[mgalusha]

The answer came to me while driving home today. The vacuum in the tubes help suck all the nasty bits of the recording out, leaving only the warm juicy parts. 

[Tyson]

But, nature abhors a vacuum! 

[Niteshade]

No,no....I have seen many folks with a vacuum  between their ears! (Remember high school?)

But, nature abhors a vacuum! 

[turkey]

I have a different interpretation.  I think that harmonics that occur naturally in life are stripped out during the recording process, which kills the "life" of the recording, and that tube gear restores some of that stripped out life. 

That should be something that's easy to prove. You would think someone would have discovered this by now (they've only had 40 years or so) and shown it to be true. After all, there's been endless speculation over the years on tube vs. SS and a lot of it has revolved around harmonics after the Hamm article. (Which has since been disproven BTW.)

So, either the people working with tubes aren't capable of doing research, or your interpretation is invalid.

[stereocilia]

Or, maybe the distortion of tubes more closely tracks the distortion of the ear at live listening levels making it feel as though the music is louder than it really is.  Most of us like the music we like to be louder.  This would also explain the sense that people have that "tube watts are more powerful than solid state watts." 

I'm not sure what the Hamm article is, did I miss something in a previous post?

[iGrant]

IMO, I think that the blanket statements about tubes and solid state no longer really apply. I think the design/advancement of each has been quite astounding. There is plenty of tube gear that some would call "solid state like" and plenty of solid state gear that one could say "has tube like warmth or midrange." I know that over the last few months my eyes (and more importantly ears) have really been opened up to this.  I have certainly heard solid state gear that I would call more musical than tube gear, and to me, ultimate musicality is paramount. I truly believe that the vast majority of the sound of a particular component is greater determined by the designer of the piece and the voicing they create than some of the nuts and bolts used. Just my $.02  

That is one fine post!  X2!   

Peace,

Lee

I also have to agree with rydenfan and I lean hard to the tube side of audio. I have the luxury of rolling all sorts of amps as part of my job and the line is getting blurry between a SS amp voiced to sound like a tube amp and a tube amp voiced to sound like SS. The main reason I'll always stay personally on the tube side of the fence is the ability to change my gear by a simple and relatively inexpensive tube roll. Modding a SS amp is a real crap shoot as to getting an improvement, is usally pretty expensive, voids warranties and is next to impossible to do an A/B comparison of the results. That said, the SS crowd will say it doesn't need to be modded, I'm buying that sound. Fair enough and as long as you have have a tube somewhere prior to your SS amplification you can still get the benefits of tubes in your system.

I have a different interpretation.  I think that harmonics that occur naturally in life are stripped out during the recording process, which kills the "life" of the recording, and that tube gear restores some of that stripped out life. 

That should be something that's easy to prove. You would think someone would have discovered this by now (they've only had 40 years or so) and shown it to be true. After all, there's been endless speculation over the years on tube vs. SS and a lot of it has revolved around harmonics after the Hamm article. (Which has since been disproven BTW.)

So, either the people working with tubes aren't capable of doing research, or your interpretation is invalid.

IMO it is the distortions of the harmonics that get stripped out (or mangled, depending on the engineers intent) during the recording/mastering process, tubes can add some sort of harmonic distortion back into the playback, but this is not the original harmonic distortions that were supposed to be captured from instrumentation during tracking (recording of more than two channels). The tube is adding musical harmonic distortions to the entire mix, so these distortions are actually false. So what I am aiming for first with tube rolls or amp voicing with tubes is a tube that with the gear gives a good balance of giving me back accurate tonality and decent musical harmonic distortion. Just to make this clear, this can't be done perfectly to represent the original instrument's harmonic distortions unless you only listen to only solo instrument music. I'm a rocker by nature so, not I then aim for secondary things like improved soundstaging etc.

I'm again fortunate to have a group of talented audio engineers (including an ex professor) designing and voicing their amps that listened to me ramble on about the above and the first new amp revision (integrated pure class A SS) arrived yesterday, it has 4 hours on it and is very, very nice to this tube-o-phile.

Cheers,
Ian

[16hz lover]

Just to ask you tube guys....I recently read where tube amps can/are more dynamic sounding, or have the ability to reproduce wide dynamics better than solid state......is this true?

I'm asking as I was entertaining the idea of running a tube amp from 250hz on up in my system.

[doug s.]

Just to ask you tube guys....I recently read where tube amps can/are more dynamic sounding, or have the ability to reproduce wide dynamics better than solid state......is this true?

I'm asking as I was entertaining the idea of running a tube amp from 250hz on up in my system.

i don't know if this is true or not.  good s/s amplification will have good dynamics.  but, i am a firm believer in using tube amplification for all frequencies above ~60hz-300hz, depending on where your crossover is set.  it's in the realm of tone, texture and soundstaging where tubes outperform s/s, imo.

ymmv,

doug s.

[Tyson]

Plus, transistors are not inherently linear devices.  They can be made linear, but it requires feedback to do so.  Tubes, however are very linear devices and require little to no feedback to stay linear. 

[Freo-1]

I have a Akidio preamp connected to a 60 WPC Harmon Kardon Citation II that has been modified to emulate the MFA 120 front end, and I use this for CD playback.  I love the sound of CD's from this setup, as it adds some warmth to the CD format.

