A guitarist who plays electrified isn't just playing the guitar; the entire signal chain becomes the instrument. Everything from the room to the fingers of the player alter the sound and how a person plays their instrument and for some even the temperature of the room makes a concrete, quantifiable difference.

Music appreciation is largely cultural as well. The history of music is full of people hearing sounds, becoming accustomed to them and reproducing them with a novel variation. This is exemplified by many recent genres like hip hop, rap, jazz, rock, folk music and so on. There were and are entire genres of music and specific artists that revolve around certain tools. For example the Sunn brand of amplifier, especially the Model T which is venerated by some subgenres of metal or Jimmy Hendrix and his Fuzz Face pedal (and his wah and octaver and amp, and .....)

Naturally, musicians seek to pay homage to and recreate the atmosphere and feel of a specific song, instrument, artist, genre or time period. Until fairly recently, modeling and digital tools had a lot of trouble replicating the sound and interaction of these vintage, analog circuits and even today the most straightforward way to achieve a specific style is often to simply buy or clone the old-school original instruments and equipment.

While digital modelling has come a long way, arguably surpassing most of the original equipment, the rarity, variation and uniqueness leads players to continually seek out the Real Deal in order to achieve an authentic style or sound.

An example of this entire idea is the DRUMETRICS collective, whose entire purpose is to write and record new and modern performances with original vintage instruments and recording equipment. Heres a link to one: "Pale Horse" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZqoFf859Xw