I am sick of failing amplifiers

[Kingrex]

Not saying your experience isn't valid, but here's the problem- it has to do with that which you've not heard. Sort of a 'you know what you know, know what you don't know' and that extra bit of 'not knowing what you don't know'. That latter bit exists as a blind spot in terms of human understanding of the world.

Class D amps vary in sound all over the place! Some are bad at low volume, some are outright boring. Some don't seem to have any impact. But others can be quite convincing and easy to listen to all day long.

There are bad class A tube amps out there. They sound bad and a lot of people on this thread have heard them at one time or another as they resided inside portable record players. But would they be accurate in thus saying that all class A tube amps sound bad?

That really seems similar to what you seem to be saying.

I though all Class A, A/B amps sounded bad unless they had the name Gryphon, Soulution, Boulder or Dartzeel. And those sounded bad unless you spent over $100,000

 

[Audiohertz2]

I though all Class A, A/B amps sounded bad unless they had the name Gryphon, Soulution, Boulder or Dartzeel. And those sounded bad unless you spent over $100,000

All SS amps are Class A/AB , unless they are pure class A , those have a sense of purity only known by the marketing dept ...!

 

[Kingrex]

I'm holding out for class Z. The end has to be the best.

 

[Audiohertz2]

Or is it because of poorly implemented negative feedback, applied with the sole intention of obtaining amazing paper specs?

What is your definition for low distortion?

Could also be those tricky old school squarewaves ...

 

[Republicoftexas69]

All SS amps are Class A/AB , unless they are pure class A , those have a sense of purity only known by the marketing dept ...!

Not a factual statement. What of Benchmark that is class G.

 

[Pokey77]

Not a factual statement. What of Benchmark that is class G.

And Soundcraftsman amps employing Class H design. I’d bet there are others. I’ll bow out now on the class argument.

I listen to Class D everyday, usually around two hours, but four or five hours is no problem here and tone & timber are excellent. You can see what I have in my signature. The sound is very very good if I don’t say so myself.

 

[Republicoftexas69]

And Soundcraftsman amps employing Class H design. I’d bet there are others. I’ll bow out now on the class argument.

I listen to Class D everyday, usually around two hours, but four or five hours is no problem here and tone & timber are excellent. You can see what I have in my signature. The sound is very very good if I don’t say so myself.

I enjoy both GaN amplification and A/B tube amplification.

 

[Bjorn]

Or its because they are not actually 'low distortion' on account of how much emphasis the ear puts on higher ordered harmonics (which is to say: quite a lot).

Or is it because of poorly implemented negative feedback, applied with the sole intention of obtaining amazing paper specs?

What is your definition for low distortion?

Interesting topic, but I don't see it belongs here under this topic. Better to start a new thread.

 

[Geardaddy]

Class D is acceptable if proper Timbre means naught ...!

I have both tube amps (845, 300B, 45) and a JAVA GaN FET integrated and this is not my experience. Maybe your hearing is starting to go?

 

[adrianywu]

Sounds like you have microphonic Voltage amplifier tubes in both channels. If I were you I'd buy 10 or 20 of them and swap them into the amp one at a time, tap on them to see how bad they are and use the ones that have the least microphonics. The system will thank you.

If tubes are microphonic you can damp them but that will only affect them by maybe 5%. You're far better off having low microphonic tubes in the first place.

Microphonics contribute to distortion and tonal nastiness- the higher the volume where the amp is sitting, the worse it is. I tell people frequently 'Its not enough to just buy some nice NOS or boutique tubes. Any tube that goes into high performance audio equipment must be vetted regardless of the source of the tube. To be vetted properly they have to test good on a good quality tube tester and then be placed in the circuit and auditioned for noise and microphonics, as well as sensitivity to shock (crackling is no good).'

I'd never have used a 6DJ8 or any of its variants as a Voltage amplifier FWIW; they are all microphonic. If in an SET the 6SN7 is a better choice IMO. That tube can be microphonic too but not nearly so bad; in a power amp I've never heard one be a problem in that regard.

