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

[MattHooper]

...which has nothing to do with the light bronze finish of the front panels. Unpossible.

Absolutely, I agree that could be part of the influence in what CJ amp owners think we hear. Just like seeing glowing tubes could influence the perception of sonic "warmth."

Though my CJ amps are in a different room from my speakers and I'm never looking at them while listening. But, again, the anecdotes are just that..anecdotes. As I've mentioned before, if it's purely a bias effect it has been so reliable over 20 years I'm ok with availing myself of the effect

 

[dtaylo1066]

Not often discussed, but open for debate, someone please tell me what they believe is their % distortion threshold to actually detect, as in hear, distortion in an amplifier? Who's that guy with color in his hair asking questions at the end?

 

[egellings]

How do you know you are not in "clipping mode? Is there an LED indicator on your amp? on classical music therefore not electrified where the dynamic differences can reach 20db, all amps can clipp very easily here and particularly tube amps.

I play at low volume levels, and clipping would likely not happen. My home-brewed tube-amps have no indicators on them. It's possible that the amps could clip, but it would be seldom, if at all.

 

[dtaylo1066]

How come those who question or give a thumbs down to home brew tube amps happen to like the flavor of home brew beer, even it it's not brewed to good specs or with any QC?

We humans are a strange brew, indeed.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Not often discussed, but open for debate, someone please tell me what they believe is their % distortion threshold to actually detect, as in hear, distortion in an amplifier? Who's that guy with color in his hair asking questions at the end?

Well you can take a few tests for that. One is an up down kind of test at the Klippel website.

Listening Test - How it works

www.klippel.de

Listening Test

www.klippel.de

One of the old tests on distortion indicates with sine wave test tones at best people hear -60 db (.1%). With music it is more variable, but one might not hear less than 3% and most likely not less than 1%.

One can download Pkane's Distort and see for yourself another way.

So probably anything better than -60 db is good enough. Maybe -80 db for a safety margin. You might find even -40 db is enough usually on music. That is how tube amps with poor distortion levels still sound fine. I've owned a few amps with THD/IMD around -65 db and never thought I heard distortion in normal use.

 

[JiiPee]

In my experience, an amplifier with THD around -65 dB and SNR better than -90 dB (at power levels I'm using when listening music) is usually good enough.

I understand the argument of high SINAD being a reasonable indicator of overall competent engineering, but imho, sometimes the single minded craving for SOTA SINAD goes too far.

 

[egellings]

How come those who question or give a thumbs down to home brew tube amps happen to like the flavor of home brew beer, even it it's not brewed to good specs or with any QC?

We humans are a strange brew, indeed.

To each his own, I guess. My amps are home-brewed tube types.

 

[Ze Frog]

For me the appeal of tubes is the aesthetic and the romantic nostalgia of Hi-fi equipment gone by. There's something quite magical watching those tubes glow on winters evening sat back with a Whiskey and enjoying your music. It's almost like how an open fire has that effect that a more efficient electric heater just doesn't give you.

I gave up tubes when the war started, just because try finding good tubes now at any reasonable cost. Plus, the nostalgia aside, if the tube amp was one of those with tubes hidden inside, I don't think I'd probably perceive any positive benefit from tubes. Doubt I'll ever revisit either, can be a very expensive hobby indeed and it's really more advisable to those with the proficiency to work on it themselves if there's an issue. Definitely an enthusiast past time, but arguably more fulfilling than going through a load of expensive cables.

 

[mhardy6647]

There's something quite magical watching those tubes glow on winters evening sat back with a Whiskey and enjoying your music.

Yup. Neck and neck with watching (and listening to) a nicely made clock tick.
Nope, not being facetious.



I need to take, or dig out, a better photo of that ol' Herschede one of these days.

 

[benanders]

...

I gave up tubes when the war started, just because try finding good tubes now at any reasonable cost.
...

Good is pretty subjective and most new tubes come from China, not Russia.

I have similar sentiment re: cost, but rather from having seen production facilities - the likely environmental and human (laborer) health costs, which cannot be justified for what are largely “boutique” uses of the products, IMO.

That said, tubes from China becoming unavailable or “unaffordable” (and there are many “good” Chinese tubes) is probably about as likely as well-measuring PCB’s for desktop hifi becoming unavailable from China.

Edit: grammar

 

[dasdoing]

I don't think it's about "warmth" or glowing lights....it's about the character of the gear. Some people just want to hear their expensive products do something to the sound. that is obviously a thinking that purists won't agree with.

 

[jsrtheta]

I tend to agree, the music is finished when the master is done. It's not the listener's job to keep working on the mix, any more than it's the diner's job to finish cooking the meal.

That said, lots of people don't care who does what as long as they like the sound. Fair enough.

Either way, tube amps are still a bit of a head-scratcher, since the same plugins you mentioned here can be used at home to spice up the sound... often for free.

Bollocks. When I purchase digital music, or analog for that matter, I have every right to do whatever I damned please.

This isn't The One True Cross, for Pete's sake. If I like my music through a tube amp, that's what I'll damned well use.

I spent 30 years of my life spending every day arguing for the correct meaning of statutes, rules, and constitutions. I'll be damned if I have to take such a slavish attitude to my enjoyment of music. And guess what? I don't.

 

[Descartes]

The analogy is sound, as you'll have people take a well-cooked meal and drown it in ketchup

Or add a ton of garlic and onions!!

 

[Descartes]

Bollocks. When I purchase digital music, or analog for that matter, I have every right to do whatever I damned please.

This isn't The One True Cross, for Pete's sake. If I like my music through a tube amp, that's what I'll damned well use.