However, for most high resolution audio, I use a Sony STR DA7100ES or a STR DA9000ES via the i-link input. Sony was a good five to ten years ahead with this design, and anyone who has actually listened to one with a good i-link transport and quality speakers know what I'm talking about.  It's basically has the characteristics of a class A design with zero feedback, without the normal limitations.  The soundstage is a thing of wonder with high resolution recordings.  Classical music is really killer with this.

Unfortunately, Sony stopped making this type of amp, due to cost and market share.  Someone will eventually pick up on this, as this is the cleanest approach yet to music reproduction. 

Here is link to explain how it works:

http://www.docs.sony.com/release/ES_STR_05_Final.pdf


I realize that this is a tube forum (and I do love my tubes), but the S-Master pro topology is unlike ANY solid state setup, and as such should not be compared to other solid state topologies.

[Wind Chaser]

I have a Akidio preamp connected to a 60 WPC Harmon Kardon Citation II that has been modified to emulate the MFA 120 front end, and I use this for CD playback.

However, for most high resolution audio, I use a Sony STR DA7100ES or a STR DA9000ES via the i-link input. Sony was a good five to ten years ahead with this design, ...

Unfortunately, Sony stopped making this type of amp, due to cost and market share.  Someone will eventually pick up on this, as this is the cleanest approach yet to music reproduction. 

Is that Sony tubes or SS?

[Freo-1]

I have a Akidio preamp connected to a 60 WPC Harmon Kardon Citation II that has been modified to emulate the MFA 120 front end, and I use this for CD playback.

However, for most high resolution audio, I use a Sony STR DA7100ES or a STR DA9000ES via the i-link input. Sony was a good five to ten years ahead with this design, ...

Unfortunately, Sony stopped making this type of amp, due to cost and market share.  Someone will eventually pick up on this, as this is the cleanest approach yet to music reproduction. 

Is that Sony tubes or SS?

I realize that this is a tube forum (and I do love my tubes), but the S-Master pro topology is unlike ANY solid state setup, and as such should not be compared to other solid state topologies.   

[Wind Chaser]

That's cool Freo... For a moment you had me thinking Sony might have made a modern day tube receiver!

[Regalma]

Of course none of the above explains why in all three of the carefully set up double blind tests I read about no one could tell the difference between different amps including their personal tube amps .

I have seen better results from double blind testing of cables.

You have to wonder.

[Niteshade]

I don't know what tests you are referring to, but here are some reasons:

1. Were all the amps within the same echelon of performance?
2. Mood of listeners. How old were they? (High frequency loss w/ age.) Were there ears clean? (no joke)
3. Were speakers used that would allow distinguishing traits to be heard? (Some will not, even expensive ones.)

People have said the upper tiers of amps do sound similar regardless of technology and I believe it.  There is not as much performance play when you're paying mega,mega bucks (AKA: New house or stereo???) A certain level of performance is expected and there isn't much wiggle room.

There is a tremendous amount of performance variance with what I call in-reach priced gear. Because of this, I believe it's more fun to shop for. 

[Pez]

Any DBT test has way too many variables to properly account for. Not saying their results are not valid, but dubious in that there are a lot of things that you cannot account for without specific information, none of which has been given.

[Regalma]

Well I don't want to start anything I just think that a bit of skepticism thrown in occasionally helps keep us all honest. Once I read someone claiming that one preamp sounds better than another based listening to them in different stores with different equipment heard years apart. That's just wanting to believe. The fact that the preamp being panned is a high end very well reviewed item that is disliked by the audiophile community I think predisposed this guy to dislike it. I just think sometimes we have lost all connection to reality.

The three tests: one I am not familiar much familiar with. An audio store had people bring in their own amps which they were then unable to identify. Another was setup by a Spanish Audiophile club in which they compared high end equipment to mid market stuff, only the speakers and the speaker were kept constant. They all flunked.

The last was done by the old Stereo Review and was very carefully setup. They used members of a local audiophile club. The amps ran the gamunt from standard Pioneer up to one tube amp that was "the size of a kitchen range and almost as hot. The listeners were good enough that they picked up on a 1/10th dB difference in volume level that was accidentally created in the setup. Once that was corrected they couldn't hear any difference between any of the amps.

Just something to think about.

[zygadr]

Well, of late, Our study(and my workshop ) which is right next to our bedroom ,has been an experimental solid state bonanza that has had many amplifiers playing that ranged from heavily modified old receivers to Gainclones with the best components and power supplies money can buy (some wrere even run on battery power).
 FM radio and one particular Guitar CD has been the test sources over the months gone by.

A week ago I bread boarded a huge Sakuma style 845/845 SE amplifier which I connected in mono to a single 12inch twin cone vintage loudspeaker(as have all the other SS amps)....nothing special or fancy.

After just recently sorting out an intermittant loud crackling sound, the amplifier was left on while my wife got ready to go out and I ducked out for 10 minutes to drop off a bit of gear back to a friend's house.

When I returned, I asked the Mrs if she heard any of the regular problematic noises in the prototype valve amp?

As she is a ''non audiophile'' I was stunned to hear her say '' no,......only beautiful, sweet smooth music''.

So, without any prompting or special auditory ability,she picked the difference very easily between SS and valves..........without even knowing it .
She had heard all the others before this one and never noticed anything unusual coming out of that room

I rest my case.....??

[hotroady]

transitors are a switch, tubes are a valve for electron flow.

[Regalma]

Transistors are not switches! They can be configured that way in a circuit, but then so can tubes. Transistors are continuously variable.