Why Tube Amps Sound Different (and better) Than SS Amps

[valkyrie]

About what I would expect in a hobby in which fashion is more important than fact. Sigh - double....

Myles; hey - tubes are not as reliable as transistors. Think about a chunk of ARC gear where the tubes are "ganged" in pairs and when they fail - they take out both themselves and a local resistor. Tubes are mostly junk. While you may very well have a Phd - you do NOT possess a PhD in electronics. Wishful thinking does not a fact make.

In regards 'stats; sorry dude - to these ears they have always sounded "lean and thin" hence the need for some ringing tubes to flesh them out. With respect to OTL - they don't have the long sustains and generally euphoric presentation of transformer coupled tubes. Though, in all honesty, they do have that tube sound to a lesser degree - as to why? You have me on that one.

Mep,

In regards radar - you are without a clue. In the SPY-1 all of the active aperture elements are solid state. You never responded to the last time I attempted to straighten out your confused thinking. Practically you are just trolling for an argument - so be happy - now you have one.

To everybody;

Have any of you ever heard Lamm go on about why his TUBE gear sounds the way it does (and his distortion figures are absurdly high). He freely admits that he has discovered (or stumbled on to) a psycho-acoustic phenomena that he exploits (at an incredible price) in his tube amplifiers. While the Lamm gear is truly pleasant to listen to - there is no doubt that the sound is a complete distortion.

Which leads to the real question; if your hollow state whatever makes a sound that you find more pleasing - despite it being inaccurate stuff - who cares? I listen for the music - bring that to me in a more pleasing manner (SUBJECTIVE) then hey!!! Go for it.

This is all so silly - I guess we get as much joy arguing about this stuff as we do listening to it.

 

[MylesBAstor]

About what I would expect in a hobby in which fashion is more important than fact. Sigh - double....

Myles; hey - tubes are not as reliable as transistors. Think about a chunk of ARC gear where the tubes are "ganged" in pairs and when they fail - they take out both themselves and a local resistor. Tubes are mostly junk. While you may very well have a Phd - you do NOT possess a PhD in electronics. Wishful thinking does not a fact make.

I will stay away from stooping to insults.

Did you read what I said? The key word is *execution*. And obviously I don't need a PHD in electronics to know when my tube amp breaks down though I could tell you a few stories about some pi-meson work at Los Alamos.

In regards 'stats; sorry dude - to these ears they have always sounded "lean and thin" hence the need for some ringing tubes to flesh them out. With respect to OTL - they don't have the long sustains and generally euphoric presentation of transformer coupled tubes. Though, in all honesty, they do have that tube sound to a lesser degree - as to why? You have me on that one.

Sorry dude. Did you ever have the stats in *your* room and work with them? Or are you just relating what you heard at a dealers or a show? BTW, did you notice that I've used a variety of SS amps including Rowland, Cello and Mark Levinson to great effect on the Martin-Logan's? No not just tubes. Unless you've played with them you CAN'T be making sweeping generalization especially when it comes to the Martin-Logan's - or for that matter - any leading speaker because you can't separate whether you're hearing the speaker or what's in front of the speaker.

 

[cjfrbw]

My Yamaha B2 VFET amplifier, going on 36 years old, is the best solid state amp I have heard. Tube like, yeah, very fast response and natural decay, no solid state character leading to disinterest in the sonic tapestry after a while.

Coupled with Manley 300b Neo preamp, the sound is continuously self refreshing and hypnotic, making me curious to keep listening to hear what happens next, a characteristic I have only experienced with good tube amps. I have heard solid state amps I thought were "good to outstanding", but never any that had that ongoing character of fascination with the sound.

I am not saying there is no solid state amp that can do this, just none that I have heard.

I will go out on a limb and say that the VFET response of tube like, even order harmonics and decay and open, linear clarity are what make it sound like that, even operating in class AB push pull. Listening to the VFET amp transformer coupled with STAX headphones is a special experience as well.

I would guess that the VFET sounds like a DHT tube OTL type amp, but with a lot of power.

I have gotten into the habit of occasionally listening to compressed AAC music from the computer using the Manley 300b preamp to the VFET Yamaha B2 operating the bass panel of the Analysis Epsilon speakers operating crossover-less full range, and man, it is an intriguing midrange experience, kinna like listening to a Quad with a good tube amp.

 

[Bruce B]

I love a great tubed pre and SS amp. The best of both worlds!

 

[KeithR]

About what I would expect in a hobby in which fashion is more important than fact. Sigh - double....

To everybody;

Have any of you ever heard Lamm go on about why his TUBE gear sounds the way it does (and his distortion figures are absurdly high). He freely admits that he has discovered (or stumbled on to) a psycho-acoustic phenomena that he exploits (at an incredible price) in his tube amplifiers. While the Lamm gear is truly pleasant to listen to - there is no doubt that the sound is a complete distortion.

