Do you need technical knowledge to consider Tube gear?

[DaveyF]

John, I don't think that you need any great technical knowledge to consider tube gear. If you intend to modify or repair your tube gear then that's a different matter, BUT that applies to ss gear as well. In my system, I use both tube and ss amps and a tube preamp.
The tube preamp is IMO more like what I am trying to re-create of the 'real' than any ss preamp I have ever heard or tried....that cannot be said for the tube amp. The tube amp offers a different 'flavor' to the ss amp; neither better or worse than the other, just different.
When it came to the horrific biasing procedure for the tube amp....well that's why I have a great tech. When it comes to repairs on the ss amp, that's why I'm glad that the factory is still servicing these pieces. ( an important aspect, IMO, is to be fairly certain that the manufacturer you are considering will "likely" be around into the future). As an example of this, I'm not sure that I would consider any Counterpoint piece now that Mike Elliot is no longer servicing these...OTOH, ARC is a VERY safe bet.

 

[mbskeam]

jump in, the water is fine.....
most all of what has been posted is right on.
I dont think you would need to go out and buy spare tubes, this will happen as you roll them.
soon you will have more than you need....

 

[JackD201]

Like anything else, oven toasters included, there's always a little that needs to be learned. As far as tube equipment goes, there's nothing that requires you to be an EE or even an electrician. What's in the manual is more than enough for normal use. IMO AV Receivers are harder to learn. LOL.

 

[microstrip]

(...) What's in the manual is more than enough for normal use. IMO AV Receivers are harder to learn. LOL.

Good point!

 

[mep]

I just sold my ARC VS115 to a guy who never owned a piece of tube gear in his life. I didn’t know that prior to selling it to him. The manual clearly states do not hook up unbalanced cables without shorting out the XLR connectors first. Does this guy read the manual? Obviously not. He hooks up his RCA cables and turns the amp on with no jumpers in the XLR jacks and the amp hums and he calls me to complain. Having only been a few days since this amp ruptured my right bicep tendon, I wasn’t in a real good mood for stupidity. Now I have to wonder if he was smart enough to see that each tube was numbered for the socket it was supposed to be installed in and that I had carefully placed each tube in the foam so it represented the location that it should be installed in the amp. I had very carefully biased the output tubes so they were as perfect as you could ever expect them to measure. I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy just started pulling tubes out of the foam and sticking them in sockets. The bottom line is that if you read the owner’s manual and aren’t a complete klutz with a screwdriver and a DVM, you should be fine. And Jack was right, figuring out how to set up a modern AVR is rocket science compared to owning tube gear. You should see the owner’s manual for my new Onkyo TX-NR3010.

 

[DACMan]

I will stand by my statement that solid state equipment almost entirely displaced tube equipment *in the market*. True, in the "high-end audio world", there were always tube brands, but in terms of sales volume, they no longer counted by the eighties. I hung around Audio Exchange in the late seventies (when I was in high school), and even by then *all* of the equipment on the new shelves was solid state, with the few remaining pieces of tube Mac and Fisher gear residing on the shelves reserved for sales of used equipment they took as trade-ins. Sadly, I actually threw away one or two nice "tube monoblock" amps in the late seventies (which would have been worth quite a few hundred dollars each today) because, then, they were totally unsaleable.

Because tube equipment is easy to make in small quantities, it has always remained as a niche market, but I suspect you'll find that the *total sales* of *all* the companies selling tube equipment in Audio magazine in the 80's were dwarfed by Sony's sales in those years - which were almost (if not entirely) all solid state. Furthermore, tube *preamps* have especially held on because they are far easier to design and build, and you don't need expensive and tricky to design output transformers to make them.

Tube sales are back up quite a bit in the last few years, but Bob Carver is still making his big tube amps in his garage, by hand, one at a time. The only serious volume of sales is by some of the new Chinese companies (like Yaqin) and, collectively, there's some volume by the many new boutique brands *combined*.

