Tube Rolling: Does it Make a Difference?

[MattHooper]

Nope, not really.

Microphone choice on vocals alone has a huge impact on the sound of voices.

Correct. It can impact whether the voice sounds more or less natural.

That's why the guys who record dialogue for the movies I work on are careful with mic placement and mic choices/room reflections etc, to reduce obviously artificial artifacts in voices and obtain more natural voice recordings.

It's also why dialogue editors work assiduously to make production tracks and ADR sound more natural.

Hence why broadcasters pay so much attention to it and intentionally pick mics that make them sound good / better.

With one of the goals (among many) of obtaining more natural, less artifact-ridden vocal tracks.

And it's why as I said I spent time on making a baby sound "more real" and "less artificial." Even within the confines of imperfection there is a continuum to notice. Just as in movies themselves, where even though it's ultimately all artificial, there is still a continuum to notice between "more realistic" (e.g. in sets, script, acting, cinematography etc) and "less realistic."

Again, in no way do I mean to impugn how you personally approach audio! I'm just pointing out there certainly seem odd implications for audio in general, and in particular it would be essentially impossible to do my sound job if I thought the same way. I just did some horse and carriages for a time period show and my efforts were devoted to artificially cobbling together sound toward the goal of making it "sound more convincingly like the sound of horses pulling carriages." And if I failed, I'd be flagged by people in the mix on the grounds that it wasn't convincingly real sounding. Much of the time, although we certainly take some artistic liscence depending on the situation, if my efforts were not devoted to making sound "more like the real thing you see on screen" then I don't know what I'd be doing.

 

[watchnerd]

Correct. It can impact whether the voice sounds more or less natural.

That's why the guys who record dialogue for the movies I work on are careful with mic placement and mic choices/room reflections etc, to reduce obviously artificial artifacts in voices and obtain more natural voice recordings.

It's also why dialogue editors work assiduously to make production tracks and ADR sound more natural.




With one of the goals (among many) of obtaining more natural, less artifact-ridden vocal tracks.

And it's why as I said I spent time on making a baby sound "more real" and "less artificial." Even within the confines of imperfection there is a continuum to notice.

Again, in no way do I mean to impugn how you personally approach audio! I'm just pointing out there certainly seem odd implications for audio in general, and in particular it would be essentially impossible to do my sound job if I thought the same way. I just did some horse and carriages for a time period show and my efforts were devoted to artificially cobbling together sound toward the goal of making it "sound more convincingly like the sound of horses pulling carriages." And if I failed, I'd be flagged by people in the mix on the grounds that it wasn't convincingly real sounding. Much of the time, although we certainly take some artistic liscence depending on the situation, if my efforts were not devoted to making sound "more like the real thing you see on screen" then I don't know what I'd be doing.

Even when I record my own bass, using my own mics, in my own living room, and play it back in the same room, and do my best to make it sound as close as I can to what I hear in person....

It's never very close to live.

2 channel stereo, itself, is not realistic.

 

[MattHooper]

Even when I record my own bass, using my own mics, in my own living room, and play it back in the same room, and do my best to make it sound as close as I can to what I hear in person....

It's never very close to live.

2 channel stereo, itself, is not realistic.

Since I've been long fascinated by real vs reproduced sound, you are unlikely to find a harsher critic than me on this. I think I find a lot of what passes for "realistic" in high end audio systems to sound too artificial.

But, again, I don't see the point of ignoring that within imperfection there is a continuum to notice. One may as well say "since instantaneous teleportation is impossible, there's no reason to notice differences in car performance, or that one mode of transportation will get you there faster than another."

Anyway, over 'n out. Thanks for the chat on the subject.

 

[Doodski]

Even when I record my own bass, using my own mics, in my own living room, and play it back in the same room, and do my best to make it sound as close as I can to what I hear in person....

It's never very close to live.

2 channel stereo, itself, is not realistic.

I've been to RUSH and Queensrÿche concerts and both sounded like the CDs. It was very close, at least on my stereo of that era it was. They are that good.

