If you must go Push/pull then I would look at some high power pure triode amps like the CAT JL2 Signature, VAC PHI 70 or VAC 140/140 monos. Another interesting and not discussed option would be Joule Electra monos like the VZN100 or Rite of Passage or Graaf GM200 or even Transcendent Sound Beast monos (a Kit but you can hire someone to build them..I have done so myself for someone), which would be the bargain of the bunch and sound awesome.
Triodes and Tetrodes and SET, Oh My!
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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If you must go Push/pull then I would look at some high power pure triode amps like the CAT JL2 Signature, VAC PHI 70 or VAC 140/140 monos. Another interesting and not discussed option would be Joule Electra monos like the VZN100 or Rite of Passage or Graaf GM200 or even Transcendent Sound Beast monos (a Kit but you can hire someone to build them..I have done so myself for someone), which would be the bargain of the bunch and sound awesome.
It would depend on speaker and system/room. If the speaker did not need a lot of energy and slam, the JA80's (mono blocks) would be a better sounding amplifier. But Gary Koh once referred he preferred the Jadis Defy 7's used in parallel mono. http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?10696-A-Visit-to-Jadis&p=194358&viewfull=1#post194358
On the the absolute sound website Robert Harley wrote the following in his David Berning 211/845 power amplifier: "Also keep in mind that 60 triode watts sound a lot more potent than 60 solid-state watts." And that is exactly the point I wanted to make, Steve, when I wrote: "In my experience 50 (class a) tube watts are more powerful than 50 solid state watts." I should have said of course: In my experience 50 (class a) tube watts sound more powerful than 50 solid state watts.
Might very well be. I always notice that in my perception/personal experience tube power trumps solid state power as mentioned in my previous post. My Kondo Gakuoh se 300b amps are officially rated to be 20-22 watts but actually deliver no more than 18 watts in real life. But they sound very fast and really dynamic with my Tidal LA's. Only in the low end you can clearly notice that there is less control than with strong ss amps although I am not sure if the tight ss bass is more realistic.
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In our listening room: my approximately 8W per channel Single-Ended Triode systematically beats my approximately 80W per channel Solid-State AMP (the marketing blurb of which says 100Wpc).
That's a magnitude of difference in Wattage.
Now, it is probable that if I max out the Volume on the SS, it will sound louder than the SET Tube amp, but when you listen, you still feel a lot more power coming form the SET amp.
So, if it's not loudness, what makes the SET amp appear more powerful?
It's in the resolution of repeated attack transients: The SET Tube amp resolves each one in much fuller detail than the SS amp can. The SS amp can do a good job on the first attack transient but even then the Tube one beats it, and the SS falters on following attack transients. Think of New Order's 'Blue Monday' Kick-Drum riff for instance. Nothing renders each Kick drum as repeatedly powerful as the SET amp.
This makes for a large difference when listening: the 'power', slam, performance resolution, soundstage, timbral accuracy, urgency is all tremendously better in 8W SET Tube compared to an 80W SS.
Now think about this: what happens when consumers only latch onto the numbers games concerning the Wattage without ever trying the comparison for themselves in extended listening sessions at home?
Analysing the circuitry of both may give us a clue as to why the difference in resolution and rendering exists. Electronics students are taught to string Opamps for various circuits, a little like you would use Lego blocks to construct larger objects. The Opamp is largely considered such a fundamental building block. "You want to implement a function X in your circuit, wire up a few Opamps like this. Function Y? String a set of Opamps like that. Function Z, stack a few Opamps this way."
This is literally how it goes (not saying for all SS amps and for all Electronics Engineers).
Now, if you look inside an Opamp, at its circuit itself, it's actually made up of a tremendous amount of transistors, the number of which varies with the Opamp brand and model. For simplification's sake and as a thought experiment, let's just use a number like 25 per Opamp.
This means that when your circuit - and here I am specifically thinking of a SS output stage - contains 4 to 5 Opamps, we are looking at signals going through 100-125 transistors before driving the speakers.
Compare this to the disarming simplicity of circuitry a SET Tube Amp and now you'll see where the latter shines in rendering perceived 'power' as compared to your common SS amp where each single transistor slightly imparts its own noise onto these delicate attack transients which are fundamental in providing localisation, rhythmic and timbral clues to our brain.
Turning on my SS amp with its 80Wpc is like going out for groceries in a Volskwagen. Turing on my SET Tube Amp, at just '8Wpc' is like taking a ride in a Lamborghini Countach across the country.
SETs are definitely known for the mid-range.
It is also the reason why multi-amping will be best in my setup and why I am considering building my own open-baffle, high-efficiency speakers to let the SET shine its best.
Most SS power amplifiers use discrete devices not op-amps -e.g. in the DartZeel amplifier the the audio signal travels through only 6 transistors from input to output.