While you're certainly entitled to your opinion, you are not correct that tubes went away when ss was released. I suggest you go back to Audio magazine's annual equipment guide from the 70s-80s-90s and count the number of tube amps and preamps. I know because I did and tube/hybrid units never comprised less than 60% of the models listed.

 

[DACMan]

The whole idea of "optimum impedance matching between gear" is a myth left over from certain studio equipment (where it is occasionally still true).

With audiophile equipment like preamps and power amps, there is no useful goal or benefit to *matching* impedances.
(You do want to choose the correct input impedance for a phono preamp, and you should choose a digital audio or video cable of the proper impedance to go with your connection.)

The *only* important thing for stuff like preamps and power amps is that the source component be able to tolerate the input impedance of the destination equipment without having any problems. Most solid state equipment has an input impedance between 10k ohms and 250k ohms or so; and most solid state equipment has outputs that are quite happy with loads anywhere above about 1k ohms; so they all work just fine together. Tube equipment can be more problematic. Most tube power amps have high input impedances (often 500k or higher); and tube preamps vary widely in their minimum output load (some can tolerate a 1k ohm load easily, while others CANNOT tolerate a load less than 100k ohms or so.)
The upshot of this is that most solid state preamps can run any sort of power amp, but many tube preamps have trouble with many solid state power amps..... so you have to check your specs there. Just make sure that the input impedance of your power amp is higher than the minimum recommended load for your preamp and they should work well together.

Another issue is that anything with a high output impedance (or a high minimum recommended load impedance) is likely to be sensitive to cables, and using it with long or high-capacitance interconnects may well result in a rolled-off high-end. (This is why it's usually a good idea to use the shortest possible interconnects with tube preamps.)

Yes, while many would seek same manufacturer for optimal imedpance matching between components, etc...i personally like this combination enough that my last 2 generations of pre/amps have been identifical. CJ ACT2/Gryphon Antileon and now CJ GAT/Gryphon Colosseum. I was fortunate to get all units second hand, so when i sold the first set, i actually made a bit of money which was kind of fun.

 

[DACMan]

Don't get all excited..... I didn't say "all of it".....

But, to answer your question, I've listened (lately) to samples of equipment from several companies - including Bob Carver's latest 300 watt monoblocks (the ones with the 6 x KT-100's). I've also auditioned middle line products from several of the new Chinese companies (Yaqin is pretty popular lately). There are several people who like tube stuff at Emotiva, and they frequently bring it in to compare to our solid state stuff. I've also listened to several pretty well thought-of tube and hybrid headphone amps, and several cheap ones as well.... And, finally, right this minute, there is a 3 watt per channel Miniwatt tube amp acting as my "monitor amp and table radio" on my desk at work

Now, in the old days, I used to buy tube equipment, play with it, sometimes repair it, and sell it (everything from Heathkit and Dynaco to Mac and Fisher). I had at least fifty assorted pieces pass through my hands while I was keeping track.... and I wasn't keeping track all that well.

Now, here are my observations.....

A well designed (low distortion) tube preamp sounds quite like a well designed solid state amp - which makes sense since neither should change the sound in any way. I wouldn't go as far as to say you couldn't hear the difference, but it would be pretty slim. I would assume that a well designed tube preamp could match a good solid state design for pretending to be a "straight wire with gain" - but I see little point in trying to get closer to a goal that already exists.

I've heard tube power amps that sounded quite flat, although I've never heard one that had what I would call "tight, controlled bass" when connected to a modern speaker. I assume this is because their damping, especially at low frequencies, is rather low. I also suspect that older speakers, designed to work well with low-damping factor amps, would work better with them. I happened to hear the Carvers on a pair of our (Emotiva) speakers (which were pretty standard... bass reflex and dome tweeters).... Compared to any one of several good solid state amps, the bass with the Carver was tubby and the high-end sounded rolled off (or otherwise somehow smeared or smoothed). The bass was worse with the lower feedback setting. A good solid state amp connected to the same speakers produced nice, tight, clean bass and a clear, detailed high end. Now, I will also say that several of us (not including myself) found the sound of the Carvers pleasing - especially with certain classic vinyl recordings (and the guy who owned them was NOT disappointed with them) - but nobody entertained the possibility that they were ACCURATE.

