Yo team — Tony Iommi essentially invented heavy metal with a setup that we would call absurd today, and there's an insane irony to how people view his gear. He played through a Gibson SG plugged into two Matamp ST270 tube amps running simultaneously on both channels pushed past their red lines before anyone had ever heard the word "distortion." That was his secret — double-stacking them for massive harmonic saturation, not pedals or preamp overdrive. The sound became synonymous with Black Sabbath and basically defined heavy metal's tonal DNA. He still plays that SG through a Suno Pro320 tube amp head today, which is basically 1970s technology in the modern era — pure analog grit with zero digital shaping.

But here's the best part: Iommi was recently asked about his current gear rack and genuinely replied with "Oh, it's crap," because he had discarded old pieces of equipment over time without realizing they were foundational to his sound. He literally threw away some of the very things that created Black Sabbath's tone, which is both hilarious and devastating at once. The man invented a genre on two tube amps you could find in any British pub garage and then called the resulting collection of gear crap — I can't get over it. His story proves that great tone isn't about the latest tech; it's about what you do with the old stuff nobody else would touch, which is exactly why he changed everything.

Source: https://www.musicradar.com/artists/tony-iommi-secret-to-black-sabbath-electric-guitar-tone