And in an ampop the signal typically does not go through 25 transistors!
Anyway, the proof that the difference is not due to the signal going through the opamp is that you can connect a preamplfier or an active crossover using many opamps in the chain and the tube amplifier will show the same power characteristics.
DartZeel is particular, but the principle should apply: every time you hear about a discrete device, go find how it is internally constructed and listen.
If the circuit is simple, the sound is likely to be better.
If not, it won't be as good as a simple circuit like a SET.
You haven't understood what I wrote. We're not really talking about the power as in the wattage here...
I think I am addressing the same thing as you - subjective power or perceived power.
So, you mean you've never heard a low-power SET Tube amp sound more subjectively powerful than a much-higher rated SS Amp in your life?
Because that's precisely what we're talking about here.
Additionally, giving one single counter-example doesn't make the more common experience invalid at all.
I think there is a big difference between perceived authority from the character of an amplifier, and true authority and ease. and it's only when directly comparing one amplifier to another in a specific system that one can see what is missing from the picture. getting fat and bouncy bass with lots of bloom, texture and micro dynamics is one thing, holding together the whole soundstage on orchestral peaks in a large room and staying linear with authority and ease is a whole different thing....when compared to an amplifier that is not stressed by the challenge.
so the type of music, bass extension of the speakers, and size of room might or might not reveal differences......it depends. but the more full range the challenge, the more the much higher power amp will show the difference.
now in the realm of modestly powered solid state compared to mid powered SET there are cases where the 'tube watts' can get a better relative grip compared to double the ss watts. like maybe 10-20 tube watts to 70-100 solid state watts depending, or like that.
but a modest powered SET under 50 watts compared to a larger solid state amplifier (200+ watts) of similar cost you will see clear differences when pushed.
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No, our disagreement on was only on the reasons why it happens, particularly on your opamps considerations.
I have often written about how misleading are generic thumb rules about speaker and amplifier compatibility in this hobby. Some think we observe with one speaker can be invalid with a technically similar one.
BTW, I also have seen cases where a solid state amplifier could not sound powerful in a system and just changing the solid state preamplifier for a tube preamplfier made it sound much more powerful.
Does 'no' here means you've never heard a low power SET Tube amp appear more powerful than an SS Tube amp with a rated power of an order of magnitude higher? Because that's not too clear from your sentence. Besides, have you taken Electronics Engineering courses?
Our disagreement seems to stem from you not considering the great number of existing SS amps whose output stages are similar to what I describe and the underlying explanation for the situation when a small power SET Tube amp replaces a much higher rated SS amp - which in my case has an order of magnitude of difference : instead you mention an outlier SS amp (good for them to having good design and construction and good for those who have them), and also mention chaining two amps which isn't the comparison we are doing at all.
So the disagreement from me is your weak counter-argument and diversion. I gave an example with some estimated numbers and your sole retort was that the typical SS does not contain that many specific numbers - this is lacking in critical thinking.
Lukasz Ficus, who has won awards for his Lampizator DACs, made extensive tests and deconstructions and reconstructions of output stages of SS gear years ago, and he came to the same conclusion (about chaining Opamps) by looking at the schematics and listening carefully, and comparing the SS gear output stage to the Tubed output stage (hence Lampizator). You can probably still find the article in his archived Lampizator site with an example of the schematics and what an implementation of a chain of Opamp looks like.
Has no bearing at all on what I explained above despite me agreeing with the existing of odd rule of thumbs sometimes in audiophilia.
Here again, that's not the same situation we were considering above. However, you seem to have changed your counter example: before you mentioned putting gear with a chain of Opamp before the Tube amp and that the perceived power doesn't change. Now, you want to explain to us that replacing a SS pre-amp in a chain of two pieces of gear, by a Tubed one makes it sound more powerful, and you don't even see that in this second case, the simplification of circuitry is at play here.
The more complex you make the circuitry, the more possibilities of damaging attack transients occur. It happens that SET Tube amps have very simple circuits.
I agree, and this would explain why some people then later go back to very high-range SS for more power after having found great sound in SETs and other Tube amps, but not necessarily replacing everything (sometimes they do, sometimes they multi-amp in a hybrid configuration SS + Tube which would be where I'd tend to put my future config or else I'll just multi-amp with PP and SET both in Tubed implementations): they are looking specifically for the power or rendering for demanding orchestral/symphonic/classical passages.
Now, classical is approximately only 1.7% of the total market for music purchases - it's tiny. Of these consumers, a very small portion are audiophiles...
Since I am not too fond of specifically classical music - but do have several works, including high-resolution in my collection - I am telling you specifically that in my own tests and in my system and room, comparing a SET Tube amp with about 8W per channel and a SS amp with about 85W per channel, the SET Tube amp systematically sounds more powerful than the SS amp.