Now, on every one of the modern Chinese-designed power amps I've heard lately, the sound is a very exaggerated version of this difference. The bass is barely damped, and the high end is so rolled off that the only fair description is "syrupy". Since (as I recall), none of the tube amps I owned years ago sounded like this, I am forced to assume that these amps were deliberately "voiced" to sound the way they did. Listen to Yaqin's latest $1500 triode-monoblocks-plus-preamp offering; the only word that describes its sound is "goopy"

Of the several tube headphone amps I've heard, all of the cheaper ones sounded very much this way.... and the expensive ones similar but less so. (It's no big secret among the folks who design and sell tube equipment that their goal is NOT to make it sound flat, or to try and make their tube equipment sound similar to their solid state equipment.)

Personally, I have no problem with tube equipment, or people who like it. I will even concede that there are certain recordings that I think sound nice when played through a tube amp. I also have no doubt that some modern tube equipment sounds just fine - and even accurate (although I've never heard any that sounded better than good modern SS equipment). However, I also sometimes do support calls, and I've talked to a few people who bought modern tube equipment "because they heard that tube equipment was good", and then wondered, basically, why it sounded funny and what they were missing. Therefore, IMHO, I don't think it's "fair" to be telling people, if their goal is accurate sound reproduction, that they can expect to get it from tube equipment - certainly not without some serious personal research. You may be right, and quite a few modern tube designs sound lovely.... but, if someone buys a "nice, modern tube amp" off eBay for $1000, they are indeed quite likely to end up with something that makes everything they play through it sound like they were listening from under a bucket of Karo syrup. Like I said, I certainly am all for it IF THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT... but they shouldn't have unrealistic expectations. Otherwise, they should be warned that the sound quality (and voicing intent) of tube equipment varies widely, and they should be careful to do some research so as to buy something that they will enjoy listening to after it arrives.... I don't think this is unreasonable at all.

keith thats a bold statement, i guess i can be counted as one of the "i dont know any better" crowd. exactly how many pieces of recent tube gear have you owned and used in your own system not including what you have built, like CJ, ARC, VTL, manley, etc??

 

[DaveyF]

Keith, I see you heard the Carver tube amps with your speakers and weren't that impressed. Perhaps you might want to listen to a pair of CAT JL3 Signatures with a CAT Legend or Renaissance through a speaker like the Merlins....I have a suspicious feeling you might change your mind about tubes There's some great stuff on both sides of the aisle, personally I lean a little more to the tube side. Still an awful lot of very poor ss gear on the market, less so it would seem with tube, IMO.

 

[DACMan]

You really should read ALL the words......

I didn't say at all that ALL tube amps sound bad.
In fact, I said two distinct and different things.... I will clarify in case there is any confusion....

1) I personally don't think tube equipment is "a good deal". I find that both tube and solid state equipment can sound anywhere from bad to very good but that, at any particular price point, the solid state equipment usually sounds better; and that even "very good" solid state equipment has far lower noise and distortion than "cost no object" tube equipment. (Since those are my main criteria for what sounds better, the conclusion simply follows.)

2) A large percentage of the current tube equipment SOLD (you might want to check the sales figures for Manley and Yaqin) sounds especially "odd" (I would say bad) because it is specifically designed to have a "tube sound". In the industry we say it is "voiced" that way. (Face it, if you couldn't hear the difference between a tube preamp and a solid state one, there would be no reason to spend the extra money for the tube one, now would there?) I would like to think that anybody who plunks down the $$$ for a Manley knows what he or she is buying, and probably will be happy with it; but I feel bad for the person who buys the Yaqin, without listening to it, "because he heard tubes sound good" - and then isn't so happy with it.

I most certainly did NOT bash ANYTHING other than tube equipment
There is plenty of good sounding high end gear out there...

I am a firm believer in a fully informed market..... are you?

Harassing comment removed. Please refrain from this moving forward.

