Assertions

These are some things that I have come to believe over the past 40+ years of building and servicing amps and playing music.  The list continues to evolve, but it has served as a pretty good guideline for my business operations.  Although these assertions were developed over a long period of time, they were first ‘officially’ captured in February of 2015 as a part of an online article for the Tone Movement series by Mojotone, and most recently edited in January, 2020.

I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.

Assertions (in no particular order):

1.  Never stop learning.
2.  I never learn more than when I am wrong. ¹
3.  The rig is a system. The system includes the player, the context, and subjective   preference as well as every bit of gear.
4. Trust your ears, but be aware that they can fool you.
5. Take a position of curiosity, rather than defensiveness.
6. A person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument.
7. A sample size of 1 is not necessarily representative.
8. Listening is a skill. Ears can be educated.
9. Don’t oversimplify the issue.
10. Don’t overcomplicate the issue.
11. Understand why, not just how.
12. Be thorough. Half measures will come back to bite you.
13. The buck stops here.
14. Guitar amps and Hi-Fi amps serve different purposes.
15. There is no “Best.”
16. In matters of taste, there can be no argument.
17. The three-legged stool: Safe, Reliable, Sounds Great.
18. There is no reliable bellwether for tech competence.
19. Ultimately, it’s about the music.

¹ Thanks, and a tip of the hat to Rob Siegel, The Hack Mechanic.