This being an order of magnitude of difference between ratings is much more staggering of a notion than a 60W Tube amp appearing more powerful than a 60W SS amp (intriguing in itself though it is).
I wanted to test Tube amps myself having lived with SS amps up to now, but it was specifically for the SQ and I wasn't thinking about perceived power at the time, so it came as a big surprise.
I and my close audiophile colleagues have observed this phenomenon many times and it is also fairly well known in the lore tube amplifiers.
There are two very good articles by Peter Van Willensward where he demonstrated on an oscilloscope with actual music tracks that low powered tube amps were producing instantaneous voltages far greater than a SS amp with about 4x the rated steady state power. His conclusion was that tubes do things differently with regard to voltage outputs that are well above their rated powers. This could go a long way towards explaining how on dyanmics they can sound more powerful than a much larger SS amp.
As towards the subjectivity issue, that has more to do I think with circuit topology and the necessary use of negative feedback by most large SS amplifiers. Negative feedback, I have found, in addition to skewing the distortion spectrum to a less natural pattern, also seems to create a "compressed" sound. The kind of sound that encourages you to "turn it up" so that the sound will, hopefully, open up. Yet the dynamic peaks always seem restricted.
I have heard some of the most powerful consumer amps and they rarely sound more powerful than a good SET and I think it is more for this reason than the power differential.
For example. I once did a demo at a guys place where he had Acapella Violon speakers. These were about 92db/watt, so moderately high sensitivity but not like a full horn, where over 100db/watt is to be expected. The guy had a 250 watt Electrocompaniet amplifier being feed from an Ayre K-1 preamp. I brought a 30 watt KR Audio VA350i and inserted it into this system. The result was overwhelmingly in favor of the dynamics generated by KR vs. the Electrocompaniet, which sounded flat and lifeless by comparison. FWIW, the preamp was used for both amps even though the VA350i is technically an "integrated".
Another example is a friend of mine that had McIntosh MC501 monos. Now, these are one of the higher powered amps out there but compared to a 30 watt push-pull triode amp (VAC 30/30) they sound gray and with less dynamic contrast on Thiel CS3.7s, which everyone claims need high power...well they really don't. That same friend now uses 28 watt SETs on his Thiels and it sounds very dynamic and alive compared to his old McIntoshs.
I have my own experiences with this back when I had "bruiser" amps. I had the Sim Audio Celeste W4250, which was a quite powerful stereo amp (250W/8 ohm and 500 W/4 ohm) and yet, a 50 watt push/pull tube amp sounded more lively on the Dynaudios I had at the time (the bass was more powerful though with the Sim Audio amp...but that was it).
I have also seen this with a low sensitivity speaker. I had a pair of Acoustat 1+1 that sounded far more alive with a KR VA350i than with an ASR Emitter I Exclusive 3 box "integrated". This was also demonstrated on a pair of Relco Mantis ribbon hybrids when comparing an ASR Emitter I exclusive with a pair of 42 watt KR Audio DM monoblocks. The sound was so gray and lifeless with the ASR in comparison to the KR DM monos that one guy exclaimed "no, no that's not right...the ASR sounds broken!"
I have also heard this with Big, multi-way speakers such as the Wilson X1 MK I and MK III as well as the JM Lab Grande Utopia BE EM, where a good SET trounced a big, well regarded high power SS amp.
I am sure Mike Lavigne has his reasons for his preference of big SS amps on his big speakers but I haven't heard a compelling reason from a sonic POV. I have heard the darTZeel smaller amp at length and while it is rather lively sounding, tonally IMO it is not right. So, the simplicity works for the dynamics to some extent but the design and use of feedback has negative consequence, IMO, on the tonality. I have heard the big ones only at the Munich show with big Marten speakers...it was cold sounding and lacking in dynamic expression, but it was a show setup so I won't make more of it.
Now, I have horns (Odeon) and SETs (Ayon, Wall Audio and JJ) and I get tone, texture and dynamics in spades.
Upon reviewing the entire thread, an informative one if I do say so, it seems the KR Audio hybrids provide the closest thing to tube amplification combined with low end control. The slight edge that NAT seems to enjoy as to musical warmth could be significant depending on the speaker. As for myself the decision will be made in the near future, and without the ability to audition either within my current setup. So the hair splitting performed by the above posters and the insight provided is much appreciated.
Would be interesting to directly a/b KR v NAT
In the UK not poss, and I'm happy to report I'm as ecstatic re my investment in NAT today as I was when I bought in nrly 3 yrs ago
In the UK not poss, and I'm happy to report I'm as ecstatic re my investment in NAT today as I was when I bought in nrly 3 yrs ago
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