Hardly.
Perhaps we can begin by listing all the Ag cables we've heard.
As a matter of fact, am doing a cable survey right now and still, Ag cables still have a signature just as copper do.
Tube amps....where art thou?
- Thread starter mbovaird
- Start date
Hardly.
Perhaps we can begin by listing all the Ag cables we've heard.
As a matter of fact, am doing a cable survey right now and still, Ag cables still have a signature just as copper do.
It's not even so much any more tipped up but illuminated or a lack of sense of ease. OTOH Ag tends to sound powerful, detailed and has a clean and extended low end.
If you classify Siltech, as lacking a sense of ease , then maybe we are on a different page .
I haven't heard the latest generation of Siltech. Earlier Siltech (Ag+Au) still had that sound. In actuality, I was referring to the cables on hand as well as in the past.
Point noted . Sorry to be digressing from the posted topic , but how would you classify those cables that are Cu solid core but silver plated , like Nordost , they certainly do not have an extended low end , it's more balanced towards the treble , at least in my experience with the Valhalla .
Of course they do, but c'mon, the respective "general" characteristics of wire types has little to do with either SS or Tube based sound. Two different aspects of audio, only related by synergistic requirements. And IMO, the better silver cables offer superior low frequency impact characteristics, it's at the top end that most tend to sound a little "crisper".
And please refrain from asking me (or any long time audiophile) to list ALL such cable experience as some sort of justifiable reference ... we've all heard our fair share along the journey ...
tb1
That has been my experience with Valhalla, especially the speaker cables...lean mid bass and pushed out treble somewhat. The Odin line does not share those characteristics. They are full and balanced sounding throughout the frequency range and have a lower noise floor possibly due to their 100% Total Shielding construction. Of course they cost 3 times as much, unfortunately.
++1
Just came across this thread and was about to make mention of Jadis as being one good candidate for OP to look at. The JA200s are superb.
It could be (sounded like) that the tube amps auditioned were fazed by the cruel impedance dips presented by your speakers whereby changing their intrinsic characters. Ime, in such cases, usually sound thinner and edgier than they should be. When at ease, VAC don't usually sound that way. However, my experience was limited to Renaissance140s and PHi300.1 only.
I had a Phi 200 and it was hardly distinguishable from Mac 601s, so I somewhat agree. Now many would say Mac sounds like tube...
My Phi Beta was more tube-like, especially after tube rolling.
I would add a boutique firm, Sablon Audio, to this list. Reviewed by SixMoons (and a few others as well), I believe.
The original topic had to do with tube amps sounding more like transistors.
The problem is that there is a model for how speakers are to be driven by amplifiers- this model I call the Voltage Paradigm. In this model, the amplifier behaves like a voltage source, which is to say that for any given impedance it is to drive, the amp will make the same voltage. We are all familiar with the ideal here- as you cut the impedance in half, you double the power of the amp. Such an amp is a perfect voltage source.
There is only one way to do this with tube amplifiers: add negative feedback, probably 20db or more. The problem here is that all amplifiers have a propagation delay (the amount of time it takes for a signal to propagate from the input to output of the amp). What this means is that the feedback signal, usually taken at the output of the amp, will be slightly delayed, IOW will arrive slightly late back at the input of the amp, to really do its job correctly. You can see that this problem gets worse at higher frequencies due to the shorter duration of high frequency signals.
(BTW the amp will not double power as impedance is halved, it will cut its power as impedance is doubled. So whatever power it is capable of into a lower impedance like 4 ohms, will be the maximum power that the amp makes.)
Because of this error, the addition of negative feedback has some adverse effects. One of them is increased odd-ordered harmonic distortion, something that is usually associated with transistor amps. The ear finds such distortion to be an increase in brightness and harshness, as the ear/brain system interprets distortion as tonality. In this case, the ear/brain system also uses the higher ordered harmonics as loudness cues. IOW uses these harmonics to sort out how loud a sound actually is. When there are increased amounts of higher ordered harmonics, we perceive the result as harsher and brighter.
Hence, tube amps with lots of feedback will sound solid state.
Now there is another model used to drive loudspeakers that has been around for a very long time. I call it the Power Paradigm. In this model, its expected that the amplifier will make constant power rather than constant voltage. Obviously no amplifier can do this (but neither can any amplifier behave as a perfect voltage source either) but some can come quite close! This requires different design rules in the loudspeaker, as the crossovers will not work the same way and the box resonances are dealt with in a different fashion.
