I think it’s a matter of what you are used to. The guitarist who learns his art on a kemper etc is probably starting from a better situation because he never Spent years playing with the amp in the room sound. He therefore never has a problem. The other guy( like me). Spent many years playing the amp in the room. To folks who regard it as a bar band sound. It took a long time to get used to playing without that amp in the room sound to play to what everyone else considers to be a much more professional sound.
Yeah, definitely a matter of what people become accustomed to, just like guitar tones in general.
I started playing in the early 70s and getting a good tone was always a challenge, in bars and rehearsals alike, because I was usually broke and couldn't afford better gear. I was a rock guy but played Fender amps for years because Marshalls were way more expensive. And back then, no matter what amp you had, you typically had to crank it to get the kind of sound you'd expect. Sometimes the bar owners would tolerate it. Often they wouldn't. If your sound depended on pushing the amp and you had to turn it down, it was going to be a bad night.
Ironically, I wasn't able to afford better amps until I stopped playing for a living and started programming. But by then, many of my "amp in the room" memories were less than fond.
Tube amps are awesome when you're in an environment where you can push them the way they need to be pushed. After all, the profiles I love are all tube amps. But volume is a factor in the real world, now more than ever. Plus, even if I could have afforded a Marshall back then, I couldn't push a button and transform it into a Vox for the second song of the set and a Dumble for the third.
Man, I would have killed for a Kemper in the 70s and 80s.
