Waffling on a tube amp

[ba1473]

While I agree with a lot of the comments about tube amps here and I also love good solid state stuff, I still love my tube amp and it's clear that the human ear loves distortion. So, for me, I still spend a lot of time listening through tubes. I use a VTA ST120 from tubes4hifi.com. I highly recommend them. I know that they measure with a lot of 2nd harmonic distortion but I really enjoy listening to music on them, especially when streaming high quality files through a Topping DS90E.

I love my st 120, music sounds so airy, non fatiguing, I still listen to my SS amp, my go to is the the ST120

 

[mhardy6647]

Asking for tube amp advice on ASR is like asking your doctor for his favorite brand of cigarettes.

Decided to reanimate this moribund thread when I noticed the post above.
I mean, heck, everybody knows the answer to that old question!

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, volume 240, number 17, April 28, 1949

More Doctors Smoke Camels

By Johanna Goldberg, Information Services Librarian, with Andrew Gordon, Systems Librarian This is part of an intermittent series of blogs featuring advertisements from medical journals. You can fi…

nyamcenterforhistory.org

The “More Doctors Smoke Camels” Campaign – The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society

csts.ua.edu

 

[antcollinet]

Decided to reanimate this moribund thread when I noticed the post above.
I mean, heck, everybody knows the answer to that old question!

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, volume 240, number 17, April 28, 1949

More Doctors Smoke Camels

By Johanna Goldberg, Information Services Librarian, with Andrew Gordon, Systems Librarian This is part of an intermittent series of blogs featuring advertisements from medical journals. You can fi…

nyamcenterforhistory.org

The “More Doctors Smoke Camels” Campaign – The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society

csts.ua.edu

Yep - at least tube amps don't give your music cancer.

 

[solderdude]

It's a known fact any male over 45-50 is incapable of hearing much over 8khz, and it gets worse with each decade older.

Wive's voices must be over 8kHz which would explain things.

 

[DSJR]

My current setup is a Rega Planar 3/yellow Exact cart, Rega Fono MM Mk3, Rega Brio, Monitor Audio Silver 300. I also use a cheapo WiiM Streamer for the rare times I stream (this is slated to be replaced with a Cambridge CXN V2 next year).

I've decided that my next step in building my home stereo outfit is going to be a tube amp. I had selected a Rogue Cronus Magnum III as a nice starting point, but I'm having trouble pulling the pin on a 5 grand Cdn unit when I'm just not sure if I'll enjoy it or not. I've listened to several tube amps over the last couple months, loved the sound, but none at home with my setup in my room.

I keep eyeing up a Willsenton R8, and I'm wondering if this unit would indeed give me a proper taste of tube amplification and allow me to decide whether I'm going further down that rabbit hole, or if I should be upgrading my turntable instead. I've tried to find direct comparisons online, but haven't had much luck. Anyone on here had a Willsenton and then switched to higher end unit like the Rogue or a Linn? Does the Willsenton really give good enough results to tell someone if they want tube amplification?

Thanks in advance for any opinions and advice.

Rod

Very late and maybe now outdated reply. For goodness sake ditch that godawful cartridge you're using in the Planar 3! It has massive response errors up top and despite the fine diamond, a kind of 'squidgy' sonic that'll give a very skewed rendition of your records. It's 'valve amp' enough before you even think of adding the exra distortions at bottom and top that many valve amps add...

Better to upgrade to a Planar 6/Neo with fancy belt (the Neo supply lets you fine tune the speed) and say, an AT VM740 which isn't as 'showy' as the sibling 540 (check the German Lowbeats site for soundbites and measurements).

I'll get me coat...

 

[mhardy6647]

Yep - at least tube amps don't give your music cancer.

Well -- some of those tubes were made with uranium glass...

What is it? Tube guessology

I thought it might be fun to try and figure out what some of these old tubes in my stash were, and what they came out of. The following one I picked up as part of a collection of glass, which I had grabbed for the round bulbs. Needless to say, its too big for my tube-tester.

www.diyaudio.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/Radiation/comments/z79p3h

(like our hifi fellow traveler @DSJR -- I'll get me coat, too!)

 

[valve_integrator]

Well -- some of those tubes were made with uranium glass...

sorry that's total rubbish.
Next thing you will be claiming to make semiconductor tubes for Xray. and how dangerous medical Xray machines are?

Btw you get a much high dose of radiation every time you take a flight to FL30.
I have measured it, - can be up to 5mrem.

Concorde which used to cruise at up to FL50 supersonic had dosimeters incorporated in the a/c.
Staff should have had film badges, but they are far from accurate especially for Neutrons.

There are no valves to my knowledge, confirmed at Svetlana (who make medical instrument components) who have ever used any radioactive element in them - and that includes the VR type.

 

[mhardy6647]

sorry that's total rubbish.
Next thing you will be claiming to make semiconductor tubes for Xray. and how dangerous medical Xray machines are?

Btw you get a much high dose of radiation every time you take a flight to FL30.
I have measured it, - can be up to 5mrem.

Concorde which used to cruise at up to FL50 supersonic had dosimeters incorporated in the a/c.
Staff should have had film badges, but they are far from accurate especially for Neutrons.

There are no valves to my knowledge, confirmed at Svetlana (who make medical instrument components) who have ever used any radioactive element in them - and that includes the VR type.

did you miss the and the in my post? Look at it again.
Uranium glass is indeed radioactive -- but not very much so.
And was used in a variety of vacuum tubes and capacitors -- "Svetlana" notwithstanding.
Dude.
It was a joke.

I have worked with radioactive tracers for decades, BTW and FWIW.

 

[SIY]

Some specialty switching and rectification tubes did have radioactive material used to reduce firing voltage. Not likely that anyone sane in audio would ever encounter or use them…

Uranium glass is perfectly safe. I have dessert glasses that are made from it and are a gorgeous green color. The professional work I’m doing to detect uranium in glass is directed toward keeping them out of the recycle/remelt stream.