Tube amps for headphones are a contradiction

[Pancreas]

Tube amps for headphones seems like a contradiction, as you ears are millimeters away from the headphones. Since tube amps, in essence, are all the same, regardless of application, you would need to drive them at higher volume to actually get the best tone from them, this can't be good for your ears

Unless you use an attenuator, which exists for guitar tube amps, but I don't know, if this exists for headphone tube amps, but it kinda defeats the purpose of it anyway, the attenuator will "attenuate" the tube amp, but also attenuate the tone.

Tube amps to drive a 100watt speaker cabinet, kinda makes sense, but it doesn't make much sense for a tiny pair of headphones regardless if they are $1000 ones

 

[RayDunzl]

"Electrostatic headphone amps are designed specifically for the high-voltage requirements of driving electrostatic headphones, which makes them perfect candidates to use vacuum tubes."

 

[Pancreas]

Maybe the tube amps for headphones are built different from guitar tube amps, I don't know, but in essence, it should be very similar, to get the best tone from them, you'd have to up the volume considerably, so what happens to your hearing?

 

[DVDdoug]

IMO - Tubes are dumb in 2024. And they've been outdated for decades. You CAN make a good tube amp but it's more expensive and more difficult, and they are less energy efficient.

Like Ray says, tubes are high voltage and electrostatic headphones are high voltage so they can make a good match. But transistors & MOSFETs can also be high-voltage.

Maybe the tube amps for headphones are built different from guitar tube amps,

Yes, they are different. Tubes tend to soft-clip when overdriven whereas solid state amps tend to hard clip when overdriven. That's the main reason guitar players tend to prefer tube amps. They like to "saturate" them into distortion. There may also be some "desirable" distortion from the transformer (tube power amps require a transformer between the tubes and speaker). Guitar amps (and associated speaker cabinets) aren't "high fidelity". They have a particular sound that becomes part of the instrument. Most guitar players have their favorite guitar and their favorite amp.

There are solid state guitar amps that saturate like tube amps but it's unlikely that two guitar amps will sound identical (overdriven or not) and if a guitar player likes tube amps you'll never convince him/her to switch to solid state.

Hi-fi amplifiers (tube or solid state) are not supposed to have a sound of their own. A good hi-fi tube amp will sound exactly like a good solid state amp... The ideal is "a straight wire with gain".

Tube amps to drive a 100watt speaker cabinet.

Power isn't really the issue. The highest power amps (1000W or more) are solid state and these days they are usually Class-D.

 

[woppinger]

Tube vs solid state is not really the issue...guitar amplification and music listening systems are COMPLETELY different things (amplifiers, speakers, etc.)

(You wouldn't crank up your stereo to highly distorted levels to plug in and play rock guitar through it? Or listen to "hi-fi" classical music through your guitar rig? Would you?)

 

[mixsit]

Maybe the tube amps for headphones are built different from guitar tube amps, I don't know, but in essence, it should be very similar, to get the best tone from them, you'd have to up the volume considerably, so what happens to your hearing?

Life long guitar/vocals and home studio here. The interests in 'things audio gathered combined along the way as 'nice doses of 'reality. 'healthy'.
I'll offer a 'silly example. How about we'll put a 'quest for fidelity stack here..
Sixteen A/D, D/A recording converters, my insanely fine -all I will ever need speakers :>)
A whole bunch of easy stuff.. DAW- the clean software.
Now ..here, just to keep it clear! Lets skip whole 'piles of stuff that can go/or get put in those 'in between places.
So we get to..
Tape.. LPs.. to get that out of the way.. Software meant to fit into the 'piles above.
Jumping to way easier -for a bit. Guitar amp thing. I loved clean electric when I was doing it. But.. clearly no one (make that 'few..) will put them in the 'quest for fidelity stack.
Further into 'tubes gets me out of my safe zone :>) No doubt there is hardware of extremely high fidelity. Including some -others? shooting for 'nice around dynamic edges? Enough. :>)
A smattering from nice doses of 'reality.
-Trying to keep a bead on that reality.. During a mix, the 'tighter your eye on it'.. well the more fun finding out a 'knob you just turned -and heard.. was the wrong one.
Another.. way easier. Anyone think the sound of their rigs never 'shift even a bit -day to the next'... even the same day?
Yeah. Them 'we are damned fallible ones to keep in our back pocket 'testifying out on the edge here.

 

[gfinlays]

I have 2 tube headphone amps - World Designs HD3S, based on ECL83 triode-pentode tubes, one has a Khadas tone board DAC built in to it to connect to an RPi running Ropieee. You buy them as a kit and build them yourself. I bought the kits without the case and sourced cases elsewhere. With the right transformer settings, they'll drive anything from planar magnetics to 600 ohm dynamics. In a blind test, I can't tell them from a Benchmark HPA4.

There's a lot of nostalgia around tubes, but they sure look nice on a dark evening giving off that nice amber glow.