 

[NorthStar]

Like anything else, oven toasters included, there's always a little that needs to be learned. As far as tube equipment goes, there's nothing that requires you to be an EE or even an electrician. What's in the manual is more than enough for normal use. IMO AV Receivers are harder to learn. LOL.

---- You got that right Jack!

* By the way, you can buy a very inexpensive and cute little single-ended triode tube amp and have a very happy life. :b ...Go for two Monos to make it Stereo; looks and sounds delightful.
No learning curve here, just fun each day after the next.

But for a new AV Receiver, get ready to read the Internet bible!

P.S. I just discovered this thread (outside my regular hours and exploring the site around),
and it's a fun thread for sure. :b

 

[Steve williams]

Most tube power amps have high input impedances (often 500k or higher)

The input impedance of my tube amp is 41 kohms

 

[MylesBAstor]

You really should read ALL the words......

I didn't say at all that ALL tube amps sound bad.
In fact, I said two distinct and different things.... I will clarify in case there is any confusion....

1) I personally don't think tube equipment is "a good deal". I find that both tube and solid state equipment can sound anywhere from bad to very good but that, at any particular price point, the solid state equipment usually sounds better; and that even "very good" solid state equipment has far lower noise and distortion than "cost no object" tube equipment. (Since those are my main criteria for what sounds better, the conclusion simply follows.)

2) A large percentage of the current tube equipment SOLD (you might want to check the sales figures for Manley and Yaqin) sounds especially "odd" (I would say bad) because it is specifically designed to have a "tube sound". In the industry we say it is "voiced" that way. (Face it, if you couldn't hear the difference between a tube preamp and a solid state one, there would be no reason to spend the extra money for the tube one, now would there?) I would like to think that anybody who plunks down the $$$ for a Manley knows what he or she is buying, and probably will be happy with it; but I feel bad for the person who buys the Yaqin, without listening to it, "because he heard tubes sound good" - and then isn't so happy with it.

I most certainly did NOT bash ANYTHING other than tube equipment
There is plenty of good sounding high end gear out there...

I am a firm believer in a fully informed market..... are you?

I'm more interested in an unbiased POV.

And spare me the condescending remarks. I've been in the industry far longer than you.

 

[NorthStar]

-- What does "POV" stand for?

EDIT.

 

[puroagave]

point of view

 

[treitz3]

Good morning, gentlemen. I'd like to take the time to remind you all of some of the terms of service we have here at the WBF. Our goal is to have a friendly place where everyone shares ideas and information without the level of bickering and angst that other forums tend to create.

2. Cordial participation is a key requisite of being a member in our forum. If in our opinion you are violating this rule, administrative action may be taken which may include termination of your membership and deletion of your posts with or without notice.

3. Please do not use this forum to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, racist, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violates any law. We reserve the right to delete any message that in our sole opinion falls in these categories and serve up administrative action to any member because of them.

6. Please do not attempt to moderate the forum on your own. If you see objectionable posts, please report them. We will deal with them. Above all, focus on the topic being discussed, rather than the person discussing it.

8. Your forum administrators rule with a gentle hand. But should the occasion arise where we must take immediate and strong action, we will do so. In that case, our decisions are not subject to debate.

That said, let's keep the conversation going in a kind and professional manner remembering to focus on the topic being discussed, rather than the person discussing it.

Tom

 

[NorthStar]

point of view

Thx Rob.

 

[DACMan]

I would still say that virtually all older tube equipment tended to have very high input and output impedances,
and that a lot of modern stuff (especially the simpler designs) still does.

The input impedance on a tube grid (which is what you're normally using for all but very weird tube designs)
is really inherently a megohm or so.... the tube itself is actually much higher, but some sort of path to ground is required.
In the old days, every power amp had a level control, which also served as the ground path, and 500k or so was simply
a convenient value that was low enough to not be overly sensitive to noise and cable capacitance issues.
You could say that the input impedance on a tube power amp is inherently high (500k+) unless you deliberately lower it.
You can make that ground path as low as you like, so you COULD make a tube amp with a 1k ohm input impedance,
it just wouldn't serve any useful purpose.

