A few years ago there was a big trade-off between tubes and solid state - a lot of detail and transparency vs. realness and musicality. Seems like a lot of recent tube offerings at the high end - ARC, BAT, CJ, VTL, etc., have given up the gooey tube sound and instead are able to retrieve the detail that only solid state designs were able to deliver only a few years ago. And, of course, the tubes have that naturalness in the mid range. Kind of like the best of both worlds. Any one else feel this way?
A new revolution in tube design?
- Thread starter caesar
- Start date
I never had any tube preamps or amps that I would say had a "gooey" tube sound. I just sold an ARC LS-17 line stage that I bought to hold me over while my Counterpoint SA-5.1 was undergoing modifications and repairs. The ARC LS-17 would warm the heart of anyone who loves SS gear. In fact, if I didn't know it had a pair of tubes inside, I would have sworn it was a SS preamp.
Caesar, I think if you heard my ARC D70Mk2, you would re-think that statement. Today, my a'phile group AB'ed my ARC against a VS115....Well the old girl was really in her element today
. The whole group thought that she had it all over the newcomerAfter about an hour, the owner of the VS115 thought his amp was broken and regretted even agreeing to the AB..
Older ARC and CJ sugary, some maybe...BUT not all
The worst tube preamp I have ever heard was a ARC SP3A, maybe it had something wrong with it,but is was awful. The poor guy that brought it over to our group couldn't believe it sounded that bad. I had Mike over from Quicksilver and we listened to the then new VAC 70/70 with my Accuphase C200. We all agreed that there must have been a synergy created. I still use the Accuphase today,although it has been recapped.
problem in the power supply
Why tube amp don't sound real tube sound, I guess because they use silicon rectifier, or SS voltage regulator, actually tube circuit design has no more secret simple is the best just depend on the quality of parts, a good sounding line stage pre amp just need a good volume control and a good sounding tube and a out put transformer too also with tube rectifier and chokes in power supply, that will be a good combination for tube sound, DIYers can do that easy, if not DIYer still can make sure what is the design of the amp and compare the listening
tony ma
Why tube amp don't sound real tube sound, I guess because they use silicon rectifier, or SS voltage regulator, actually tube circuit design has no more secret simple is the best just depend on the quality of parts, a good sounding line stage pre amp just need a good volume control and a good sounding tube and a out put transformer too also with tube rectifier and chokes in power supply, that will be a good combination for tube sound, DIYers can do that easy, if not DIYer still can make sure what is the design of the amp and compare the listening
tony ma
i have a friend that has been working on some very low power tube amps. he used the 45 tube and mercury rectifiers as the basis for a set of monoblocks. these have less than 1 watt per channel.
he convinced me to try them in my system; i use the Evolution Accoustics MM3 speakers; which have powered subwoofers, and then you provide an amp to drive the mid-range and tweeter. it's an easy speaker to drive, 93db efficient and 6ohm load....pretty flat impedence.
to my surprise; the 45 monoblocks actually worked 'ok'. there were limitations to stage size, and some music was lacking snap and energy, but if i sat in my normal nearfield spot there was enough amp to listen. and the liquidity and speed of what i heard was breathtaking. grainless, purity, see thru transparency, and speed to die for. the speed within the notes was what startled me. yes; it was always pushed to the edge of it's performance envelope, but it was intoxicating.
if less than 1 watt worked; next we are going to try a set of monoblock 2A3's with the mercury rectifiers. these should have between 3 and 4 watts per channel; which should retain the good stuff of the '45' amps but bring me a more real world level of energy and ease.
he convinced me to try them in my system; i use the Evolution Accoustics MM3 speakers; which have powered subwoofers, and then you provide an amp to drive the mid-range and tweeter. it's an easy speaker to drive, 93db efficient and 6ohm load....pretty flat impedence.
to my surprise; the 45 monoblocks actually worked 'ok'. there were limitations to stage size, and some music was lacking snap and energy, but if i sat in my normal nearfield spot there was enough amp to listen. and the liquidity and speed of what i heard was breathtaking. grainless, purity, see thru transparency, and speed to die for. the speed within the notes was what startled me. yes; it was always pushed to the edge of it's performance envelope, but it was intoxicating.
if less than 1 watt worked; next we are going to try a set of monoblock 2A3's with the mercury rectifiers. these should have between 3 and 4 watts per channel; which should retain the good stuff of the '45' amps but bring me a more real world level of energy and ease.
