tube amps
500 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 884
Originally posted by VWmk5: Why not listen to music the way it was recorded? instead of using a amp that changes the sound? Makes no sense to me..
^ the Tube Amp is all about the music...... you just don't get it with most transister amps.
The transister amps has their own characteristic that change the sound too.....
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Last edited by SweetnLow91SC; Apr 23, 2006 at 01:21 PM.
0 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Feb 2007
Posts: 8
As someone who designs and builds tube amplifiers as a hobby it's rather clear many of you haven't the foggiest notion of just why vacuum tubes are popular and have been in the home audio realm for decades. Of course if you listen to compressed MP3's or compressed Satellite radio then the huge difference between a solid state amplifier and a true tube design might not be readily apparent. Tubes are not about distortion ( except maybe in guitar amplifiers) tubes are about a warmer analog sound. Believe it or not somewhere along the signal path the speakers need to receive an analog signal. Speakers don't understand binary no matter how badly you try to teach them. It's the same reason that vinyl LP's have more dynamic range and sound more musical than a CD could ever hope to sound like.
Mike
Mike
50 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 85
Originally Posted by ProAc_Fan
As someone who designs and builds tube amplifiers as a hobby it's rather clear many of you haven't the foggiest notion of just why vacuum tubes are popular and have been in the home audio realm for decades. Of course if you listen to compressed MP3's or compressed Satellite radio then the huge difference between a solid state amplifier and a true tube design might not be readily apparent. Tubes are not about distortion ( except maybe in guitar amplifiers) tubes are about a warmer analog sound. Believe it or not somewhere along the signal path the speakers need to receive an analog signal. Speakers don't understand binary no matter how badly you try to teach them. It's the same reason that vinyl LP's have more dynamic range and sound more musical than a CD could ever hope to sound like.
Mike
Mike
Tubes are warm, Solid state can feel sterile.
I probably wouldn't go Tube in my car until I stopped using compressed media files in my car (mp3 cd's).
Originally Posted by ProAc_Fan
As someone who designs and builds tube amplifiers as a hobby it's rather clear many of you haven't the foggiest notion of just why vacuum tubes are popular and have been in the home audio realm for decades. Of course if you listen to compressed MP3's or compressed Satellite radio then the huge difference between a solid state amplifier and a true tube design might not be readily apparent. Tubes are not about distortion ( except maybe in guitar amplifiers) tubes are about a warmer analog sound. Believe it or not somewhere along the signal path the speakers need to receive an analog signal. Speakers don't understand binary no matter how badly you try to teach them. It's the same reason that vinyl LP's have more dynamic range and sound more musical than a CD could ever hope to sound like.
Mike
Mike
Way to dig up an ancient post and insult a bunch of people to introduce yourself to the board.
500 Watt CAFz'r
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 884
Originally Posted by ProAc_Fan
Of course if you listen to compressed MP3's or compressed Satellite radio then the huge difference between a solid state amplifier and a true tube design might not be readily apparent. Tubes are not about distortion ( except maybe in guitar amplifiers) tubes are about a warmer analog sound.
It's the same reason that vinyl LP's have more dynamic range and sound more musical than a CD could ever hope to sound like.
LOL
guys please.......
The main difference in the sound between a tube and a solid state amp is in the way the outputs clip when overdriven... a tube tends to generate 2nd order harmonics which most people find much more bareable (and even pleasing) when compaired to the 3rd order harmonics a solidstate amp will generate.....
As far as the 'warm sound'... you can attribute that to the resistance of the output transformers which give the amp an extremely low damping factor.... and infact a well made tube amp will not have this problem....
I believe R Clarks's $10K amplifier challange included tube amplifiers and all of the normal rules about clipping and power levels applied.... If however the damping factor of the tube amp was low enough to affect the sound he would simply add a 25cent resistor to the output of the solid state amp to degrade it's perfomance to match that of the tube amp......
AFAIK no one ever won...
guys please.......
The main difference in the sound between a tube and a solid state amp is in the way the outputs clip when overdriven... a tube tends to generate 2nd order harmonics which most people find much more bareable (and even pleasing) when compaired to the 3rd order harmonics a solidstate amp will generate.....
As far as the 'warm sound'... you can attribute that to the resistance of the output transformers which give the amp an extremely low damping factor.... and infact a well made tube amp will not have this problem....
I believe R Clarks's $10K amplifier challange included tube amplifiers and all of the normal rules about clipping and power levels applied.... If however the damping factor of the tube amp was low enough to affect the sound he would simply add a 25cent resistor to the output of the solid state amp to degrade it's perfomance to match that of the tube amp......
AFAIK no one ever won...
