Tube sound - what the artist/engineer intended?

[AudioFanMan]

Love the reply's!

Again, Im a tube fan.
I went to the ACA 1.8's as they are class A, and I wanted something for informal listening, kind of like the musics on but I am running around the house not worrying about loosing 0.0001% of the life of a pair of $$$ tubes...

The H2V2 has not yet ever been hooked up to my tube amps, although Im not against the idea I simply dont feel the need...

When I turn the phono preamp on, the signal is sent through these on the way to
Elsinore Speakers. I believe any and every audiofool will drool over is sound...

I only mentioned the H2V2 as there were a bunch of "Never Tube" folks
that might be curious about what all of this good distortion stuff is all about..

 

[egellings]

or just get one of these...

AT-SB727

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View attachment 479145

Git 'er done.

 

[wadude]

The warm glow of tubes is great until the power tubes start cherryin’!

 

[egellings]

The warm glow of tubes is great until the power tubes start cherryin’!

You must do the necessary genuflections with millivoltmeter in hand in front of your tube amps on a regular basis to check the plate current and keep it in check. Incantations regarding plate current and grid voltage should be reverently recited while attending to the tuber's most sacrosanct of ceremonies.

 

[wadude]

Just don’t sprinkle them with holy water!

 

[egellings]

Just don’t sprinkle them with holy water!

Not when it's on, for sure. I sprinkle the holy water on mine while incanting the 8 beatitubes over them.

 

[Robin L]

Maybe what's going on here is that 1950s/1970s recordings have some sonic issues that are obscured when reproduced on vintage gear. I remember someone writing that they were responsible for tape to digital transfers of Frank Sinatra's Capitol recordings. As it turns out, the original grey label Capitol issues had a touch of compression and the first CDs had uncompressed transfers. Some sonic flaws are audible on the CDs that might not have been on the original recording when it was first transferred to disc. In any case, I had a system that had a decent turntable with a decent arm, a pair of small floorstanding speakers and a Scott 299B integrated amp. I did hear these records, same turntable, different amp, sometimes the same speakers. There was more treble exposed, meaning there was also more surface noise and audible hiss. And the CD transfers, played back through the same solid-state amplification, had an "edge" on the sound, not present when playing through the Scott 299B. This is probably as good an example I can think of demonstrating a situation where tube replay would get closer to the original "sound", a wayback machine to the 1950s.

There's more recent transfers/masterings of these recordings. Tidal has a deluxe edition of "Only the Lonely", 2018 mix 24/48kHz. I find this mastering better than the first CD issue, Capitol CDP 7 48471 2, issued in 1987.

 

[Deleted member 87496]

Maybe what's going on here is that 1950s/1970s recordings have some sonic issues that are obscured when reproduced on vintage gear. I remember someone writing that they were responsible for tape to digital transfers of Frank Sinatra's Capitol recordings. As it turns out, the original grey label Capitol issues had a touch of compression and the first CDs had uncompressed transfers. Some sonic flaws are audible on the CDs that might not have been on the original recording when it was first transferred to disc. In any case, I had a system that had a decent turntable with a decent arm, a pair of small floorstanding speakers and a Scott 299B integrated amp. I did hear these records, same turntable, different amp, sometimes the same speakers. There was more treble exposed, meaning there was also more surface noise and audible hiss. And the CD transfers, played back through the same solid-state amplification, had an "edge" on the sound, not present when playing through the Scott 299B. This is probably as good an example I can think of demonstrating a situation where tube replay would get closer to the original "sound", a wayback machine to the 1950s.

There's more recent transfers/masterings of these recordings. Tidal has a deluxe edition of "Only the Lonely", 2018 mix 24/48kHz. I find this mastering better than the first CD issue, Capitol CDP 7 48471 2, issued in 1987.

I love those old Sinatra records. When my children were infants, we played them in the background when trying to lull them to sleep. Worked like a charm - they of course had no idea how much dark heartbreak those albums expressed. Ahh to be innocent again.

 

[Deleted member 87496]

Not when it's on, for sure. I sprinkle the holy water on mine while incanting the 8 beatitubes over them.

haha, funny! Music deserves our reverence...on account how lucky we are to enjoy it, maybe even be transformed by it.

 

[wadude]

I recall hearing an acoustic 78 reproduced via a vintage, high quality acoustic player. No question that there was something fundamentally different about that sound, sounding much more "alive" in spite of suffering from restricted frequency response. The Nimbus record company made a number of CDs where acoustic 78s were reproduced via vintage gear, recorded in a surround sound format in a room with good acoustic characteristics. Those CDs, compared to hearing the same sort of recording via a vintage player, were 'meh'.