Hi Mike
If you like the taste of SET with 866A mercury rectifier then you should keep on try after 2A3 for more power like 300B( 8 watt), 211, 845(25 watt) and further more 805(50 watt) to 833 (100 Watt) I am sure this will change your thinking of SET amp
tony ma
i've tried other SET amps. they do many good and very good things....i mostly prefer my darTZeel solid state.
i have not listened to many SET amps with mercury rectifier tubes. what attracts me to consider a tube amp is the grainless purity i heard from the 45, but also the amazing speed 'within the note'.
what i mean by speed 'within the note' is that my previous experience with tubes was that there was a bit of loss of detail, a 'smoothing' of texture compared to my darTZeel. with this mercury tube rectified 45 SET there was actually an increase in low level detail and speed in every small part of the music. like looking 'inside' of the music, spooky!
can a 300B (or 211, 845, 805) do this as well as the 45 or 2A3? i have no idea as i'm not a tube guy. but i'm told that as you get more powerful tubes those attributes are more difficult to achieve. since i already have the darTZeel i figured that the 2A3 would give me the maximum in that purity assuming it has the balls to get my speakers moving. i don't want to compromise the purity side for more power.
i'm open to other SET's with 866A mercury rectifier tubes if i get a chance to hear one.
i do love the blue glow from the mercury.
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Aaaahhh! The blue glow of mercury tubes. I know in my preamp, the spectacular speed and clarity is in no small measure attributible to mercury rectified 90# power supply. The sonic attributes commonly ascribed to tubed gear, i.e. gooey, languid, etc, is not necessarily intrinsic to tubes themselves, rather it often reflect the designer's choice to scrimp on the power supply. (This is typically done for cost considerations.)
I have heard the SET amps Mike refers to in my system, and can second his impressions. The volume of Mike's room is probably an order of magnitude larger than mine, so I'm not surprised that 1 watt output was a 'push'. The amps were spectacular in my room. Can't wait to hear the 2a3 at Mike's (as I once again draft off his knowledge).
I have heard the SET amps Mike refers to in my system, and can second his impressions. The volume of Mike's room is probably an order of magnitude larger than mine, so I'm not surprised that 1 watt output was a 'push'. The amps were spectacular in my room. Can't wait to hear the 2a3 at Mike's (as I once again draft off his knowledge).
SET circuit is the most simple circuit in amp design, parts quality is the main issue, high power tube like 805 in 50 watt out still can give you very detail, but it will depend on the use of other parts like out put transformer's quality, have you heard WE300B with silver transformer combination ? this one will present the top level of SET but only with 8 watt, people will like to build amp with cost over $2000 silver transformer for a $1000 WE300B. in my experience 805 with silver transformer is better than 300B with silver trans, but not too many people will do that because 805 cost only less than $100 but 50 watt SE trans will cost more than $4000 to-day thinking unbalance, but they don't know if same quality 805 NOS reproduce to-day must be higher than 300B, IMO top quality parts with direct heating transmitting tube in positive bias drive rectify by 866A SE amp can beat any hi-end SS amp
tony ma
tony ma
i'll have to hear that (...if same quality 805 NOS reproduce to-day must be higher than 300B, IMO top quality parts with direct heating transmitting tube in positive bias drive rectify by 866A SE amp can beat any hi-end SS amp...)....that has not yet been my experience.
i've not heard all the great SET amps out there. i have heard the Kondo 300B's with silver wound transformers, and had the Lamm ML2's in my room, the ML3's at shows, and heard the big Wavacs.....all very nice.
but none of those had the purity i heard from the mercury rectified 45 SET mono's in my room.
and none had the top to bottom energy and detail of my darTZeel stereo ss amps (or the amazing refinement and iron fisted ease and control of the big dart monos).
i look forward to being exposed to more great SET amps in the future and getting my world rocked!
All Kondo's products were designed in negative bias,their best sounding amp should be the 211 silver Onkaku, only the silver out put cost 16K$ many years ago, Wavac make positive bias (Shisido's design) only the top models with silver but not with 866A,they have very good looking in design but a lot of them with silicon rectifiers, I have no idea with Lamm's product but GM70 is a negative bias tube I suppose , on the other hand,actually instead one high price amp to multi amp system may have better result if the set up is right
tony ma
tony ma
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