I spent 30 years of my life spending every day arguing for the correct meaning of statutes, rules, and constitutions. I'll be damned if I have to take such a slavish attitude to my enjoyment of music. And guess what? I don't.

To each their own, I used to have tube amps for five years and now moved to Class D Purifi!

 

[jsrtheta]

I am not sure a consumer good being pervasive is necessarily a good metric. McDonald's is pervasive. Eat there 3 times a day and...

I would surmise that tubes might make up 1 or 2% of systems in the audiophile community, and 1/1000 of 1 percent in all music listening.

But I would not have believed 25 years ago that vinyl recordings and turntables at all price ranges would be making a comeback.

Of course there are many guitarists who will only play through a tube amp.

At the end of the day, all recorded music and the listening thereof is a grand illusion. If one wants to be a purist, one would only listen to unamplified, live music.

I don't know of a modern rock guitarist who uses solid state amplification. It's all tube amps.

 

[Platypus20]

I though the beauty of listening to music was, you did what was important YOU. Tube amps, solid state amps, vinyl, cds, or streaming, whatever works for you. I‘ve own all tube equipment, tubes driving solid state amps and all solid state, in the end to me it’s the music that’s important. Would my system work for you or yours work for me, maybe, maybe not. Whats important do I enjoy it. To some an iPod is good enough, to others it takes thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

 

[Descartes]

I though the beauty of listening to music was, you did what was important YOU. Tube amps, solid state amps, vinyl, cds, or streaming, whatever works for you. I‘ve own all tube equipment, tubes driving solid state amps and all solid state, in the end to me it’s the music that’s important. Would my system work for you or yours work for me, maybe, maybe not. Whats important do I enjoy it. To some an iPod is good enough, to others it takes thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

I could not agree more the music is what it’s all about! For me the best thing is to go to a symphony hall, by far the best sound I’ve ever heard. No matter how expensive an audio system is, it is not match for the real thing!

 

[MattHooper]

I don't think it's about "warmth" or glowing lights....it's about the character of the gear. Some people just want to hear their expensive products do something to the sound. that is obviously a thinking that purists won't agree with.

Yes that is certainly part of it.

I still have a foot planted firmly in the old school audiophiles (well, to me, late 80's onward). There's some gear I don't want to "hear," (like my Benchmark DAC and Benchmark preamp) and other gear I want to hear (like my CJ tube amplification, my turntable/cartridge....)

For some the hobby is trying to achieve as accurate a system as possible. I'm in the camp where to me part of the hobby is playing with the sound. That's why I'm not just a music lover - if I were, I wouldn't care about the gear. But I enjoy the gear because I'm intrigued by sound, and I like how things can "sound different." It probably isn't surprising, and is likely related, that I ended up manipulating sound for a living (sound effects).

 

[jayapple]

I saw a very expensive headphone amp looks like this recently and I don't get why people love tube amps so much.

Popular opinion is they added unique "tube sound" or some harmonic/intermodulation distortion in the music so there's more "warmth" in the sound and also sometimes because they change of frequency response. But actually there are just tons of this "tube effect" already added in the chain of audio engineering, so the "warmth" and "richness" are already there in the music, regardless of whether you are using a tube amp or not.

Take the chain in a friend's studio as example, starting from the microphone. they use tube mics like Neumann M149, AKG C12, etc.. which added some tube flavor so human voice or instruments already pass in processed from tubes. For FET mics like Neumann U87, mic preamps and channel strips like Avalon design VT-737 and some SPL tube preamps with basic EQ will take the responsibility to add tube sound. You can basically add some of these effects and overdrive with a very cheap presonus TubePre without using priced gears.

In the mixing some tracks will be sent to analog gears for processing like Teletronix LA-2A tube compressor which is very widely used, so again, tubes. There are also tons of tube simulation in the plugin as well, preamps, compressors, limitors, EQs, many can contain some emulated tube effects.
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You can manually add tube effects with plugins like Fabfilter Saturn. Just choose whatever tube you want to add and how much in the software:

Let's say you've finished making your music and in the mastering, you may use some mastering EQ like Manley Massive Passive Mastering like this and guess what, tube.

So why simply add another tube amp in the playback make the sound "warm, rich, analog" and without the tube amp it's suddenly "cold, harsh, thin and digital"? There are like numerous tubes in the music making chain so many "Tube flavors" are already there from the beginning, if musicians and audio engineers cosider use them produce better sound. Most of the time transparent playback system is the best to show music's original intension and no new layers of "tube effects" needed.

This is a class of distortion amplifiers, outdated products. It should be cheap in theory, but in fact it is much more expensive than a Class D amplifier, which is ridiculous!

 

[Jaxjax]

I've done a test where an audibly different triode amp was loaded with a non-speaker load, then tapped and fed into a good SS amp. Every bit of that triode texture is transmitted by the SS amp. Nothing is lost. The tube sound when it is real is a coloration. A good SS amp will pass that coloration onward.

However, tube preamps and tube amps are two different animals. Tube preamps don't really have that much sound if any. Now a preamp with some 12ax7s or 12at7s if transformer coupled and loaded down appropriately could be a mini tube amp for injecting that sound. Basically just make a little push pull triode amp of about 1 watt.

I miss the days of building tube gear. We had some magnificent type 26 preamps I built full mono blocks w/ massive seperate PS etc.. large VR tubes & lots & lots of globe 26 & ST. Ran Hashimoto OT's or Bud P. custom wound stuff. It's color for sure, but in way for some circuits that defy logic. MY PP 300B amps were as colorful as it gets....
Joe