How much is your tone worth??

[drew]

It's also good to consider live vs. recording... I have a few guitars, nothing extremely expensive, cause once you get up past several hundred bucks, guitars don't get easier to play, just easier to damage and nicer looking. And a few amps... a couple of old fender tube amps and some misc. solid state amps.

When I play live I take my stock mexican telecaster and my solid state Fender, and a couple of pedals. All the places I could play around here have such shitty sound that it'd be meaningless to bring my nice guitar and blackface Super Reverb and bunch of handmade pedals to have them stolen.

"Yeah, uh, I left my amp over there, the one I spent tens of hours and hundreds of dollars refurbishing..."

"Oh, the one that sounded all muddy and retarded through the PA?"

haha.

drew
www.toothpastefordinner.com

[GuitarLord5000]

As far as the "do-it-all" amps go, I cant stand them!  Hell, I spend hours at a time tweaking my rig (guitar, amp and a few pedals) to get just the right amount and kind of sound I want.  Adjusting those 1 or 2 db's just right.  I can only imagine that a "super-modeler" would give you more of an opportunity to sound like crap than it would to sound decent.  And the prices on these amps are outrageous!  I saw one at the local music store for $1600!  And it was an additional $400 to get a footcontroller to control all the crap that this machine is capable of!  And the worst part of it all is that it sounded horrible!  There were one or two settings that were really nice and usable, the others failed to impress.  I just cant see paying $2000 for an amp that has a million do-dads on it, from which I'll only use one or two.  My $.02.

[1wahfreak]

I can only imagine that a "super-modeler" would give you more of an opportunity to sound like crap than it would to sound decent.

This is the exact reason I'm in this situation. I'm currently playing through a POD. I have to say it's served it's purpose for me. It gave me certain sounds that I couldn't have got in one amp while playing in a apartment. But the more I really listen to it, let alone record with it, it sounds brittle and grainy. I've tried strumming while playing through some of the "clean" models and it just sucks. There is no life to it, no bounce, no inspiration. I've spent some time trying to build pedals here and I think I've gotten a better ear for certain things. Now when I listen real close, I can hear all the shortcomings. Once you hear the shortcomings, there is no turning back. Sort of like breaking up with a girlfriend. Once you see the red flags, it's only a matter of time before the break up.  I'm not bad mouthing Line 6, but it's just not my thing any more.
Now is the time to make a financial commitment and I don't want to make a hasty or irrational purchase with a limitied amout of money.
Everybody has brought up very good points of view. One thing I really haven't quite figured out yet is "my" sound. It's always a work in progress. I know what I like to hear, but that is not necassarily what I play. I love Scott Henderson's tone but that doesn't mean I should strive to achive it. His set up works for him, not me. I do know I need to be inspired by what comes out of the speakers.
This whole discusion has led me to believe that I need to keep looking and listening. I have a tendancy to make impulse buys. I enter that "gotta have it" mode only the feel guilty about it later. Sort of like the old one night stands.  
BTW, this thread reminds me of the old articles in GP by Steve Morse called 'Open Ears". I used to love reading his posts. They were more philosophical rather than endless examples of scales and arpeggios.

[freeradical24]

i will spend what i have to for the tone im looking for.but i research the crap out of it before i dive in it took me three months to decide on my current amp and a year to narrow down the choices.
i think some one mentioned it before,but ive been buying sought after vintage equiptment rathar than going the cheap route because i will improve the equiptment while im in possesion of it, so if i ever have to part with any of it i'll reap A profit.considering what i spend on equiptment i consider it an investment and something that will hold its worth or even be worth more over time is a sound investment.
  there is an exception...guitars there are great sounding cheap guitars out there.i actually try to avoid spending much on guitars at all.im to hard on them to worry about the thousands i spent on them so i wont spend thousands on them.i dont buy them to look at and no guitar is very safe in my hands.

[WGTP]

EXCELLENT QUESTION and judging from the crappy equipment I have had, not much and I call myself a guitar player.  (pardon me for a minute while I self flagulate).  I have been such a cheap *ss all these years, what the hell is wrong with me.  

At the same time, I haven't heard anyone with a rig at any cost that was way better.  Since I have been here, I think my tone is much better, but I still don't see the need for a 100w marshal stack and 3K guitar.  Not that I woundn't love to have it, it's just at bedroom volumes what's the point.  My biggest indulgence has been pickups and with lots of distortion how can you tell (although I think the Duncan Full Shred is the best for use with lots of distortion)  I play a '60's melody maker, but have a Les Paul under the bed and a Tokai Strat for jaming with friends.  I traded a horrid sounding original Tone Bender for a PV Bravo Tube amp which sounds nice, but I can't say tubes are way better than SS with a good distortion.  I bought a Celestion 12-30H to see what the speaker deal is all about, and it sounds nice, but

Whatever works, and try not to get hung up on what is hip and expensive. (I am hurting for a Les Paul Melody Maker though)  I think EQ has LOTS to do with it all.