Almost all of the older (simpler) tube preamp designs took their output directly from the plate of the output tube
(through a coupling capacitor) or even through passive circuitry after that. The way it works out with the popular tubes,
this means that they DO NOT tolerate a load much lower than 100k ohms without becoming unhappy
(low output level and loss of high end). Since the interconnect also counts as a capacitive load at high frequencies,
you didn't even want to get close to that, and long interconnects were often a problem.Since all of the power amps
back than had a high input impedance, this wasn't a problem.

Back then, you would have had to be crazy to make a tube power amp with a 41k input impedance because
none of the preamps would have been able to run it. Most of the power amps were higher impedance,
so that was what the preamps were designed to work with, and vice versa. There was simply no reason to
add the circuitry needed to allow a tube preamp to drive low impedance loads because it wasn't necessary -
so it was cheaper and easier not to.

Many modern tube preamps (and some older ones) use extra circuitry (usually a cathode follower) to allow them
to drive much lower impedance loads happily... but, of course, some "purists" don't like the way the CF sounds.
Besides that, if you start from the simplest triode line stage design, adding the circuitry to lower its minimum
allowed load impedance about doubles your parts count, and so costs more, and quite possible makes more noise.
(The up-side is that it's less fussy about long cables and can run any power amp at all.)

From your perspective, this means that all solid state preamps can drive your amp, but many older tube preamps -
as well as some new ones - would have trouble doing so; and so it somewhat limits your choices.
(Notably, you could NOT happily drive your amp with any really simple, single stage, triode preamp....
or with a nice classic Dynaco PAS-3; I suspect most ARCs and most modern "high-end" designs would do OK,
but you do have to make sure... )

Since the input impedance on almost all solid state equipment is lower than that, I would assume that any decent,
modern tube preamp would have no problem (since the people who make modern tube preamps do want their customers
to be able to use them with both solid state and tube power amps, and so must design them to run happily into
lower impedance loads.)

It's just another thing to be aware of.... and, for example, connecting your amp to a Dyna PAS-3 would probably result
in very low output level, crummy frequency response, and probably a bit of extra noise as well - you would have to
add a buffer between them to make it work right.

The input impedance of my tube amp is 41 kohms

 

[DACMan]

Now, I guess that depends on what you mean by "biased".

I tend to run by the old definition of "high fidelity" as "accurate" and the best and most accurate electronic component as being "a straight wire with gain".

I agree that "what sounds best" is a matter of opinion, but "what is most accurate" is not.
Accuracy can be measured, and tested.
My goal is accuracy, and, since that can be measured, that pretty well doesn't allow me much bias about it.....
Alternately, if you prefer, my BIAS is for accurate sound; which, in the case of electronics, means NOT altering the signal in any way except amplitude...
you may have a different bias.

If we were talking about calibrating monitors, you and I might disagree about whether 5% too much red was more annoying than 5% too little blue,
but we would almost certainly agree that the one that stayed within 2% of correct was more accurate than the one that barely stayed within 30%. That's why I calibrate my computer monitors, so I KNOW they're correct, while I'm not so sure about my TV. Now, I might think my TV looks better with a certain movie, but whether the monitor is more accurate is not open to discussion - because the measurements prove that it is.

With something like a preamp, we can measure this quite easily - just set the gain to x10, take the output, divide it by 10, and subtract them. If the preamp is a perfect straight wire with gain, the result will be absolute silence.... and anything other than that left is, by definition, distortion. If two units both have audible distortion left, then you can get into subjective discussions about which sounds better or more annoying. However, in tests over the years, good solid state designs are generally good enough that there IS nothing audible left, while tube designs never seem to achieve this level of accuracy.

Likewise, whether you LIKE tubes more than solid state is your opinion, which you are entitled to; whether they "sound better" - as some sort of subjective discussion - is also a matter of opinion. However, whether they are more accurate is NOT subjective. Simply put, there is no tube power amp that I am aware of *at ANY price* that has distortion and noise figures that are even comparable to pretty well any decent $1000 solid state design. So, if accuracy alone is your criteria, then tubes lose the argument.

