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A person that just wants to play around the house can use a modeling amp, with or without a tube in it. They need a variety of tones and not much volume. Generally their guitar costs more than their amp.

People that play for a living are better off with a mediocre guitar and a really good (all tube) amp. They need to get as loud a a drummer, get really good tones and sit in a mix with other players.

On the cheap. Songs books from the public library (even ones for other instruments), articles/examples in guitar magazines, aunties' old piano sheet music, whatever I could find.

Early on, most people dial up too much distortion. My son has the same Spider and the Marshall sound defaults to almost double the amount of crunch you want for classic rock tones. The insane setting is, well, insane. The effects start out a little over-the-top too. Once you tidy up the factory defaults a bit and resave them, the Spider can be a decent practice amp.

It is easy to forget that volume, as we perceive it, is a log 20 scale. In other words, to double the volume from a 10 watt amp, through the same speaker, you need 100 watts - 10 times the power, not just double the power. Doubling the surface area of the speaker(s), from 10" to 12" or 1 12" to 2, or 4 or 8 also gives a similar increase - almost like doubling the volume, though beyond 4 speakers, the phase cancellations begin to reduce the effect.

Further, watts are watts, no matter what makes them. That said, tube amps reach their rated wattage at the distortion level listed in the specs. They can make more wattage, usually, if you are willing to tolerate more distortion (and I bet you are). Solid state amps reach their rated wattage and stop. There is no more on tap period. That contributes to this idea that tube amps are louder, at the same wattage. Really, they are making more wattage, esp. during pick attack where SS amps just clip.

Now, tech aside, I strongly prefer a tube amp because of the dynamics. SS amps have a very linear dynamic response. Tube amps jump when you hit a string, causing the player to use more nuance. You almost do not need a volume control. You can control how you sit in the mix, just by picking style. Plus, the clean tones are much better. Even simple 'cowboy' chords sound good. And distortion, forget about it. A $100 pedal will never even get close to $2000 amp with the preamp tubes, power tubes, output transformer and speaker all contributing little complexities to the tone.

I understand how you wear out frets, but I don't understand how you wear out a neck. People love the feel of an old worn neck on a 50's tele, why not a 90's Squire? Are the screw holes worn? Has refretting damaged the fingerboard?

If pickups are the nervous system of your guitar, the neck is the soul of it. You can get a first rate neck from Warmoth or any of several other sellers for about $200. You can get a cheapy from GFS for $50 or a respectable one for $90 from International Luthiers web page. The thing is, it will never feel the same. There is a slim chance you will like the new one better, but chances are that you will not like it as well. While mounting the new one is easy, getting the thing set up just so can be tricky. I would say, spend $45 on one more refret and save your real money for a new guitar. Then save this old friend for a back up guitar. Pull it out once in a while and enjoy that "well worn jeans" level of comfort.

A lot of people like them.
I am not a big fan because of the problem with values for the pots. Fender single coil pickups are best matched with 250k ohm audio taper pots for volume and tone controls. Standard humbuckers do better with 500k ohm pots. So, when you mix types you have to decide between those values. The smaller the number, the more high freqs bleed off to ground. So, single coils through a 500k pot can sound too strident and "ice picky", but a hummer through a 250k can sound a little dull and flat.

The best situation for a HSS strat, IMO, is a fairly bright humbucker (SD JB or similar) through 250k pots. Alternately, a HB sized single coil, like those oversized P90's (P94, Z90, etc) might be even better. If you stick with 3 singles instead, it is easy enough to get a hotter bridge pickup from Duncan, GFS or other vendors.

Thanks 'tooter.
That 330 is back in vogue these days. Gibson has reissued them as the "long neck" model, with dog-eared P90 pickups. The same is true for the Jazzmaster. Fender has at least 2 new production versions (vintage and "players") plus 2 custom shop models including one based on Elvis Costello's guitar, which is a 70's unit.

I tend to think about them in terms of the evolution over time.

1. classical or flamenco guitar with gut strings - limited bass, strong mids, delicate highs but only enough volume for solo use, not loud enough for ensemble work

2. Early metal string acoustics - Martin experimented with metal string on guitars designed for gut strings (ladder bracing). They produced more volume and brilliant treble but the strings stressed the instrument and many failed prematurely.