Now what most audiophiles do not realize and what the industry does not like to talk about is the fact that these two models have been in competition with each other since the late 1950s when Macintosh and EV first proposed the voltage-drive rules. Most tube amplifiers that do not use feedback are on the Power Paradigm. Loudspeakers that work with them (most horns, ESLs and a good number of box speakers including the venerable Acoustic Research AR-1, the world's first acoustic suspension loudspeaker) are in the Power Paradigm as well. Part of the equipment matching conversation we see so often in audio has to do with the fact that you can't mix equipment from differing models all that well- you usually wind up with a tonal coloration; no bass, too bright, stuff like that.
More information:http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php
The problem is that there is a model for how speakers are to be driven by amplifiers- this model I call the Voltage Paradigm. In this model, the amplifier behaves like a voltage source, which is to say that for any given impedance it is to drive, the amp will make the same voltage. We are all familiar with the ideal here- as you cut the impedance in half, you double the power of the amp. Such an amp is a perfect voltage source.
There is only one way to do this with tube amplifiers: add negative feedback, probably 20db or more. The problem here is that all amplifiers have a propagation delay (the amount of time it takes for a signal to propagate from the input to output of the amp). What this means is that the feedback signal, usually taken at the output of the amp, will be slightly delayed, IOW will arrive slightly late back at the input of the amp, to really do its job correctly. You can see that this problem gets worse at higher frequencies due to the shorter duration of high frequency signals.
(BTW the amp will not double power as impedance is halved, it will cut its power as impedance is doubled. So whatever power it is capable of into a lower impedance like 4 ohms, will be the maximum power that the amp makes.)
Because of this error, the addition of negative feedback has some adverse effects. One of them is increased odd-ordered harmonic distortion, something that is usually associated with transistor amps. The ear finds such distortion to be an increase in brightness and harshness, as the ear/brain system interprets distortion as tonality. In this case, the ear/brain system also uses the higher ordered harmonics as loudness cues. IOW uses these harmonics to sort out how loud a sound actually is. When there are increased amounts of higher ordered harmonics, we perceive the result as harsher and brighter.
Hence, tube amps with lots of feedback will sound solid state.
Now there is another model used to drive loudspeakers that has been around for a very long time. I call it the Power Paradigm. In this model, its expected that the amplifier will make constant power rather than constant voltage. Obviously no amplifier can do this (but neither can any amplifier behave as a perfect voltage source either) but some can come quite close! This requires different design rules in the loudspeaker, as the crossovers will not work the same way and the box resonances are dealt with in a different fashion.
Now what most audiophiles do not realize and what the industry does not like to talk about is the fact that these two models have been in competition with each other since the late 1950s when Macintosh and EV first proposed the voltage-drive rules. Most tube amplifiers that do not use feedback are on the Power Paradigm. Loudspeakers that work with them (most horns, ESLs and a good number of box speakers including the venerable Acoustic Research AR-1, the world's first acoustic suspension loudspeaker) are in the Power Paradigm as well. Part of the equipment matching conversation we see so often in audio has to do with the fact that you can't mix equipment from differing models all that well- you usually wind up with a tonal coloration; no bass, too bright, stuff like that.
More information:http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php
Some of the tube amps I've listened to in the last 10 years.
Sonic Frontiers (when they were still in business), maybe they weren't warmed up but they sounded lifeless.
Acoustic Research, just okay nothing to get excited about, tempered down to sound like solid state.
McIntosh, could have been the associated equipment (all Mac) but it was missing the initial beginning part of each note.
Golden Tube Audio, my own amp, not perfect but gets all the important parts right, I have little to complain about.
Doshi Audio, just sounds right, you don't even have to think about it. Your brain by-passes that part and you go straight to enjoying the music.
For the most part I love tubes because they get the main body of music right, very annoying when they clip, temper or cut short this beauty.
Sonic Frontiers (when they were still in business), maybe they weren't warmed up but they sounded lifeless.
Acoustic Research, just okay nothing to get excited about, tempered down to sound like solid state.
McIntosh, could have been the associated equipment (all Mac) but it was missing the initial beginning part of each note.
Golden Tube Audio, my own amp, not perfect but gets all the important parts right, I have little to complain about.
Doshi Audio, just sounds right, you don't even have to think about it. Your brain by-passes that part and you go straight to enjoying the music.
For the most part I love tubes because they get the main body of music right, very annoying when they clip, temper or cut short this beauty.
I will say that to my ears solid state gets the beginning and end of each note right, whereas tubes get the middle part right.
Great explanation, thank you for contributing.
Great explanation, thank you for contributing.
I would say that ss gets the attack, both technologies present different versions of the music in the middle and tubes get the harmonics better. YMMV....
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