Tube gear obsolete??

Bruce B · Jun 22, 2013

mep said:
Entirely different topic because wives don't come in tube or SS flavors.

My wife has a great set of tubes!!

rockitman · Jun 22, 2013

Bruce B said:
My wife has a great set of tubes!!

mep · Jun 22, 2013

rockitman said:
+1

Might that explain the need for Viagra/Cialis?

Maybe "until death do you part" made more sense when life expectancy was 35. And having said that, my wife and I just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary this month. Throw in the year of "try before you buy" plan, and we have been together for 36 years. And yes, I have only been married once.

zztop7 · Jun 22, 2013

to mep, My wife is not a PITA.

to mep,
My wife is not a PITA.
Definitely no offense taken.
Posts would be too long for all clarifications.
Best to you,
zz

mep · Jun 22, 2013

ZZ-Glad to hear it brother! And I'm also happy that you didn't take any offense because none was intended. Some people are so easily offended it is ridiculous.

DaveyF · Jun 22, 2013

Back OT, are we saying that ss amps will never sound better or equal to what tube amps bring to the table? Is it not possible that at some point an ss amp/preamp can do absolutely everything a tube amp/preamp can do and perhaps more? Thereby, relieving one of all of the "issues" associated with owning and maintaining tube gear and hence making tube gear obsolete.

mep · Jun 22, 2013

I hate to break the news, but the day has already come. If you choose not to believe it, that's fine. It's a matter of preference as I have said many times before. Tubes tend to sound very holographic, but the better SS gear can sound holographic as well. I decided in the last few years that I was tired of the amount of noise I was tolerating in my system and I wanted a much higher S/N ratio in my system. The first place that made sense was the phono preamp which many of you don't deal with. If you use tubes in your phono section and it doesn't have transformers on the front end to step up the voltage with a low output MC, you are going to have lots of noise whether you care to admit it or not. Less noise means more music and more dynamic range. I'm all about more music and more dynamic range. That's what makes music exciting.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I have a dirty, grimy pair of Dynaco MKIII amps in my workshop. Every time I walk by them they yell at me and say "Mark, when are you going to rebuild us?" The last pair of tube amps I built were based on the MKIII circuit. I bought the Magnaquest replacement output and power transformers for the MKIII (which are no longer available I believe) and beefed up the power supply and the bias circuit. I used the Triode Electronics input boards running dual 12AU7s. Some people think the original board with the single 6AN8 tube sounded best. I also still have around 4 Mullard GZ-34 tubes which is a great tube rectifier that is known to last 20 years. I'm still pondering what to do with them, but meanwhile I'm just ignoring them when they call out to me.

flez007 · Jun 22, 2013

DaveyF said:
?.. I wonder how long it will be before owning tube gear is simply not of any benefit whatsoever over its ss competition..

You said WHAT DaveyF????!

I have been on and off tubes many times (currently the switch is ON), I can live with either IF there is synergy in the system, since a great tube amp can sound horrible with the wrong speaker set - saying that, I count more time on average listening a tubed system than a SS one, and that is a big plus in my book. (i average 10-15 hours weekly listening my system (not background listening)).

flez007 · Jun 22, 2013

rockitman said:

Just noticed Pamela is missing her belly botton on this pic!

zztop7 · Jun 22, 2013

beautifully constructed Interconnect she was holding in her hand

flez007 said:
Just noticed Pamela is missing her belly botton on this pic!

I was to focused on that beautifully constructed Interconnect she was holding in her hand.

zz

Bruce B · Jun 22, 2013

There are several manufacturers making the best tube equipment I've ever heard. The names that come to mind are Doshi, Lamm, ARC, c-j, CAT and a slew of others. All these are still going strong and it doesn't seem to bother them. I've got SS as well and it sounds as good as my Doshi and any other tube units I've had in my system.

rockitman · Jun 22, 2013

mep said:
Might that explain the need for Viagra/Cialis? Maybe "until death do you part" made more sense when life expectancy was 35. And having said that, my wife and I just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary this month. Throw in the year of "try before you buy" plan, and we have been together for 36 years. And yes, I have only been married once.

Wow, Congrats. I am only 7 years with live in girlfriend and separate bank accounts....

Bruce B · Jun 22, 2013

rockitman said:
Wow, Congrats. I am only 7 years with live in girlfriend and separate bank accounts....

Another year Christian and it will be a Common-Law marriage! You better dump her now before it's too late!!

rockitman · Jun 22, 2013

Bruce B said:
Another year Christian and it will be a Common-Law marriage! You better dump her now before it's too late!!

