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Are tubes more musical?

An innocent question, perhaps, but you're asking a bunch of wine aficionados why Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon tastes so much better to you than a $100 Premiere Cru Medoc. My advice is to enjoy what you enjoy.

PS - Last time I checked, Yellow Tail, which tastes like Coca Cola to me, is the most popular red wine in the world, so you're in good company if you love your tubes.
 
An innocent question, perhaps, but you're asking a bunch of wine aficionados why Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon tastes so much better to you than a $100 Premiere Cru Medoc. My advice is to enjoy what you enjoy.

PS - Last time I checked, Yellow Tail, which tastes like Coca Cola to me, is the most popular red wine in the world, so you're in good company if you love your tubes.
I don't think that's either a question or innocent. No matter. The whole point of psychoacoustics is to find if there are any regularities in the relationships between the measurable physics and the perceptions and preferences, and if there are, to characterize those regulatities . Organoleptics is interesting in itself and commercially important in oenology, so it is with psychoacoustics in audio engineering.

You appear to be arguing either that it's a pointless exercise or that there are no regularities to be found.

PS - I'd have thought Apple AirPods are more analogous to the most popular wine in the world than tube amps.
 
the people at diyaudio.com did do it, but i'm at work and can't spend to much time to try to find it back.
So still claimed, still not demonstrated.
 
There are very many hardware and software products for adding controllable distortion. Why not play with those instead?

If anyone wants to go down that road I would suggest finding or organizing a metadata management system so you can save your preferred distortion settings for each recording/collection.

Because… for at many people, organizing that management system

Expends time and energy that is more costly than “auditioning” one or two pieces of gear and allowing the hardware to color the sound to satisfactorily.

Maybe it’s pure luck when hardware tubes matches the preference, or hardware tubes only gets you 90% of the theoretical performance you can get from a software system.

But organizing and managing stuff isn’t enjoyable to me…. Your solution may be superior in sound quality but the effort is sky high.
 
Yeah load dependency is a thing. A DSP can do the same thing though, but in a way more controlled way.
 
It is an esoteric box of magic.

Daniel Dennett often used this wonderful quote from Lee Siegel in relation to the 'magic' of consciousness:

I'm writing a book on magic, I explain, and I'm asked, "Real magic?" By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. "No", I answer: "Conjuring tricks, not real magic." Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.

The magical 'musicality' (whatever that is) of valves/tubes exists in a similar contradictory realm. If the tubes are working properly then they are adding nothing audible (or measurable) to the sound. If they are adding anything audible to the sound then it is obviously distortion which can never be considered musical (at least not for reproduction) or magical and can easily be measured ...
 
Because… for at many people, organizing that management system

Expends time and energy that is more costly than “auditioning” one or two pieces of gear and allowing the hardware to color the sound to satisfactorily.
Which, I believe, closely relates to SIY's point here about demonstrability and to my previous point about the pleasures of esotericism. Proving that the magic is real takes the magic out of it (and it's a slog). For the magic to be fun you have to leave it in the condition of being proposed but unexplored. See also Bluefuzz directly above ^.

Maybe it’s pure luck when hardware tubes matches the preference, or hardware tubes only gets you 90% of the theoretical performance you can get from a software system.

But organizing and managing stuff isn’t enjoyable to me…. Your solution may be superior in sound quality but the effort is sky high.
That's exactly why I refuse to do it and stick with linear for playback. I can't be bothered. And I'm pretty sure gains would not justify even 1% of the effort.
 
Often claimed, never actually demonstrated. See, for example, our futile attempt in another thread to get the principal of Atmasphere to do a properly controlled test.
This statement is false.
We are simply having a disagreement about how to proceed. Right now I'm having trouble trusting him to proceed in good faith.
 
What is it that I’m hearing in my tube preamp and tubed headphone amp that is so romantic, warm, soft around the edges, and smooth, even syrupy sometimes? I’m not talking about hybrid amps or tube buffers. (My headphone amp is an OTL design, my preamp has no transistors in the audio circuit.) Do tubes enhance dynamics? They seem to create a feeling of space and holographic imaging. These qualities make it great for home audio applications. Of course they add distortion but it’s pleasing to the ear. The warm sound of tubes seems perfect for laid back and acoustic music styles like jazz. In my experience, most typical solid state gear can’t perform as well for getting the presentation and emotional impact of music right. Are tubes more musical?
I'll bite quick before running for the hills -

Band limiting and compression aids this effect, as does microphony in the tubes themselves, which can add a kind of gentle 'halo' around the perceived sound. Add a spray of distortion to the music and I dare say it sounds 'thicker' and more 'samey'/nice/whatever.

So, in my current opinion, I'd say compression and slight 'ringing' will give the (false) impression of greater 'depth and ambience' to a recording, as it's squashing up the true dynamic range. I've experienced this in amplifiers, where the rather more powerful model sounds 'dryer' initially, until extended listening shows recording and production differences which aren't as easy to notice by the lower powered and initially slightly 'nicer' smaller model. Yes, a subjective vibe and arguably applicable to me alone ;)
 
Right now I'm having trouble trusting him to proceed in good faith.
Since I do everything in the open and in public for anyone to examine (I'm a scientist, not an amp salesman, this is how we do things), I cannot see why.

We're still waiting.
 
SS is like eating bread with no sauce. :)

Regards
I can't help it - with apologies.

