Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Tube amps vs solid state with todays technology

a coastal girl who is a bruins fan? would that be an east coast coastal girl? as you can read from my bio, i'm an east coast guy, but a celtics & pats fan.
dan

Grew up in your neighborhood - Marshfield, and a huge celtics fan, but i've been on the other coast for a very long time. Noticed that Sidvicious profile said he was a hockey fan, so i mentioned the bruins. Can you get me a good deal on a new refrigerator...lol

WOW!!

Now the Axiom board is turning into Match.com!

Got to love this board!

Have you tried Friendster?

sorry Dharmatone, I'm a Habs fan. I guess it can never be!

dharmatone,
Hey how do you think vin's gonna do this yr?? I hope he, Banks and JuJones can help the team. boy, is there a logjam at the 3 this yr eh

man, how about the pats and sox yesterday! we only sell a high end washer, sorry. as for a 'fridge, go with a ge or whirlpool. see if you can get one of the non efficient refers. they have not been perfected yet. too many problems with electrical boards and dc motors.
dan

Back on topic. Using the simplification that a SS amp would produce a clean undistorted output signal then why do you need a THD rating? Wouldn't it theoretically be zero since a SS amp ONLY reproduces the input signal with NO changes? Obviously that's a misstatement. THD levels with SS amps are almost zero but there NOT zero. Thus something is altered in the signal by the amplifier. I'll concede that the THD levels of a tube amp are higher than a SS amp but it's sort of a moot point. The human ear can't really hear any distortion below 1% anyway. For me it's all about the sound quality. My SEP amp sounds much nicer with my speakers than any SS amp I've owned. It's more work to maintain a nice tube amp than to just plug a sand amp into the wall but it's worth it.

Mike

I'll admit that this thread has really piqued my curiosity about tube amps. I've always found them very aesthetically pleasing, but I may just find them sonically pleasing, too.

I'm sure all the tube lovers out there are not completely delusional and go with them for good reason. Next time I hit the audition circuit, I'll include some sand v. glass listening sessions (of course, trying to keep all other components equal).

Hi Pro Ac Fan

Seems to me, the ideal amplifier would completely disappear in your sound system, adding nothing, subtracting nothing and changing nothing except the power of the signal from the source. I don't think True Harmonic Distortion is the only value which bears on this quest. In other words, 2 amps of different design each with a value for THD approaching zero may still sound different. Why?

Maybe because amps are very complicated electronic devices with many components, the totality of their elements and design result in subtly different outputs - not necessarily of a sine wave, or test tone, but in the context of a complex, dynamic piece of music.

I've been testing a few amps to determine what to do with them - a Yamaha M80 beast, a Kenwood KA9100 which I pulled out of my HT system, and an Onkyo M504 which I now use to drive the front towers in the big HT system.

I really like them all, but each has a subtly unique sonic signature. That means, that, at best, only one of them disappears, and more probably than not, none of them achieve that standard of amplifier perfection.

Now, as to the difference between these solid state beauties and a nice Single End Triode tube amp, aside from the obvious difference of having an order or two of magnitude less power output, the tube amp sounds subtly different at similar listening levels. It's hard to describe, but here's my take on it - the mids are sweeter, fuller, more sonorous. The highs are more open, airy and ... well, sweeter. The big Onk, and Yammie beastie, on the other hand, hit much harder, have much more punch - the highs also sparkle, but it just sounds a bit different, not quite as sweet. Even though they have more punch, the mids are not as lush, or smooth, or something.

That's not to say that I don't really like my solid state amps. It's just to say, there're differences among the solid state amps, and then as a group, between these sand amps, on the one hand, and my one SET fire bottle amp, on the other hand.

For kicking back and listening to music, I just prefer the tubie - I find music more relaxing with the tubie. I also love what the big sandies do to music, and enjoy their efforts as well, maybe they're more exciting than the tubie, also pleasant BUT, when Roberta Flack, or Loreena McKennett, or Norma Jones is playing on the tubie, it sounds very much like a live performance, subtly more realistic an illusion of being there than I get from the sandies. Just my take.