No common law marriage in NY

hvbias · Jun 23, 2013

I'm all Class A Pass right now. It doesn't compare to the best tube amps I've heard in the midrange and 3-D sense of space. When I heard the XA30.5 side by side with a 2A3 SET (on Avantgarde Duos) anyone would be able to say which was which.

Tube amps are really suited for less than 25-30 watts. In those ranges you can get modern OPTs like HiB silicon steel or nanocrystaline finemet without running into problems. Beyond that I don't care for the compromises that have to be made to OPTs, hence me using SS. And OTL require way too many tubes to achieve low output Z.

Tube amps are obsolete. But so is vinyl, reel to reel, pure class A solid state, horns, etc.

Steve Williams · Jun 23, 2013

hvbias said:
I'm all Class A Pass right now. It doesn't compare to the best tube amps I've heard in the midrange and 3-D sense of space. When I heard the XA30.5 side by side with a 2A3 SET (on Avantgarde Duos) anyone would be able to say which was which.

Tube amps are really suited for less than 25-30 watts. In those ranges you can get modern OPTs like HiB silicon steel or nanocrystaline finemet without running into problems. Beyond that I don't care for the compromises that have to be made to OPTs, hence me using SS. And OTL require way too many tubes to achieve low output Z.

Tube amps are obsolete. But so is vinyl, reel to reel, pure class A solid state, horns, etc.

I agree about 25-30 watts but for SET. I have also owned the ARC Ref600 Mk lll, a 600 wpc push-pull that sounded wonderful but no where near as good as SET

Steve Williams · Jun 23, 2013

I would never own a Tube power amp. too much care and feeding

I completely disagree. I have been using tube amp and preamp for at least the past 12 years and have only twice had a tube blow which was immediately solved by replacing it. I only re-bias every 1-2 months as my amp rarely if ever has the plate voltage change

I can't imagine the comment about too much care and feeding when one doesn't consider the same (if not more) with a turntable

. Pick your poison.

For me tubes is where it's at and it just isn't too much care or feeding. I have never had such a holographic image with SS as I get with my 32 wpc amp

LL21 · Jun 23, 2013

Its a funny thing about equipment and reliability...I have owned both SS and Tubes like many of us here. The only times I've ever had big repair bills and 'unfindable' problems...have been with SS equipment! (I had an amp that had old capacitors/resistors that were crackling that no one could find for the first 5 repairs over the course of 12+ months. My Velodyne also blew 3 fuses in a row before being fixed by the Distributor here.)

Fingers crossed, none of my 4 CJ pieces in 15 years has ever needed a repair. Same with Zanden over last 5+ years. As for tubes and hiss, yes, I have had a few noisy tubes, but fortunately Zanden has been fine for a number of years...and I have found some solid tubes for CJ so no noise or crackle there either. Fingers crossed!!!!

DaveyF · Jun 23, 2013

lloydelee21 said:
Its a funny thing about equipment and reliability...I have owned both SS and Tubes like many of us here. The only times I've ever had big repair bills and 'unfindable' problems...have been with SS equipment! (I had an amp that had old capacitors/resistors that were crackling that no one could find for the first 5 repairs over the course of 12+ months. My Velodyne also blew 3 fuses in a row before being fixed by the Distributor here.)

Fingers crossed, none of my 4 CJ pieces in 15 years has ever needed a repair. Same with Zanden over last 5+ years. As for tubes and hiss, yes, I have had a few noisy tubes, but fortunately Zanden has been fine for a number of years...and I have found some solid tubes for CJ so no noise or crackle there either. Fingers crossed!!!!

Lloyd, interesting post. I haven't been as lucky as you with tubes. My first tube amp...a Melos, blew a tube and a board after I inserted the latest highly touted Chinese KT88's into it. I have also had numerous examples of tubes going noisy in one way or another. My point is that one never really knows when one is going to have a problem with tubes...in other words you have to have your "fingers crossed"

. For some reason, I don't have this "paranoia" with ss gear. OTOH, I do believe that this "paranoia" is far more of a factor for me in a tube amp than in a tube preamp.

MadFloyd · Jun 23, 2013

I can appreciate a good solid state amp, but none that I've heard thus far deliver the soundstage and image palpability that I hear with good tube amps.

Speaking of good solid state gear, I finally got to hear Dan D'Agostino's Momentum pre and stereo amp feeding Wilson Alexia's yesterday. Sounded great.

Tube gear obsolete??

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