. the snare still cracks. the les paul still sings. anything else is gear-as-personality, which is a thing you do at home.
vicki disagrees. vicki is wrong. but she plays.