Why people still use tube amps when there are plenty of tubes already used in the making of music

[Henry53]

Preference is fine - but tubes are a very expensive way to control things like sibilance. Which in many cases is a frequency response issue, easily (and much more cost effectively fixed) with DSP.

I would also think that trying to fix FR problems using tube amps is. a bti of a crapshoot - since it will depend heavily on the interaction of the amps output impedance with your own speakers impedance characteristic.

I've nothing particularly against tube amps. I'd quite like one - if only for the aesthetic. I'm just not prepared to pay the cost of entry.

Preference is fine - but tubes are a very expensive way to control things like sibilance. Which in many cases is a frequency response issue, easily (and much more cost effectively fixed) with DSP.

I would also think that trying to fix FR problems using tube amps is. a bti of a crapshoot - since it will depend heavily on the interaction of the amps output impedance with your own speakers impedance characteristic.

I've nothing particularly against tube amps. I'd quite like one - if only for the aesthetic. I'm just not prepared to pay the cost of entry.

Never found any DSP that resolves sibilance, without screwing other things, certainly tried DSP with Vincent Hybrid pre/ power and my Rotel pre/power, nil effect on sibilance. I guess this is a ludicrously expensive pastime, even to devotees, certainly in 50+ years I've spent enormous amounts of time and money getting what I like, I like my Primaluna EVO 400 better than any other amp ever owned and the vast majority listened to. In the end listening is what it's bought for. For me the AUD$6000 I spent was a better bet than AUS$6000 on any SS amp I have listened to. The ability to change between triode and ultra linear, as the music suits is a bonus although 90%+ is on triode. Toyed with far more expensive Naim and Chord amps, just not for me.

 

[MattHooper]

Preference is fine - but tubes are a very expensive way to control things like sibilance. Which in many cases is a frequency response issue, easily (and much more cost effectively fixed) with DSP.

That is always a sensible approach.

But as I reported before, in my own case using my Digital parametric EQ I couldn’t replicate the character I perceived from my tube amplification.

In the case of sibilance that might’ve been thinner and harder with solid state amplification (which was of course neutral),
with the tube amps tended to thicken and soft and slightly, and “ sit back into” the voice rather than sounding detached in a mechanical way. Overall, the sound subtly became a bit more forward and and “ lightened sounding” so becoming a bit more vivid, yet at the very same time, it became more relaxed sounding.

This simultaneous combination of “ more vivid, yet more relaxed” was so uncommon to me it almost a bit magical. How is it doing this? My speculation was some mix of frequency response deviations, along with perhaps some form of added distortion, which together I was having a hard time mimicking using a solid-state amp and EQ.

(All ASR caveats in the above assumed)

 

[SIY]

Never found any DSP that resolves sibilance, without screwing other things, certainly tried DSP with Vincent Hybrid pre/ power and my Rotel pre/power, nil effect on sibilance. I guess this is a ludicrously expensive pastime, even to devotees, certainly in 50+ years I've spent enormous amounts of time and money getting what I like, I like my Primaluna EVO 400 better than any other amp ever owned and the vast majority listened to. In the end listening is what it's bought for. For me the AUD$6000 I spent was a better bet than AUS$6000 on any SS amp I have listened to. The ability to change between triode and ultra linear, as the music suits is a bonus although 90%+ is on triode. Toyed with far more expensive Naim and Chord amps, just not for me.

If it keeps you off the streets and out of trouble, it's a net positive.