3. Carved top acoustics - Orville Gibson borrowed a page form the cello construction manual and made carved top (and back) metal string acoustics (and mandolins) that were louder than gut string instruments, but the curved top, like symphonic onstruments, made more of the fundamental tone and less upper harmonics. So, the tone was loud, but somewhat dull and middy.

4. Dreadnaught acoustics - Martin revamped the construction of their metal string instruments with better bracing and a larger bottom bout. The result lives on today. This classic design has lots of treble and bass plus a slightly dipped middle that leaves room for the human voice. They are loud too. The jumbo, extends this formula even further.

5. Arch top acoustic - a true American invention. The jazz guitar. In early jazz combos banjos were used instead of guitar, since a guitar was not loud enough to compete with piano, drums and horns. The large bodied guitar with a carved spruce top solved this problem. It was really loud, middy (not bright) and projected well. It was perfect for dark, fat chords.

6. The electric archtop - Charlie Christian showed the world that an amplified guitar could do more than chords. The electrified version of the jazz archtop was loud enough to allow single note runs to be heard over the rest of hte band. However, they are very prone to feedback. Soon 2 variations arose: the acoustic archtop with a carved top and a pickup stuck on as an afterthought (Gibson L5 and similar) and a laminated top instrument with pickups that sounded almost dead acoustically, but could be played loudly through an amp with less feedback (Gibson ES175 and similar).

7. Neo-hollow designs - As amps got louder, even laminated top instruments would feedback and all arched top designed lacked the brilliant treble of a flat top acoustic or solid body electric. Gibson added a solid center block to the fully hollow ES330 to make the new ES335. It had the ping and zing of a solid body, with just a hint of acoustic resonance. The sustain and brighter tone was popular. So much so that the 330 fell out of favor. Seeing this, Fender routed out empty areas in a Tele and called it the Thinline.

By comparison, a solid body has a far purer electronic signal. The wood influences the sound to a much smaller degree than a hollow or partly hollow guitar. For my tastes, the solid body tone is the best. I tried to like the hollow tone and bought several looking for that magic one, but kept coming back to solid guitars. I descrube the difference as a different vowel sound. A solid guitar has a tone like an E or I or A. A hollow guitar has less sustain and a tone like a U or OO. Sort of "Bee, bah bee" versus "Boo, doo boo".

One researcher has a paper that says the difference in tone is caused by the amount of elasticity in the body. A solid body returns the string's energy quickly. A fully hollow body, with a wooden bridge (like an archtop) is harder to energize. It consumes some of the energy of the pick attack, before it is prodded into vibration. A metal bridge on a hollow body and/or a solid center block reduces this effect.

RG said: "there are very few people around who can solder as good as the manufacturer."

You must be seeing a better grade of budget guitar than we get around here. Since this solder joint failed so quickly, I think it may be one of second type.

As for wire colors, I could not recall what Ibanez does. Duncan and Dimarzio generally use green as ground, but Gibson uses green for the finish end of coil one. They and PRS use black as ground.

I am tube amp purist, but I use aPod for headphone practice and recording ideas to the PC. It doesn't really sound like a good tube amp, but it sounds decent, has built-in FX and mimics the sound of different speaker cabs. I haven't heard a stomp box that you would want to plug straight into a PC.

On the other hand, the Pod would not sound great plugged into an amp, for live use. I have heard that people have had better live results with the Pod plugged into a small PA or keyboard amp, since the full range system can more easily reproduce the kind of sounds it generates.

It should work. The output level and impedance of acoustic guitar pickups is different from regular magnetic pickups, so the amps designed for them expect to see that kind of signal. So, there can be some impedance mismatches between guitar and pedal, and between pedal and amp. Listen for unexpected loss of volume or high frequencies. If your amp affers more than one kind of input (piezo, magnetic, mic, FX loop) experiment to see which gives the best results.

I notice that pedals just for amplified acoustic are now hitting the market - delays, chorus, reverb, etc