 

[watchnerd]

Since I've been long fascinated by real vs reproduced sound, you are unlikely to find a harsher critic than me on this. I think I find a lot of what passes for "realistic" in high end audio systems to sound too artificial.

But, again, I don't see the point of ignoring that within imperfection there is a continuum to notice. One may as well say "since instantaneous teleportation is impossible, there's no reason to notice differences in car performance, or that one mode of transportation will get you there faster than another."

Anyway, over 'n out. Thanks for the chat on the subject.

The point is that "The Absolute Sound" fantasy perpetrated by Harry Pearson is not one I agree with.

Prima facie I don't buy into it.

Yes, it's a spectrum, to the extent that movies are a spectrum on "suspension of disbelief", but the vast majority of the time I would never mistake reproduced music for reality.

So, yeah, I don't believe in the idea that the goal of hi fi is to make it sound like Fritz Reiner and the CSO are in my living room.

What I do believe in is that hi fi can create an *artistic interpretation* that conveys some of the artistic intent and emotion of being at the live performance.

So pick the fake you like that gives you those feelings.

 

[watchnerd]

I've been to RUSH and Queensrÿche concerts and both sounded like the CDs. It was very close, at least on my stereo of that era it was. They are that good.

Milli Vanilli was the same.

 

[Poultrygeist]

William Bruce Cameron

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Hello All,

The biggest things that you will measure in tubes are noise and distortion.

Where you may see tube FR changes is where the higher tube amp output impedance interacts with variable load impedance. Think speaker loads or headphone loads.

I am speaking of measurable stuff nothing subjective.

Do you believe tubes are or were in the 40s - 50s - 60s manufactured for flat frequency response from 20 hz to 20khz? Was the range of human hearing even relevant to audio products then? I don't know why anyone would assume tubes have flat fr and all sound the same. I agree most sound similar, but many are not close, especially new production sound different from one another.

 

[pseudoid]

View attachment 169756

But it also counts that @PierreV bothered to check!

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Matt, you have just had a real first hand experience with your ear/brain fooling you into thinking it had a huge change in performance. You would swear on a stack of Bibles that the change was real, very large and anyone could hear it. But, when tested, it would not be noticeable. That is how over powering and amazing the effect is. This is why subjectivists have fits about measurements. To them and your own experience it is real. Your brain is saying this is real and huge. That is why it is so tricky. Even Amir is NOT immune to the effect. It affects everyone. There is no way to out think it.

It is amazing isn't it? When you really get to wrap your head around the idea, it is an eye opener to discount so much of the audio worlds marketing mumbo jumbo crap. Until it happens to you it is hard to believe. Heck, I was tuning in an EQ for my sub awhile back and made a bunch of big changes to really dial it in perfectly. Then when I had "arrived" and was all set to call it a day, I checked the sub and found out it WAS TURNED OFF. I had turned it off a few hours before and forgot to turn it on again. That was yet another slap in my face at how strong the brain is in fooling us. It really is amazing when you think about it. Thanks for a great post!

Butt he wasn't expecting to hear a difference. why is this deception happening to him to you suppose? Is he lying when he says he was not expecting a difference?

Actually I think these are more powerful tubes. He hears correctly. It's more powerful also they're new.

 

[watchnerd]

Do you believe tubes are or were in the 40s - 50s - 60s manufactured for flat frequency response from 20 hz to 20khz? Was the range of human hearing even relevant to audio products then? I don't know why anyone would assume tubes have flat fr and all sound the same. I agree most sound similar, but many are not close, especially new production sound different from one another.

Many of the tubes used in audio today were originally made for *far* higher bandwidth than needed audio.

e.g.

The 6922 family tubes used in my headphone amp were commonly used for Tektronix oscilloscopes.

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Where is the evidence of this ?
I mean have the perceived differences between tubes been objectively verified ?
Also do not confuse rolling power tubes or not really suited tubes or tubes with substantially different gain and or transformers / loads (in non- or low-feedback designs) with a simple gain stage.

See what you seem to be missing people is that all tubes even of the same type are substantially different in construction. And they were not designed to sound the same.

