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Tube gear opinions

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phoenixdogfan

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I've owned tube gear in my time. When I first started listening to it, I was knocked out by the "palpable presence" and warmth. But then I noticed something: It made everything I listened to sound warm and present. Eventually I noticed Johnny Rotten started to sound a lot like Tony Bennett and Keith Richard's guitar sounded a lot like Chet Atkins.

That's when I realized that the whole tube sound was a coloration that overlays anything and everything played through it, and, knowing what it is and how to listen for it, has made it an irredeemably cloying alteration to the original music.

Tube sound is now, for me, the audiophile equivalent of being young and studid and drinking a whole fifth of peach Schnaaps because someone gave it away to me.

Better by far to stay with neutral spirits and sound reproduction equipment IMHO.
 

egellings

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Everclear! That's as straight a hootch you ever come by. It's nearly 200 proof pure ethanol. I say enjoy whatever tickles you nun-handles, be it class D, class AB, a singing Tesla coil, a single 300B, or whatever. You just don't get to call it transparent-it's just your favorite tone control.
 

H-713

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I've owned tube gear in my time. When I first started listening to it, I was knocked out by the "palpable presence" and warmth. But then I noticed something: It made everything I listened to sound warm and present. Eventually I noticed Johnny Rotten started to sound a lot like Tony Bennett and Keith Richard's guitar sounded a lot like Chet Atkins.

That's when I realized that the whole tube sound was a coloration that overlays anything and everything played through it, and, knowing what it is and how to listen for it, has made it an irredeemably cloying alteration to the original music.

Tube sound is now, for me, the audiophile equivalent of being young and studid and drinking a whole fifth of peach Schnaaps because someone gave it away to me.

Better by far to stay with neutral spirits and sound reproduction equipment IMHO.


At least in my own experience, it's only the crappy tube amps that really do that. My Heathkit AA-121, for example, sounds like, well, an amplifier. It's not particularly colored. Same goes for the 6L6 amp I built a while back. But... they glow in the dark.
 

rdenney

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In the amateur radio world, high-power (500 to 1500 watts into 50 ohms impedance) RF amplifiers may be tube-powered or solid-state. In most cases, the tube amplifiers are cheaper for the amount of power provided. The solid-state amps are easier to use and harder to abuse, but any abuse will blow them in a hurry. My own amp uses three 811A triodes (actually, I'm using Svetlana 572b's). It was made by a premium brand (Ten Tec) but was their "budget" model.

I think it's funny that the watt/dollar ratio favors tubes in the RF world but goes the other way in the audio world.

Rick "whose audio amps are solid-state" Denney
 

Descartes

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“In the end it is just entertainment and illusion”

I like that be amplifiers because they glow in the dark :) and I also use digital Purifi amplifier for better accuracy!
 

ta240

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.... I don't think of it as warm; .....

When I hear tube sound described as warm I generally think of design or implementation problems leading to poor quality sound. Tubes running outside of their best bias and voltage ranges; old worn out components; out of spec resistors and capacitors and bad power supply design.

I don't hear the 2nd harmonics that SE tube amps produce as warm. Maybe some define warm differently than I do; but a well designed and built SE tube amp should have a clear, detailed sound with harmonics that some (gasp) enjoy. A PP tube amp will have less harmonics and should still be clean and detailed.

I have heard a cheap little cube style tube amp that sounded warm but I did not see that as a good thing. The music was lacking life and detail; I think it was just a lot of regular noise and not harmonic distortion that was muddling the sound with it. Many people seem to think that is the "tube sound". My current tube amps sound nothing like that.

I think a bit of distortion and the harmonics may mask some of the harshness that some music has. I did one of those online tests to see if you can tell the difference between different resolution sound clips and I was able to pick the higher resolution ones pretty often by picking the clip that I didn't enjoy.

I have both and while tube amps are fun they are lower power and generate a lot of heat and the tubes wear out. I went to a lot of trouble to set up a double blind ABX level matched test between a Dynaco ST 70 and a Neurochrome Mod 86 amp and could not tell them apart ... I would highly recomend you try this yourself as it will really open your eyes and set you free from a lot of BS surrounding the hobby.

Which is funny, because I take that as the ST70 is just as good as the Mod 86 :) and a lot more fun to build. Granted I did the LM3886DR but still the SE tube amp was much more fun to build and not that much more expensive. It is all perspective. And while I never did a blind ABX test between the two I found myself turning the LM3886DR off after a couple minutes of listening and moving on to other things rather than sitting back and enjoying it. After a couple months of that I dismantled it and moved on. Is my tendency to sit and listen to the tube amp based on some psychological preconception I have about the sound? Could be. All I know is I enjoy listening when it is on so that is what I use.
Who knows, maybe a substandard power supply was hurting the LM3886DR performance the same way poorly done tube amps hurt their reputation.

I love tube amps but if someone said "here's $2000 to spend on a prebuilt amp" I have to admit I wouldn't buy a tube amp with it. But as something I can build from a schematic then a tube amp with point to point wiring would be way more fun for me. And tubes tend to be forgiving if you make a mistake during the build, transistors... not so much.

.... since what ultimately matters is the enjoyment the listener gets.

well said!
 
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eddantes

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When I listen to an ancient (50s?) Magnavox SE EL84 amp thats directly wired (no x-over) to ancient (50s?) Phillips 12" FR speakers in refigerator sized open backed cabs ... I do it not for the SQ, but for the romance of the thing.

75 years ago, hard-working engineers did their best with the technology of the time to design and build these things for the context in which they lived...