Is it the best place to post this, hard to know but last night I had my first opportunity to see close up an Edison cylinder player.

 

[Sal1950]

I often listen to albums recorded in the 40's, 50's, and early-mid 60's - not just jazz (Parker, Coltrane, Miles), but blues (Howlin' Wolf, Skip James, Bessie), country (Hank, Cash, Patsy), early rock and roll (Elvis, Chuck, Sun Record compilations, Beatles), folk (Guthrie, Baez, Dylan), gospel (Soul Stirrers, Mahalia) - LOVE music from those seminal days of American music, a golden age of American artistry. About 50% of my current listening are albums from this era.

I listen to much of the same but as to your friends comment, NO
Yes all this music was created on tube gear so why compound the distortion by using tube gear if it isn't something completely transparent, no impossibe but rare.

 

[Sal1950]

There's more recent transfers/masterings of these recordings. Tidal has a deluxe edition of "Only the Lonely", 2018 mix 24/48kHz. I find this mastering better than the first CD issue, Capitol CDP 7 48471 2, issued in 1987.

I have most of the CD collection 1998s The Capitol Years. I'm not sure how many digital transfers were done of these albums but these are mainly great sounding transfers though I don't get too worried over them. I don't expect SOTA sound for 1958 but still love the music. As to Only The Lonely here's whats on my CD. With a DR13 for everything except one song I imagine compression was used at some place but by today standards this is BIG DR

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: Sings for Only the Lonely (1998 UK Remaster) / Artist: Frank Sinatra
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR Peak RMS Duration Title [codec]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR13 -0.00 dB -19.08 dB 4:09 01 - Only The Lonely [flac]
DR13 -0.22 dB -18.70 dB 3:46 02 - Angel Eyes [flac]
DR13 -1.25 dB -19.86 dB 5:13 03 - What's New [flac]
DR13 -0.69 dB -19.81 dB 4:17 04 - It's A Lonesome Old Town [flac]
DR12 -0.36 dB -20.76 dB 4:50 05 - Willow Weep For Me [flac]
DR13 -0.00 dB -20.63 dB 5:46 06 - Good-Bye [flac]
DR13 -0.05 dB -18.94 dB 4:46 07 - Blues In The Night [flac]
DR13 -0.00 dB -19.92 dB 4:03 08 - Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry [flac]
DR13 -1.22 dB -22.15 dB 3:18 09 - Ebb Tide [flac]
DR13 -0.09 dB -18.46 dB 4:48 10 - Spring Is Here [flac]
DR13 -1.20 dB -19.82 dB 5:16 11 - Gone With The Wind [flac]
DR15 -0.00 dB -22.81 dB 4:24 12 - One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) [flac]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of files: 12
Official DR value: DR13

Sampling rate: 44100 Hz
Average bitrate: 584kbs
Bits per sample: 16 bit

Dr14 T.meter 1.0.16

 

[Deleted member 87496]

I listen to much of the same but as to your friends comment, NO
Yes all this music was created on tube gear so why compound the distortion by using tube gear if it isn't something completely transparent, no impossibe but rare.

To be clear and just to his meaning, it wasn't so much on what gear the music was produced, but how the artist/producer/etc. expected ("intended") people at home to listen to them - on a tube amp, the only option at the time. My buddy meant that the home tube coloration would have been factored into the final recording by its engineers and producers. If SS was available, they would have tailored their final recording for the greater transparency of SS, which they undoubtedly did when SS amps finally became common in homes (around 1966-7?). My buddy is highly empathic, way too much in my opinion, likes to see things from another's point of view. This is him imagining himself as an audio engineer in the 50s...lol.

 

[Deleted member 87496]

View attachment 480754View attachment 480755
Is it the best place to post this, hard to know but last night I had my first opportunity to see close up an Edison cylinder player.

Wow, I love this kind of history...many thanks for sharing. I wonder how it measures...haha.

 

[Robin L]

View attachment 480754View attachment 480755
Is it the best place to post this, hard to know but last night I had my first opportunity to see close up an Edison cylinder player.

I worked at a record store—Ray Avery's Rare Records—that sold Edison cylinders, players and your choice of steel or pine needles.

 

[levimax]

To be clear and just to his meaning, it wasn't so much on what gear the music was produced, but how the artist/producer/etc. expected ("intended") people at home to listen to them - on a tube amp, the only option at the time. My buddy meant that the home tube coloration would have been factored into the final recording by its engineers and producers. If SS was available, they would have tailored their final recording for the greater transparency of SS, which they undoubtedly did when SS amps finally became common in homes (around 1966-7?). My buddy is highly empathic, way too much in my opinion, likes to see things from another's point of view. This is him imagining himself as an audio engineer in the 50s...lol.