Now, there may well be a few tube preamps that are, by my test, "absolutely accurate". If you think about it, though, if we have a tube preamp and a solid state preamp, and neither makes ANY audible change in the sound, then, by our definition, they must sound exactly the same - in which case, discussing which sounds better is rather silly, right?

We must also agree that there are many factors that affect us besides accuracy or sound quality. The last analog preamp I bought (several years ago) won out over a comparable model that was $500 cheaper.... because, even though both sounded "prefect" to me, the one I bought had better build quality and was more pleasant to actually use... but at least I know why I spent the extra money.

BTW, and in closing, we are ALL biased. (None of us wants to think that we have chosen bad equipment, so we are biased to perceive what we have chosen as being a good choice This is simple human nature.)

I'm more interested in an unbiased POV.

And spare me the condescending remarks. I've been in the industry far longer than you.

 

[DACMan]

If I was condescending, it was because I figured someone who was involved in the industry would be well aware of most of what I was saying already.

Now I'll be blunt.....

I have a huge problem with a lot of the modern tube equipment, not because of how it sounds, but because of the misinformation that surrounds it.

Ask anyone who works for a company that makes both tube and solid state equipment. If they're being honest, then they'll be the first to tell you that they deliberately make their tube equipment sound *different* from their solid state equipment. If it sounded exactly like their solid state equipment then there would be no product differentiator - and so nobody would care which they bought. If they end up with a tube design that they can't tell from their solid state designs, then they WILL change it until they CAN hear a difference. Now, perhaps, some people (those whose company only makes tube equipment) don't feel this way, but an awful lot do.

In a perfect world, all audio equipment would be a black box - since right is right and we shouldn't care whether it got that way by going through transistors, tubes, or alien technology from area 51. In that world, nobody would say "we make tube equipment"; they would instead say "we make equipment that sounds good; who cares what's inside?" Therefore, in terms of bias, even TELLING someone whether it uses tubes or transistors is nothing more than a marketing ploy.... because we're hoping that they'll ASSUME that it must be good because of some preconception about which is better. We hope they'll expect it to sound better "because they heard tubes sound better" or "because alien tech from Jupiter MUST be better than dreary old transistors", and those expectations will bias their perceptions.

Personally, I would be delighted to see a store where you could audition power amps, each sealed in a big black cube, so you couldn't see ANYTHING about them, and could then choose the one that sounded better. That's where I'd go to shop. Until that happens, we're stuck with marketing, and hype, and preconception bias.

In the mean time, it bugs me when I talk to people who are being misled. (To take a recent example, I talked to a nice fellow who had bought a certain brand of speakers - who I won't bash - and a tube power amp "because they got great reviews". The speakers he had chosen were so aggressively bright that even a tube power amp couldn't tame them; they are also pretty well known to experienced folks like us to sound that way by design. He wanted to know whether choosing different cables, or even switching to a solid state amp, might make his speakers sound "smoother" - "because he had heard that amps and cables make a big difference". It was my sad duty to inform him that switching to a clean solid state amp would probably make his speakers even brighter, that cables wouldn't make the sort of difference he was hoping for, and that he had simply listened to too much dubious advice. His speakers sound exactly like they're supposed to sound, unfortunately for him.)

If you disagree, then go buy a Yaqin 845, or any of several other attractive bits of metalwork (with tubes attached) on eBay, and tell me, honestly, that you don't think it was deliberately designed to sound as far different from a solid state amp as possible - and that there could possibly have been any other design considerations. It isn't nearly as clean or crisp as, say, a nice Dyna Stereo 70. It seems pretty obvious to me that, quite the opposite, it and its ilk were designed to appeal to people who "want tube sound". And again, I have nothing against that, as long as they don't mislead the people buying it.... and the reviewers don't mislead them either with unrealistic claims and expectations.

If someone buys a tube amp, then they should buy it because that's what they want - and not because they're naive and were misled.

I'm more interested in an unbiased POV.

And spare me the condescending remarks. I've been in the industry far longer than you.