Rajani

, a concoction marrying tubes and solid-state amplification, has been around for a while. Makers like Music Man and Peavey mixed solid-state preamps with tube-powered output stages way back in the ’70s to create amps intended to serve as professional-grade rigs. A couple of decades later, Marshall, Vox and others went the other way, melding a preamp tube or two in the front end with solid-state output stages. As the tech needed to populate a tube-driven front end is less expensive, lighter and runs cooler than what’s required for a tube-powered output stage, this proved to be an affordable way