I would challenge your buddy to a level matched ABX blind test between his tube amp and a modern SS amp. It is a bit of a project to set up but for me at least it was well worth it. I was unable to tell a ST-70 from a modern SS amp (Neurochrome) and either could anyone else that tried it when I had it set up. With some of the crazy "no feedback" 300B SET type amps some people can hear a difference but that was NOT what was being used by the engineers back in the day. They were using engineered high quality tube amps which for most people and most situations are going to be indistinguishable from modern SS amps.

 

[Sal1950]

To be clear and just to his meaning, it wasn't so much on what gear the music was produced, but how the artist/producer/etc. expected ("intended") people at home to listen to them - on a tube amp, the only option at the time. My buddy meant that the home tube coloration would have been factored into the final recording by its engineers and producers. If SS was available, they would have tailored their final recording for the greater transparency of SS, which they undoubtedly did when SS amps finally became common in homes (around 1966-7?). My buddy is highly empathic, way too much in my opinion, likes to see things from another's point of view. This is him imagining himself as an audio engineer in the 50s...lol.

I do understand his point but to expand on it the folks at home during the era were in the main listening on these tube amp'd Hi-Fi's LOL
His thought that recordings were tailored for playback on anything is just mainly wrong, if anything, like today some were thinking about how it might
sound over AM radio..
Truthfullly, from Wilma Cozart Fine productions of Mercury Records classical division, to Phil Spectors "Wall of Sound" rock, they were just trying to record to tape the very best Hi-Fi they could get.
The best we can do today is to have a system that will as accurately as possible reproduce what they tried to capture with their mikes. SOTA audio today is Solid State and has been since the late 1970s

 

[Robin L]

I do understand his point but to expand on it the folks at home during the era were in the main listening on these tube amp'd Hi-Fi's LOL
His thought that recordings were tailored for playback on anything is just mainly wrong, if anything, like today some were thinking about how it might
sound over AM radio..
Truthfullly, from Wilma Cozart Fine productions of Mercury Records classical division, to Phil Spectors "Wall of Sound" rock, they were just trying to record to tape the very best Hi-Fi they could get.
The best we can do today is to have a system that will as accurately as possible reproduce what they tried to capture with their mikes. SOTA audio today is Solid State and has been since the late 1970s

I really don't think Phil Spector intended to produce the very best Hi-Fi when he made his highly compressed, distorted and muddy "Wall of Sound" productions. I suspect his intention was to make a recording that would jump out of a 5" x 7" speaker in the dashboard of a chrome chariot. Those "Living Presence" recordings mostly hold up compared to modern recordings, in large part because the intention was to make the highest fidelity possible at the time. Play those recordings back on modern equipment and the sound is still pretty good by modern standards. The microphone array used in the Living Presence series was the model for the early (and excellent) Telarc recordings. But the same is not the case with the "Wall of Sound" productions. I've owned and listened to both. I used to collect the Living Presence recordings on the original LPs and the later (excellent) CD remasters and (not so excellent) SACD remasters. I've never owned the originals of the Wall of Sound productions, but I have owned LP and CD reissues and always found the sound of those recordings really bad on good audio gear. But a lot of them sound great on AM car radios. Then again, a lot of recordings are produced for compromised audio gear—brickwalling, anyone?

 

[wadude]

I listen to recordings from every era as if the producer is another (often times the most important) musician involved with the session and that the studio/hall/location and equipment are being used as a musical instrument. For me this means it’s more important to have the best reproducing equipment available in order to hear what was being created by all of the players involved. I understand that “listening through” the limitations of the playback device and listening environment is what we as music consumers have to reckon with in any case.

 

[Sal1950]

I really don't think Phil Spector intended to produce the very best Hi-Fi when he made his highly compressed, distorted and muddy "Wall of Sound" productions. I suspect his intention was to make a recording that would jump out of a 5" x 7" speaker in the dashboard of a chrome chariot. Those "Living Presence" recordings mostly hold up compared to modern recordings, in large part because the intention was to make the highest fidelity possible at the time.

Apples and oranges.
In most cases Wilma was using very minimalist miking techniques from single to 3 mike styling, resulting in the perfect "audiophile" type recordings.
Phil was pushing the envelop of multitrack creations doing things never done before. He was a genius in the mixing room, using bouncing techniques to
create a final product with we think nothing of with todays unlimited virgin track recording. Not "audiophile" product for sure, but a "Wall Of Sound" mixdown that couldn't have been done otherwise.