And now here I am, playing 21st century electronic music, made on instruments that were not yet conceived at the time; being pushed to that amp via Internet > WiFi > CCA > Optical cable > DAC > 75 year old tube amp.... Now if that isn't cool and fancyful, I don't know what is.

Does it sound good? Yeah - to me it sounds good. Does it sound accurate? Probably not - with SINAD in the 50s (if I'm lucky) and an very uneven FR of those drivers and probably allkinds of weird cancellations and combfiltering from those cabs.... I don't care tho! That's not the purpose of that system.

I like to think that somewhere there are ghosts of those engineers, pleased as punch, that their creations are still answering their purpose. I am happy to be the enabler of that.
 

egellings

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I heard one of the large old Zenith consoles in a garage once, and it had no right to sound that good-not audiophile accurate, but musical. One little 6BQ5 peanut pentode per channel did it. I'm surprised at how much was gotten out of so little.
 

egellings

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I don't use tubes for the phono section because of the noise and characteristics that change with age, making accurate RIAA response difficult to maintain long term. Line stage is their best place to shine.
 

MattHooper

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I've owned tube gear in my time. When I first started listening to it, I was knocked out by the "palpable presence" and warmth. But then I noticed something: It made everything I listened to sound warm and present. Eventually I noticed Johnny Rotten started to sound a lot like Tony Bennett and Keith Richard's guitar sounded a lot like Chet Atkins.

That's when I realized that the whole tube sound was a coloration that overlays anything and everything played through it, and, knowing what it is and how to listen for it, has made it an irredeemably cloying alteration to the original music.

Tube sound is now, for me, the audiophile equivalent of being young and studid and drinking a whole fifth of peach Schnaaps because someone gave it away to me.

Better by far to stay with neutral spirits and sound reproduction equipment IMHO.

I can understand that reaction.

On the other hand, I find sound systems using any type of amplification to be "colored" to my ear. So for instance when I replaced my CJ tube amps with a Bryston solid state amp, in technical terms it was neutral and not coloring the sound in that sense. But in practice, systems as a whole (especially speakers) have a "sound" that to me becomes quickly "the same" once I've heard it. So with the SS amp I got a "different sound" from the tube driven system, and in a similarly reliable/predictable way to my ears. Once I heard for instance how drum cymbals sounded with the SS amp I pretty much knew what they'd sound like in most recordings, same with horns, strings, you name it. So for me it's all a compromise so I'll pick the coloration I can live with best, which for me nudges it towards more "organic" and less "mechanical" sounding.
 

levimax

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Which is funny, because I take that as the ST70 is just as good as the Mod 86 :) and a lot more fun to build.
I take it as -62 dB SINAD, which Amir measured my ST70 at, is good enough for human beings... or at least for me. The Mod 86 measures orders of magnitude better in every way and it is noticeably quieter with my ears up to the speaker but I did the ABX test at normal listening distance. I can tell you when I was setting up the ABX test, which involved building some attenuators to match volume, I was convinced that there was a huge difference between the amps but once the levels were matched all the differences magically disappeared. I would highly recommend to anyone really interested in this hobby to compare amps (or other components) level matched and blind for your self. It is one thing to read about it but it is an entirely different experience to do it your self. It is both a humbling and confidence building experience.
 

H-713

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I'm of the opinion that most people who hate tube equipment haven't used any well-designed tube equipment. The first tube line stage that I built when I was 17 had THD+N of about 0.04% using 12AU7s (which have miserable linearity compared to better tubes like the 6NS7). Knowing what I know now, I could probably get that down below 0.01% using more linear tubes and better design practices.
 

Sal1950

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I'm of the opinion that most people who hate tube equipment haven't used any well-designed tube equipment.
How could anyone "hate" tube gear ? It's just so cool to look at in the dark sitting on the audio shrine..
 

Helicopter

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In the amateur radio world, high-power (500 to 1500 watts into 50 ohms impedance) RF amplifiers may be tube-powered or solid-state. In most cases, the tube amplifiers are cheaper for the amount of power provided. The solid-state amps are easier to use and harder to abuse, but any abuse will blow them in a hurry. My own amp uses three 811A triodes (actually, I'm using Svetlana 572b's). It was made by a premium brand (Ten Tec) but was their "budget" model.

I think it's funny that the watt/dollar ratio favors tubes in the RF world but goes the other way in the audio world.

Rick "whose audio amps are solid-state" Denney
The cheapest tubes in my SET amp are the 845 radio transmission tubes. They should obviously cost the most, but since they're radio transmission tubes...

I have been eyeing the Russian GM70 tubes for some real SET hifi.
 

levimax

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The cheapest tubes in my SET amp are the 845 radio transmission tubes. They should obviously cost the most, but since they're radio transmission tubes...

I have been eyeing the Russian GM70 tubes for some real SET hifi.
845s..... 1000 volts on the plates... Sounds like fun ..... What could go wrong? :)
 

Helicopter

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845s..... 1000 volts on the plates... Sounds like fun ..... What could go wrong? :)
Yeah. They are so dangerous to kids and pets, and might burn the house down. If you open the amp, prepare to die...

But thoriated filaments are so pretty.

I keep the amp up high enough no one should fall on it, and I do not leave it on.

Next SET amp will probably be an EL34 or 300B.
 

SIY

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I don't use tubes for the phono section because of the noise and characteristics that change with age, making accurate RIAA response difficult to maintain long term. Line stage is their best place to shine.

That is very much not the case with the phono stages I've designed and built. And not just mine, but those are the ones I have experience with.
 
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