do you need one? nope. do i have one, hell yea. i've got my dads old one that he used for years from the late 60's early 70's. mostly what i use it for is to see the see the clipping and distortion when testing. obviously ignoring it's major uses. it's also going to be a massive help when i get working on my tube amp builds.
if you check out the wayhuge videos on youtube you can see what i mean.