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I realize that good to excellent tube products exist. What bugs me is proclamations that somehow one will be unfulfilled w/o a tube gear system. Mac & ARC were tube amps that I heard 35 yrs. ago. They were very good then & better now. Forced to, I could live happily w/ them. I simply choose not to invest $ & time on maintenance & the occasional repair.
The Manley isnt warm or slow, its very fast, neutral, dynamic & detailed. They (Manleys) seem pretty accurate to me.M
So what...that's you. You're entitled to feel that way and it is a legitimate choice. Others feel differently. Some people do derive more satisfaction from tubes. What's wrong with that? No reason to dive into innane drivel mode and attack them for their choices. Noone attacks you for yours. Again I ask...what insecurity makes you feel so threatened just because some guys hear something in tubes that lights their wick, and you don't? It seems to really bother you that some have an affinity for tubes. Just be content with what you hear and your own choices.
Dude! You were caught red handed (AKA: Smoking gun...um amp) using a solid state amp! I remember this loooooooong (^10) thread about it. It's OK though. You're forgiven.
I'd say life on the pipe is very good for those who throw all measurements out the window proudly proclaiming that they know what they hear.Pointing out the downside of tubes is hardly an attack. Pretty much everything has a downside, SS included. The downsides merely differ.
"But Gerald, what would you do if you heard Amp A that had 1000 times more distortion, a tenth the power bandwidth, much worse damping factor, lower power output and 20 db higher noise level than Amp B (Not Aunt Bea from Mayberry, Amp B) - Yet sounded vastly superior to Amp B?" I'd say life on the pipe is very good for those who throw all measurements out the window proudly proclaiming that they know what they hear. Even the fish who inspire the designers would join me in choosing amp B..
On a little more serious note: A tube or solid state amp making a song sound better then it should is not technically right. It might be enjoyable, but it isn't right. It has been my experience that amps which 'choose songs' to improve often make other ones sound worse.
When I biamp w/ the VAC on mid/tweets and the Cherry on bass, not only do you get the advantage of the grip of ClassD on the bass, but because the tubes on top will be loafing along with not having to do bass duties, the quality of the mid/tweet reproduction takes a big step up, IMO and in my system.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT!Logical and intuitive, oh wise one, but not true!! I thought exactly the same thing....that matching input sensitivities was the critical criteria to getting balanced sound when using two different amps. Then I asked a circuit builder who surely knows more than me. The key is the amp's "voltage gain" which is a function of input sensitivity (and output power), but not the same thing. This is copy / paste of our actual email conversation.*********************************************************Q: In general, does the more sensitive amp need the volume control? A: Not necesarily. Choosing the amps for biamping based on its sensitivity spec... that may be tricky. There are several variables. What really matters is the amp's voltage gain. In theory you want the figure to be identical for the two amps. Amplifier sensitivity is (typically) defined as input voltage that will drive the amp to the brinks of saturation. So 1.1V sensitive 100W amp will have much higher voltage gain than 1.1V sensitive 30W amplifier. Let's assume 8 ohm load... 100W amplifier will have output voltage (Vout) of ~28V and 30W amp ~15V (I'm rounding numbers here). Pout=(Vout)^2 : Rout So the voltage gain is going to be 28/1.1=25 and 15/1.1=14, respectively. If the 30W tube amp is to match gain of the 100W SS amp (25x), it's sensitivity will need to be (14:25)x1.1=0.5V. So that was easy... The problem is that we do not know power distribution below and above 800Hz. It depends from track to track, but I would WAG typically 80% below, 20% above 800Hz.... for complex (orchestral music), 90/10 for less complex pieces.... Knowing that you're not blasting music and need higher power to get a good grip on the woofers, I am guessing that even 20W is pretty conservative number for the tube amp... which gives you a lot of options to play with...In practice, volume control does the job.... Which amp is more sensitive is not that relevant as long as the lower sensitivity amp has enough gain to give you adequate sound levels.**********************************************************Hmmmmm....easy for him to say. Most of it is Greek to me, but I was able to figure out that for a given input to the amp (as given by the master volume control), each amp must put out the same number of watts into the speaker. This is determined by "voltage gain", not "sensitivity". His example clearly shows that it is possible to have identical amp input sensitivites, yet different voltage gains. Therefore, the amps are not a match, and the louder amp (ie: one w higher voltage gain) would need the volume pot to attenuate and balance things.(He mentions 800Hz and power distribution because that is the Sunny crossover point.)
OK, I'm always open to being educated by people smarter than me...since just about everyone is.