You should understand that tubes were not made to the same specification, even the same tube types. And there was no STANDARD for frequency response (not to mention many tubes used in audio amplifiers were not designed for audio) back in the post WW II period that I am aware of. Are you? I've not seen references to 20 hz - 20 khz until like the 1970s.

SO:

would it not be stranger for the tubes to sound alike than it would be for them to sound different?

Many of the tubes used in audio today were originally made for *far* higher bandwidth than needed audio.

e.g.

The 6922 family tubes used in my headphone amp were commonly used for Tektronix oscilloscopes.

I have no idea what that is. But were tubes designed for flat frequency response in the audio band to the same spec? Military tubes were made to tighter tolerances but what does that mean? +/- 3 db? 10? 1?

 

[watchnerd]

I have no idea what that is.

Then we can't talk until you read more about tube history.

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Replacing my TT with a DAC would take away all the masochist joy that comes with aligning cartridges.

Some people enjoy driving stick shift, when in the mood.

I just bought a B&O off of ebey and I love the single button press automation.

 

[watchnerd]

I just bought a B&O off of ebey and I love the single button press automation.

eww

 

[MattHooper]

Butt he wasn't expecting to hear a difference. why is this deception happening to him to you suppose? Is he lying when he says he was not expecting a difference?

Actually I think these are more powerful tubes. He hears correctly. It's more powerful also they're new.

Though I wasn't expecting any particular sonic difference, which likely means it wasn't an expectation bias in particular, that's not the only form of sighted bias. I still could have been imagining the differences.

Also, I'm pretty sure from what I've since that, taken together, tubes and the full amp circuit, I'm likely not getting any more power out of the KT120s vs the 6550s. (I think the amp puts a limit on that, and that the amp would have had to be designed to specifically take advantage of a higher power tube. At least that's what I think I've gleaned from conversations about those tubes).

 

[Doodski]

Many of the tubes used in audio today were originally made for *far* higher bandwidth than needed audio.

e.g.

The 6922 family tubes used in my headphone amp were commonly used for Tektronix oscilloscopes.

I had a all tube Tektronix O-scope with a perfect CRT trace, big silver front, red and black knobs and controls and it worked perfectly too. I used it for nostalgia at my workbench for maybe 3 weeks. It worked well and tested very well. Gorgeous beast. Everybody commented on it.

 

[dfuller]

Military tubes were made to tighter tolerances but what does that mean? +/- 3 db? 10? 1?

It means they were closer to the target electrical spec. Think gain, transconductance, cathode current, inter-electrode capacitances, etc etc.

think the amp puts a limit on that, and that the amp would have had to be designed to specifically take advantage of a higher power tube. At least that's what I think I've gleaned from conversations about those tubes

Yep, the power supply and the output transformer are ultimately the limiting factors here, not the tube. Run a pair of 6L6GCs at 500V and well into class AB into a big well made OT and you'll get about 50 watts from them before they clip. Run a pair of KT88s at 300V in Class A p-p and you'd be lucky to get 30 watts before clipping.

 

[DualTriode]

Do you believe tubes are or were in the 40s - 50s - 60s manufactured for flat frequency response from 20 hz to 20khz? Was the range of human hearing even relevant to audio products then? I don't know why anyone would assume tubes have flat fr and all sound the same. I agree most sound similar, but many are not close, especially new production sound different from one another.

Hello,

What assumptions are you speaking about?

The assumptions seem to be all yours.

The bulk of the tubes you are speaking of were made for the war machines. “JAN” is a US Joint Army And Navy specification for military use and largely designed for Radio Frequency applications.

For example the 5670 discussed in this thread is a RF tube.

In terms of audio we test em, if they work we use em.

I could not find test plots on my drive for a 5670 so here are a couple of plots of a 12B4A headphone amplifier including shunt regulated Power Supply and Transendar output transformer. Note that the FR is mostly flat from 20 to 20k. The bulk of the distortion + noise in the lower frequencies is from the output transformer and 1/f noise, still not bad.

Thanks DT

 

[watchnerd]

It means they were closer to the target electrical spec. Think gain, transconductance, cathode current, inter-electrode capacitances, etc etc.

G shock resistance, too, in some cases.