Are cheap valve (tube) amps as effective as expensive, if adding a touch of distortion is the goal?

[DSJR]

Thanks . I know there are lots of people who love the Croft / Harbeth combo and I generally fall into that bracket. C7 es 3.
My hearing isn't great ,(2 ops for surfers ear) and I'm increasingly finding it hard to listen too my set up as it tends to just overwhelm in the highs.
Maybe it's time to consider a change of Amps. Budget is minimal Pensioner and all that.
Also I seem to enjoy the music more when listening to the system from the adjacent kitchen! The sound in the lounge just gets too much and I have to turn it down to listen. Maybe the room is bouncing the high frequencies around and I need some room treatment.I would say it's moderately soft in nature at the moment, curtains, large rug etc.
I was a stick in the mud record guy, but now trying to live with a (bit perfect) digital source too, but honestly it's not being easy to love.Ive been trying to convince myself for a few years.I can appreciate cd playback in my system in many ways but it's still sounding hard and bright often. Could of course be down to bad recordings being shown up. I am a bit dazed
(old) and confused to be honest.

The C7 ES3 is about as warm and lush-toned as I personally feel a 'modern' speaker should be. Later Derek Hughes-era Spendors could be like that as well, although in the latter case, the cone surrounds harden after ten years or so and the sound suffers badly (brake fluid carefully applied to the surrounds and then wiped off, can restore them for a while. I loved the C7-XD when I heard them, as they now sound more neutral and like the larger 5XD, but judging by your comments above, you'd not prefer them at all. Stick with what you have!

Is your room a lively-acoustic type with bare walls and floors? if so, a thick rug between the speakers and listening position may help. I'd also recommend 4mm gauge speaker wires even in shortish lengths (a minimal suggestion and inspired by my dealer days).

As for amps - ASR devotees can look away please , I'm a long standing Quad fan and, Accuphase apart, the 'sound' or 'non-sound' from these amps never ever sounds 'grainy' or 'harsh/impressive.'

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

The C7 ES3 is about as warm and lush-toned as I personally feel a 'modern' speaker should be. Later Derek Hughes-era Spendors could be like that as well, although in the latter case, the cone surrounds harden after ten years or so and the sound suffers badly (brake fluid carefully applied to the surrounds and then wiped off, can restore them for a while. I loved the C7-XD when I heard them, as they now sound more neutral and like the larger 5XD, but judging by your comments above, you'd not prefer them at all. Stick with what you have!

Is your room a lively-acoustic type with bare walls and floors? if so, a thick rug between the speakers and listening position may help. I'd also recommend 4mm gauge speaker wires even in shortish lengths (a minimal suggestion and inspired by my dealer days).

As for amps - ASR devotees can look away please , I'm a long standing Quad fan and, Accuphase apart, the 'sound' or 'non-sound' from these amps never ever sounds 'grainy' or 'harsh/impressive.'

Interesting comment on Spendor, D! I know there is an outfit on the South Circular who will apparently service my 1989 era S100's,
should I get round to it.
Sierra lx and Rel subs, doing a sterling job in the meantime!

 

[Roland68]

Thanks for the replies. I guess the harmonics I've experienced in the past with tube amps have wet my whistle so to speak. I've quite enjoyed the effect of some. There is like an echo reverb effect which I felt may have given it a spacial effect as well but it has been ever so subtle. But as you quite rightly point out it can be done other ways. That PK may be worth a look for me, and i will give some time to research it better. I have experienced a VST tube emulator with Win Amp that was actually pretty good and gave the same kind of effect as some of the best valve amps I've tried, even if it was kind of over emphasized. I also have an SMSL DAC which can add colour using tube settings, and again it does add an extremely subtle touch of flavour. I don't know why though I just find myself hankering after those little glass tubes again and sticking them somewhere in my audio chain. What is wrong with me!

There are basically three types of tube amplifiers/developers:
- Manufacturers who pay particular attention to good measurement results and low distortion.

- Manufacturers who deliberately shape their amplifiers for a specific tonal sound and usually advertise this as such. This is, of course, a significant alteration of the original recording. Typically, all of a manufacturer's equipment adheres to a certain in-house credo.

- Manufacturers who develop and sell tube amplifiers without much knowledge or interest in either of the above points. The equipment from the same manufacturer can vary greatly, and the range can be anything from excellent to terrible.

Good luck.