I think Lamm measures quite well on the right speaker. He almost eliminates higher order distortion as opposed to many amps with loads of negative feedback, that in general sounds bad. Why do you think Dagostino, Pass, etc have dramatically changed their designs?

Btw, the tone of your writing isnt helping your cause.

 

[esldude]

esldude-Which VTL triode amp did you have? Hard to believe that an amp that you thought was clearly better than the Spectral ("more space, 3d effects, smoother, more dynamic, more nuanced, more musical") was suddenly regulated to the scrapheap of euphonic colorations due to your bypass test. So how was it that you were fooled and believed in the superiority of the VTL over the Spectral amp?

I had a Stereo 75/75 which I changed from UL to triode. Also upgraded caps to MIT's and others along with Vishay resistors in a few places one of them being the feedback loop.

I was fooled into the superior sound the way lots of people are. The slight amount of the right colorations sounds more correct though it is an inaccuracy. That the Spectral could pass all that through undiluted shows quite clearly it is capable of that sound, and such a sound was from coloration and limitation that happen to be to my preference. Not from superior signal transfer. Still like that kind of sound even if it is inaccurate. Those spacious 3D effects for instance, that might cause you think 2D SS amps are a problem were instead an additive effect. That sound actually is not in the recordings.

 

[esldude]

If you think the ML are lean, then they've not been setup properly. And yes with amps from both species.

And how do you then explain OTLs have the same tube characteristics? And even the best SS amps today, retrieve spatial information like tubes. So is that a distortion? It's there on the master tapes and hard discs, be they analog or digital.

Reliability. You simply don't know what you're talking about. Maybe tubes 20 years ago, but not modern gear. For the record, I've used cj tube amps since the mid-80s and had one problem - a resistor blowing- in a 7 yo MV-75A1. Even 7yo Krells developed issues (and solid-state - contrary to your assertations - is far from problem free.)So no, your sweeping generalization is dead wrong. It's not the genre, it's the execution.

I believe much of what Valkyrie said is pretty much what is happening. Rather than being dead wrong he appears to be right on to me.

OTL's are colored too. And they have a different sound than transformer coupled push-pulls in my experience. Nor have I heard SS amps that retrieve the same kind of bloomy spatial information push-pulls have. OTL's I have heard sound almost smoky on difficult loads and rather quick on loads within their capability, but still not like solid state or conventional tube amps.

I owned a couple C-J's myself, and upon getting a VTL it seemed just clearly better. Mainly I surmise due to the heftier PS and better made transformers.

The bottom line is good SS seems accurate and transparent. Doesn't keep tubes from sounding more beautiful.

 

[esldude]

snippage........

To everybody;

Have any of you ever heard Lamm go on about why his TUBE gear sounds the way it does (and his distortion figures are absurdly high). He freely admits that he has discovered (or stumbled on to) a psycho-acoustic phenomena that he exploits (at an incredible price) in his tube amplifiers. While the Lamm gear is truly pleasant to listen to - there is no doubt that the sound is a complete distortion.

Which leads to the real question; if your hollow state whatever makes a sound that you find more pleasing - despite it being inaccurate stuff - who cares? I listen for the music - bring that to me in a more pleasing manner (SUBJECTIVE) then hey!!! Go for it.

This is all so silly - I guess we get as much joy arguing about this stuff as we do listening to it.

Yes, I started to mention Lamm. His idea is the distortion needs to be the same at all frequencies at a given power level. That the distortion needs to increase with power level gently, but steadily the last 20 db or so, and should top out around 2-3% at the highest power to be used. And the distortion should be lower harmonics only. Such in his opinion gives you the most enhanced euphony. His amps have a sound, one he creates intentionally, and one that isn't from transparency, but pleasing in spite of those departures from a theoretical perfect amp.

And yes, tubeophiles almost immediately take umbrage at that. They need not. Stereo is an illusion and craftily done amplifiers that enhance your illusion and enjoyment are nothing to be ashamed of in fact. If that were more readily acknowledged more might be done to get the optimum transfer characteristic. One could even create it with appropriate DSP using transistors all the way.

I would say well done tube amps are quite reliable other than the tubes themselves. In a good design one faulting won't take out other parts.

 

[esldude]

I love a great tubed pre and SS amp. The best of both worlds!

You know that is a combination I never found all that appealing. Not saying you are wrong. But I didn't find it to be the best of both worlds. A single ended tube pre-amp doesn't add the same character a push-pull xfmr coupled amp does. Nor an SE xfmr coupled amp. In fact some of the more modern tube pre-amps have enough bandwidth, low distortion etc. they weren't all that much different than good SS pre-amps.

I have thought a smart thing to do would be to build a xfmr coupled pre-amp using 12AX7's in push-pull and load them appropriately to mimic in small form what happens with a big push-pull triode amp. That might give you the full benefit with small inexpensive tubes that last a long time while using good SS amps to power the speakers.