You're obviously not eating the right bread :D

I say that as a local high-class barista told me that my dislike of coffee, is because I've never tasted a 'proper' coffee (I have), I don't go for fancy malt whiskys because I'm too inclined to want to add a mixer (a proper whisky-loving pal of mine nearly fainted when I did that) and that ruins the whole point of loving 'proper' whisky. Same in a way with tea, as adding milk and sugar or sweetener would defeat a delicate expensive tea (good old PG Tips NEEDS milk and sugar and woe betide leaving it to brew more than a few seconds as last time I tried, it stewed up quickly :D)
 
This!

(+1 for number 4...)
One of the more reasoned
I don't think that's either a question or innocent. No matter. The whole point of psychoacoustics is to find if there are any regularities in the relationships between the measurable physics and the perceptions and preferences, and if there are, to characterize those regulatities . Organoleptics is interesting in itself and commercially important in oenology, so it is with psychoacoustics in audio engineering.

You appear to be arguing either that it's a pointless exercise or that there are no regularities to be found.

PS - I'd have thought Apple AirPods are more analogous to the most popular wine in the world than tube amps.

If I had any idea what you're saying, I'd respond. But you seem to be making valid points.
 
What does musical mean?

Instruments and vocals have more harmonic distortion (due to some tube circuits emphasizing this trait more than other tube circuits and most solid state topologies) than what's intended in the original mix hence sounding thicker/more fleshed out and that's what meant by "musical"
 
What does musical mean?
In hifi context it is supposed to mean "serves music better". In other words it does not mean much of anything. It is a rhetoric attempt to elevate one's own personal preferences into something higher and more universal.
 
Instruments and vocals have more harmonic distortion (due to some tube circuits emphasizing this trait more than other tube circuits and most solid state topologies) than what's intended in the original mix hence sounding thicker/more fleshed out and that's what meant by "musical"
So distortion adds musicality? I never thought Death Metal could be more "musical" than Bach.
 
So distortion adds musicality? I never thought Death Metal could be more "musical" than Bach.

2nd harmonic distortion specifically. Audible random distortion spurs on FFT sounds like schiit though
 
In hifi context it is supposed to mean "serves music better". In other words it does not mean much of anything. It is a rhetoric attempt to elevate one's own personal preferences into something higher and more universal.
it's certainly a personal preference, and not universal. I like it, that's why i bought a tube amp setup. I know clean also, that is my main setup with Ncore amps now. But i do know that not everybody likes it and i don't think everybody should like it. But if you enjoy music more with a coloured (distorted) amp like a tube amp, why would you listen to the cleansound-fundamentalists. Just know what you get, why and why not. And never claim that a tube amp is superior to clean amps, because they are not. But i still enjoy them and you may also.
 
And never claim that a tube amp is superior to clean amps, because they are not. But i still enjoy them and you may also
That's a sensible approach. I guess the original question still stands - can you argue that the sound you enjoy is "more musical"? If you can, what is it that's more musical?
 
Since I do everything in the open and in public for anyone to examine (I'm a scientist, not an amp salesman, this is how we do things), I cannot see why.

We're still waiting.
No- I'm still waiting. Perhaps you can be a bit less myopic about this??

You have accused me of a variety of things that are false. So that has caused me, regrettably, because I made the mistake of taking those accusations personally (since I have a lot of respect for you), to lose trust. I hate that.

As best I can make out, we're waiting for you. I sent you a CD in good faith what, a year ago?? Until very recently its been crickets except 'thanks for the CD'.

You accused me of no 'evidence' yet you are well aware of tubes still being around, some 65 years after being declared obsolete. That fact alone should tell you that the evidence is all around you.

Did it occur to you to ask tube users why they prefer tubes? I've done exactly that (although usually its volunteered to me) and over 47 years of being in the business one of the top and very consistent answers is 'solid state is bright and harsh'. Now its a fact this isn't true of all solid state amps, especially newer ones but apparently so many people react that way that its able to keep an industry afloat.

Now I experienced brightness with an solid state amplifier and I've been gaslighted on it. If its really not bright then I'd really like to know what's going on. But instead I get personal attacks.

You might consider also that the tube industry does not rely on high end audio to stay in business. Its the musical instrument industry that does that with its much larger sales volume. Ask a guitar player about why they use tubes and a very common answer has to do with the 'sound' and how its smoother (IOW, not harsh). But you don't need any of that consistent testimony to know something's up. All you really need as evidence is that tubes are still being made. That's an economic fact.

Again, usually when a succeeding art shows up, the prior art goes away. When this does not happen, in all cases its because the succeeding art did not outperform the prior art. So the prior art continues. We've seen this in two different areas in high end audio - tubes and LPs. Both quite contentious (and for decades) on any website (such as this one).

All this comes under the heading of 'evidence'. Its not proof. Its one thing for anecdote to be dismissed but this is literally decades of it we're talking about, enough to sustain several industries.

Tube amplifier power has always been expensive, which is why there are horn speakers. I've been telling people for decades that if I could get the sound I want from solid state I'd do it in a heartbeat; I don't like the expense, the heat, the reliability issues of tubes. But I was able to develop a solid state amp that did that and I embraced it- the tube power amps are gone in my system. One thing about the class D that replaced my tube amps is that its distortion vs frequency characteristic is a ruler flat line across the audio band. Oddly, if I say that on this site that is considered 'anecdote' but if I put up a graph its considered a 'measurement' and evidence. Heck, the graph could be faked. So I've come to regard that reaction around here as a bit ridiculous.
 
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