Having an electric guitar is a ton of fun, but its not gonna do you a lot of good if you can’t hear what you’re playing. Acoustic guitars have a big hole in the body that allows the strings to resonate loud enough that you can hear the music that you’re playing with no additional accessories required.

However, electric guitars need to be plugged into an amp in order to work. The science behind how these amps work is pretty simple.

Your electric guitar uses steel strings, and as you play, these strings vibrate where your pickups –  well, they pickup the sound of that vibration, send it through the cable to the amplifier, and finally the speaker on the amplifier plays what you were just strumming on your guitar.

This whole process happens pretty much instantly, so you won’t ever hear a delay from the time you pluck the stream to the time you hear the music coming from the amp. In a nutshell, that’s pretty much how electric guitars work from top to bottom.

However, this wouldn’t be much of an article if that was the end of the story, now would it? Amplifiers come in all shapes, sizes,tones, and price points. Some amps can cost as little as $20 or so and have very few bells and whistles, while others may set you back thousands of dollars and come with a near endless amount of freedom in customization for you to get the exact tone you’re looking for.

Over the last few years we’ve also seen the birth of amps with built in digital components that allow you to create sounds that used to require countless additional parts in order to achieve.

In this article we’re going to take a look at what makes one amp different from another, and help you narrow down your options before you set out to make your purchase.

There are two main types of amps you’re gonna find- tube and solid state. Tube amps are a much older design and used far less frequently today. The sound is set through a series of glass vacuum tubes before it reaches the speaker.

Now, let’s talk about the tube amplifier. A tube amplifier uses vacuum tubes to amplify the power of a signal. They are incredibly responsive and have a much smoother overdrive. They can also play music much louder than a solid state amp that uses the same amount of power. However, tube amps require a bit of time in order to fully warm up and be ready to use. They also require more maintenance and care since the vacuum tubes (which look similar to Edison light bulbs can burn out or break and thus need to be replaced.

On the other hand, solid state amps, while some of them may be expensive, it’s easy to find a wide variety of solid state amps that don’t hurt your wallet too badly. They tend to be more durable, lighter and require less maintenance. They are also far easier to customize and create what’s known as a stack (a stack is essentially combining amps and speakers together to create much larger audio experience).

I often get asked “what is the best amp?” and the truth, is that there is no “best amp” out there; at the end of the day it’s all about your personal preference. The amp that gives you the kinds of sound you want and fits into your budget is the one I recommend you go with.

Don’t be afraid to test out a bunch. The salesman at your local guitar shop should be happy to help you test drive all the kinds of amps you could ever want, as well as show you how to customize the sound and provide some solid recommendations for you.

And if you are looking to replicate the exact sound to the specific musician you really like, a simple Google search can usually point you in the right direction.

Until next time, rock on.