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11 Sep The PTP vs PCB post

I found this one at the website below, quite interresting! :) http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/pt-to-pt/pt-to-pt.htm Ever hear this one? "Get a point-to-point wired amp - those PCB amps are no good. They just don't have the tone they did in the old days." The deeper you dig into this issue, the more repair techs you'll find that say that PCB amps are no good. They'll give explanations involving things like tiny traces run too close together, and the capacitance leaking signal from place to place and then make the leap that this somehow spoils the tone of the amp. Is this bit of folk wisdom right? Yes and no. The short version of the answer is this: There is no technical reason that PCB amps *can't* be every bit as good as point-to-point wired amps - or stripboard wired amps, which is what the grizzled techs usually refer to. However, there are some serious reliability (not tone!) shortcomings in most of the PCB based amps that have been put on the market; this is the origin of this folk myth. At the bottom of both sides of this question is self-interest. On the side of the amp makers, most of the time the PCB conversion is done as part of a cost saving measure; the same motive to change to PCB's also drives changing to cheaper practices and parts all around. This most often gives worse tone. They're doing less than the best they could, for money.