 

[RoA]

To the OP. You'll set fire to your house with cheap shit like that

 

[olds1959special]

distortion is bad

 

[fws]

To be honest, for me tubes in headphone amplification were always kind of "why would I ever want those?". I have tubes in my guitar amp, I know what they do, they are integral part of my instrument, as are a very specific speakers. For listening, on headphones in particular, I want to hear the recording, I want to objectively judge it, I want to work with it, and I wouldn't want anyone messing around with the tone I spent ages dialing in, not to mention setting up mics (or you just throw Sennheiser E906 on the cab).

Idea of owning a full vintage setup of turntable record player, full tube amp, and alnico loudspeakers with paper membranes, including leather chair, cigars, and my favorite rum, is not lost on me. But that would be an extra flavor corner in my house if I could afford it.

Then I saw tube headphone amps seem to be mainly running low power triodes that are normally used in preamps only or for like a phase inverter, and aside true and tested double triodes like 12AU7, a lot of them are mystery tubes which people still believe to be ok because apparently everything that has soviet designation must be a military grade super tube Better yet people rave about OTL amps, which is like "WTF" as for me a big part of tube sound actually comes from the transformer saturation. It is the combination of power end tubes and transformer which makes that flowing "liquid" sound which many guitarists chase after (usually not understanding they won't be able to get it at home, at least not without an attenuator, US farmers with miles of land excluded).

I actually have a cheap hybrid Douk U10, as I got a really good deal on it ($30 including taxes and shipping), and it is... crap. Honestly unbranded (Behringer) $7 HA400 is more fun to listen to, and the solidstate Douk U3 just wipes it in every possible aspect. First off, crank it a bit and it just distorts, like actually audibly unlistenably distorts - I would probably get a better sound by running it through 2 Tubescreamers. Then, out of the box it just has thin bass and treble. I replaced 2A4 with probably fake JAN GE 5654W, and bass was back to proper levels and quality, but the treble remained thin. I will give it the tubes used actually made difference and weren't just a buffer, but it is beyond me why would some people rave about U10, there is nothing melodic about the sound it makes, it is just straight worse.

 

[Ropeburn]

To be honest, for me tubes in headphone amplification were always kind of "why would I ever want those?". I have tubes in my guitar amp, I know what they do, they are integral part of my instrument, as are a very specific speakers. For listening, on headphones in particular, I want to hear the recording, I want to objectively judge it, I want to work with it, and I wouldn't want anyone messing around with the tone I spent ages dialing in, not to mention setting up mics (or you just throw Sennheiser E906 on the cab).

Idea of owning a full vintage setup of turntable record player, full tube amp, and alnico loudspeakers with paper membranes, including leather chair, cigars, and my favorite rum, is not lost me. But that would be an extra flavor corner in my house if I could afford it.

Then I saw tube headphone amps seem to be mainly running low power triodes that are normally used in preamps only or for like a phase inverter, and aside true and tested double triodes like 12AU7, a lot of them are mystery tubes which people still believe to be ok because apparently everything that has soviet designation must be a military grade super tube Better yet people rave about OTL amps, which is like "WTF" as for me a big part of tube sound actually comes from the transformer saturation. It is the combination of power end tubes and transformer which makes that flowing "liquid" sound which many guitarists chase after (usually not understanding they won't be able to get it at home, at least not without an attenuator, US farmers with miles of land excluded).

I actually have a cheap hybrid Douk U10, as I got a really good deal on it ($30 including taxes and shipping), and it is... crap. Honestly unbranded (Behringer) $7 HA400 is more fun to listen to, and the solidstate Douk U3 just wipes it in every possible aspect. First off, crank it a bit and it just distorts, like actually audibly unlistenably distorts - I would probably get a better sound by running it through 2 Tubescreamers. Then, out of the box it just has thin bass and treble. I replaced 2A4 with probably fake JAN GE 5654W, and bass was back to proper levels and quality, but the treble remained thin. I will give it the tubes used actually made difference and weren't just a buffer, but it is beyond me why would some people rave about U10, there is nothing melodic about the sound it makes, it is just straight worse.

You'll really want the best and most versatile distortion while making music, with as many options as possible. A personal favourite of mine is wavefolding, a really nasty, (mostly) digital method that is really good for gnarly Techno. Tastes differ between genres and methods and styles, but what we all have in common is that principle: nasty, dirty, gritty distortion for sound design: hell yeah. Audible distortion on the monitoring/playback system? Hell no. It better be squeaky clean so I can hear everything nasty I create in all detail.

The result of simple logic really, for everyone who knows the least bit about music production. Sadly, most "audiophiles" are rather clueless.