Affordable Tube Preamp recommendation

[MaxwellsEq]

your comment is either somehow contradictory or I don’t get it.

Others have already answered correctly, but I should respond to your challenge. What I wrote was NOT contradictory, you just didn't read it or understand it properly

You start by basically saying that tubes only have a tube sound when the design is faulty.

No, I did NOT say that. I said TUBE PREAMPLIFIERS only have a sound when badly designed or broken.

Since you are discussing tube preamplifiers to get a "tube sound": you are wasting your time unless you buy something accidentally or deliberately broken.

only to later say that tube sound comes from overload behavior which basically also is „overload by design“.

This is where you misunderstood. I explained that "tube sound" comes principally from tube POWER AMPLIFIERS. Because of their intrinsic high voltage and relatively high impedance, tube power amplifiers normally use large output transformers. These are not linear at all frequencies, all levels and all loads. Coupled with the way tubes behave when no longer in their linear domain, the result is the classic "tube sound".

Tube preamplifiers generally don't need transformers and the tubes are operating comfortably in their linear range and so tube preamplifiers don't have a "tube sound".

To reiterate: to get the "tube sound" you either have to use a tube power amplifier, or fake it in hardware or software.

 

[Mikig]

I'll tell you that I'm doing the same thing. I have my main system which I'm extremely happy with, all SS.

I'm preparing a second smaller listening room and I want to try an all tubes system, I want to try to achieve a good result with a technology that I know less about. I'm fascinated by the challenge.
I would like to learn a little more about that world. My Hi-Fi journey actually began with a tubes integrated amplifier more than 30 years ago. Now I would like to take it back and apply some general knowledge and notions that I have assimilated over the years and try to obtain a result that is not only subjectively pleasant but also objectively close to the correct Hi-Fi sound.
So I will have to decide on a power amplifier and new speakers to match the preamplifier that I just bought... all calmly of course...

 

[NoMoFoNo]

OP, take a look on ebay or ali express at small single ended Chinese amps in the 2-8 watt range. For $300 or less you can easily pick up something like an 8wpc EL34 model that will do all the tube stuff you're after. I owned a Gemstone X-1 at one point for the same reasons you describe. It was a couple hundred and change, came with PSVane EL34 tubes and performed nicely in a small system with efficient speakers. Especially in the winter on a cold day, it was quite pleasing to get those tubes hot and play some music.

Alternately you could consider buying a small tube preamp like a Fosi P3 or the like. FX-Audio, Fosi and several others sell little tube preamps for $40-80 that will add a bit of distortion (warmth one might call it) to your signal chain.

 

[deanznz]

have you seen the coloured preamp ? Skunkie Designs made a video series on it, you change the amount of "colour" the preamp makes my altering the input volume to the output volume.

"Color" Pre-amp for Solid State Amplifiers

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[DrSpan]

OP, take a look on ebay or ali express at small single ended Chinese amps in the 2-8 watt range. For $300 or less you can easily pick up something like an 8wpc EL34 model that will do all the tube stuff you're after. I owned a Gemstone X-1 at one point for the same reasons you describe. It was a couple hundred and change, came with PSVane EL34 tubes and performed nicely in a small system with efficient speakers. Especially in the winter on a cold day, it was quite pleasing to get those tubes hot and play some music.

Alternately you could consider buying a small tube preamp like a Fosi P3 or the like. FX-Audio, Fosi and several others sell little tube preamps for $40-80 that will add a bit of distortion (warmth one might call it) to your signal chain.

Hi there. Sorry was caught up at work and not present here for a while.
"small single ended Chinese amps in the 2-8 watt range“
1) i want the tubes in the signal path not in the speaker driving section
2) i would like it to still be „audiophile" to a degree. Dont know if i trust these cheap chinese all in one amps.

in general in studio equipment there are saturators, Tube pre-amps and coloring eq`s based on tubes which you can use in order to soften transients and color sound a bit
but the good ones of course are pretty expensive. I reckon it sounds contradictory me not wanting the super cheap stuff but not wanting the super expensive either.
Will continue the search when i catch my breath from work cause right now, no time for the fun stuff of life unfortunately

Thanks for chipping in

 

[DrSpan]

have you seen the coloured preamp ? Skunkie Designs made a video series on it, you change the amount of "colour" the preamp makes my altering the input volume to the output volume.

"Color" Pre-amp for Solid State Amplifiers

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

m.youtube.com

Hi there.

No i was not aware of it but will surely check it out.

Thank you!

 

[mycose]

Hey @DrSpan, I'm probably way too late to the party but if you're after the "tube sound" (harmonic distortion), I don't think the T1 Pro will even remotely meet your expectations.

My entire setup consists entirely of "decent" SS gear (~$500-1000 Topping and SMSL DACs, headphone/power amps, and passive Klipsch speakers), and after introducing the T1 Pro in the chain basically nothing changed in my listening A/B tests. I saw someone already explained why tube preamps might not have any perceptible or noticeable effects on sound at all and I couldn't agree more. Amir's review revealed it indeed introduces distortion, but we humans aren't AP analyzers and I couldn't notice a change. Neither did my younger siblings.

I completely get your point though, and I know you said "no software please" but you might be better off with a software implementation. I love EasyEffects (Linux) and I can say the harmonics effect is as good as it gets. You can even crank it up to the max, but at the end of the day it'll always be a "perfect" effect without the inaccuracies of the real tube thing.

Perhaps you could try investigating if some of the most popular tube amps (Little Dot, Darkvoice SE, etc) apply the tube effect on their RCA outputs.