I still have my George Kaye small tube tester, which is very good for testing noise and microphonics. I would buy a few dozen tubes and grade them accordingly. The marginal ones going into the buffer stage don't seem to matter too much.

 

[Geardaddy]

All SS amps are Class A/AB , unless they are pure class A , those have a sense of purity only known by the marketing dept ...!

That is especially true on this site for obvious reasons. Marketing witchcraft galore. Blind the listener to said topology and see what you get. No one has the balls to do this anymore: https://www.stereophile.com/features/203/index.html

 

[Atmasphere]

All SS amps are Class A/AB , unless they are pure class A , those have a sense of purity only known by the marketing dept ...!

FWIW Dept.: If the amp is class A, its not AB. If its AB, its not A. If the amp is class A to 50% of full power, its a class AB design.

These days the class of operation really is more about marketing as you say; if the design is competent you won't be able to tell what class of operation it is.

Class B doesn't get a lot of mention but ElectroVoice made a series of class B amps that worked quite well back in the 1950s. They got a lot of power (for example the 6V6 amp, called the A-20, made 20 Watts) for the number of tubes used and the tubes got a long service life. It was actually a musical amplifier too because they had innovations in it to make sure there were no crossover artifacts. A nice side benefit was no need to adjust the Bias or Balance of the power tubes so it was much more plug and play. There wasn't a cost benefit though- the power supply was more expensive to implement.

 

[Audiohertz2]

Cant imagine the crosstalk distortion or TIM..

 

[Audiohertz2]

I have both tube amps (845, 300B, 45) and a JAVA GaN FET integrated and this is not my experience. Maybe your hearing is starting to go?

Agree its gone way pass class D

Heard the GAN fet amp on many occasions and thought them good not surprised you find them better than your high distortion low powered toob amps ..!

I also do believe when your audio intelligence and exposure grows a bit more you will feel differently ..!

 

[Alrainbow]

The gan amps sound until they don't. Never bad but a loss of musicality if you listen to them and compare.
Mytek had a pair of mono blocks at capital fest on the huge es panels .
I liked them more then the pair on tube amps. I'm not throwing rocks at anyone otl tube's . They sound great if used correctly

 

[Atmasphere]

Cant imagine the crosstalk distortion or TIM..

Crosstalk is the sound leaking from one channel to the other. Since EV was making mono amps at the time there's no crosstalk at all.

Transient Intermodulation Distortion is a phenomena of late 70s solid state amps with high feedback, before designers learned how the input stage was distorting due to the high amount of capacitance it was driving in the next stage. Since part of the input is outside the feedback loop, the distortion can go crazy on big transients. Eventually they learned that if the degenerated some of the gain in the input differential amplifier and used a compensation cap in the next stage, the distortion was cut by over 90% so this phenomena went away.

IOW its not a tube thing.

 

[Geardaddy]

Agree its gone way pass class D

Heard the GAN fet amp on many occasions and thought them good not surprised you find them better than your high distortion low powered toob amps ..!

I also do believe when your audio intelligence and exposure grows a bit more you will feel differently ..!

not better just different, but not bad given the older iterations of things digital…

 

[Geardaddy]

The gan amps sound until they don't. Never bad but a loss of musicality if you listen to them and compare.
Mytek had a pair of mono blocks at capital fest on the huge es panels .
I liked them more then the pair on tube amps. I'm not throwing rocks at anyone otl tube's . They sound great if used correctly

maybe it’s Java‘s implementation of the LDR volume control but they are musical and see-through and beautiful sounding. I compared them to a bunch of different tube amplifiers on a very revealing speaker and they were competitive with exception of my current modded LM 845. This particular speaker has sounded best with the Viva Solista which I also owned in a different system.

 

[Rob181]

maybe it’s Java‘s implementation of the LDR volume control but they are musical and see-through and beautiful sounding. I compared them to a bunch of different tube amplifiers on a very revealing speaker and they were competitive with exception of my current modded LM 845. This particular speaker has sounded best with the Viva Solista which I also owned in a different system.

And - as a matter of interest - which speaker would that be...

 

[Geardaddy]

And - as a matter of interest - which speaker would that be...

Trenner & Friedl Ra