 

[JackD201]

Funny. When perceptual coding is talked about in digital, it's great. When the same principles are applied to analog devices like amps and preamps as well as loudspeakers now they aren't? It's a weird world man.

 

[DaveyF]

I think that many SS amps based on choke-based power supplies have the same characteristic midrange sound of tube amps (the Viola Bravo power amplifier is one such example), but they also have the bass capability of SS amps. In the Viola range, they also have another SS power amplifier (the Legacy) that has an output transformer which takes this tube sound one step further - using an output transformer. However, that model then loses the bass capability.
.

This is one of the reasons that I still have not heard many ss amps that can beat my Rowland model 8 with choke power supply... it has the midrange of a good tube amp and the bass of a ss amp.
Also agree with Bruce B...in some ways the best of both worlds is a tube preamp and a ss amp ( Better IF that ss amp has a choke power supply).

 

[JackD201]

I'm running hybrid pre-hybrid amps. Best of both worlds? I dunno. A whole lot of what's great from both? Yessir.

 

[JackD201]

Well, I didn't notice Mark saying anything about hybrids. I remember Myles saying he hasn't met any that floats his boat. That's all ok.

I'm all for being agnostic. For the sound I shoot for, getting there has always been easier with some tubes somewhere in the playback chain.

 

[mep]

Mep,

In regards radar - you are without a clue. In the SPY-1 all of the active aperture elements are solid state. You never responded to the last time I attempted to straighten out your confused thinking. Practically you are just trolling for an argument - so be happy - now you have one.

Please explain what drives the output power of the SPY 1. You said it was a SS radar. Are you trying to tell us the SPY 1 is powered through T/R modules?

 

[MylesBAstor]

I believe much of what Valkyrie said is pretty much what is happening. Rather than being dead wrong he appears to be right on to me.

OTL's are colored too. And they have a different sound than transformer coupled push-pulls in my experience. Nor have I heard SS amps that retrieve the same kind of bloomy spatial information push-pulls have. OTL's I have heard sound almost smoky on difficult loads and rather quick on loads within their capability, but still not like solid state or conventional tube amps.

I owned a couple C-J's myself, and upon getting a VTL it seemed just clearly better. Mainly I surmise due to the heftier PS and better made transformers.

The bottom line is good SS seems accurate and transparent. Doesn't keep tubes from sounding more beautiful.

Again the issue lots of sweeping statements and generalization and yet we have no idea of the equipment being used nor frame of reference to draw a conclusion, nor the situation. As I have said repeatedly, speakers are only as good as what's in front of them. Feed a good speaker crap and that's exactly what you'll get. In fact, one would be really surprised how much of the issues begin with the front-end. Again, that definition of insanity.

Also, how did we get from ringing to colorations?

 

[andromedaaudio]

Okay valkyrie for 50 bucks$$ I ll say transistor is better from now on

 

[Al M.]

Again the issue lots of sweeping statements and generalization and yet we have no idea of the equipment being used nor frame of reference to draw a conclusion, nor the situation. As I have said repeatedly, speakers are only as good as what's in front of them. Feed a good speaker crap and that's exactly what you'll get. In fact, one would be really surprised how much of the issues begin with the front-end. Again, that definition of insanity.

Also, how did we get from ringing to colorations?

Yes, lots of sweeping statements and generalization as you say. I note how Valkyrie and others neatly have avoided discussing my post #22 because it does not fit into the nice little consistent story they want to tell. So much for being free of confirmation bias . . .

 

[MylesBAstor]

Yes, lots of sweeping statements and generalization as you say. I note how Valkyrie and others neatly have avoided discussing my post #22 because it does not fit into the nice little consistent story they want to tell. So much for being free of confirmation bias . . .

Yes in science - and one doesn't need a PHD in electronics to understand this concept - it's called being parochial.

 

[Ethan Winer]

What else is there ?
A lot more then we yet know

Not about audio fidelity. Allow me to introduce you to the null test:

AES Audio Myths - The Null Test

If there really was some aspect of audio fidelity that wasn't known, it would have been revealed 50+ years ago in a null test.

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

I clearly stated my feelings regarding Ohm's Law and I also thought I clearly stated why I think those watts sound different.

Again I ask:

it's up to you to explain specifically how and why one I times E ratio "sounds different" than another.

Speakers are anything but a pure 8 ohm load and there are lots of speakers with a nominal impedance of 4 ohms.

Of course, and no matter what impedance is stated, it varies with frequency. I assumed we all know that by "8 ohms" I meant "an 8 ohm loudspeaker."

What makes you think that watts that are derived from high voltage and low current will sound exactly like watts that are derived from low voltage and high current?

Since you're the one putting forth a theory that defies well known properties of electricity, the burden is on you to explain why it won't sound the same. Or that the differences defy what is already understood such as frequency response and noise.

--Ethan