Why Tube Amps Sound Different (and better) Than SS Amps

[microstrip]

I didn't mean to be evasive, Micro. I read this post....



...in which you opened with an observation so obvious that I completely missed that you were inviting me to debate the obvious. Passed right over it and assumed you were on topic and asking for a qualitative/quantitative discussion of tubes vs SS. I got pretty excited at the quantitative prospect. I really didn't mean to be condesceending either. In my misunderstanding of what you were proposing, I just couldn't imagine that you were inviting quantitative debate of tubes vs. solid state.

In any case, my error, mis-read and inappropriate response; my apologies. Now to the question you did ask: No, I don't want to have that debate. Our qualitative debates go nowhere and a quantitative debate of whether or not there are good and bad solid state amlifiers would be a monumental waste of time. Of course there are good and bad solid state amplifiers, just like there are good and bad tube amplifiers. I think we can agree on that without digging up any quantitative data, don't you?

Tim

Tim,

Apologies accepted. So we agree that we should only debate good tube amplifiers versus good solid state amplifiers, but as we should not debate bad solid state amplifiers versus good solid state amplifiers or bad tube amplifiers versus good tube amplifiers, we do not know what are the real good amplifiers we are allowed to debate. Time for a drink ...

 

[Ethan Winer]

your 1KHz tone sounds a bit rough old man!

Rough? I just looked at an FFT and it's clean with no harmonics. It was generated by Sound Forge.

--Ethan

 

[DonH50]

Just to clarify Don, are you talking also about experiencing this with modern (say since 2004 top end designs/models) ARC or McIntosh tube amps and was it just digital or also analogue?
Agree saturation is a problem at low frequencies with many tube amp designs and exacerbated with analogue that is not limited to 20hz (although this is still a challenge for nearly every tube amp), also damping factor relating to bass can be a consideration and exacerbated with certain speakers.
This was definitely more true with older designs or lower models, and of course using the right taps.
Just mentioning these two brands as they are very popular and also have excellent measurements for their higher designed products.

Thanks
Orb

This is why I shy away from these discussions and need to stay the heck away.

I have not heard recent SoundLabs speakers at all. I have not heard recent ARC gear except very briefly. I have heard McIntosh and Jadis in the last year or two, driving Focal and B&W speakers (various models, not sure on Focal, up to 802D B&W). I did not have a lot of listening time and expectation bias is significant for me, so while I thought the tube gear was better than I remembered, it did not sound as "clear" to me nor as tight in the bass as the Classe and Krell amps I compared on the same systems. That is what I expected. I did feel the Classe was more "tube-like" than the Krell. And I still feel my subjective impressions are pretty worthless, which is what I have been trying to clearly state whenever I give a subjective impression. While my gut says there are limitations very difficult if not impractical to get around, the fact is I have not enough time on modern gear to say anything about it. I really try to make that clear when I post, and is why I try really hard to not get drawn into these subjective discussions. The fundamental physics of the devices has not changed so I am comfortable with that, but every time I post a subjective opinion I get eaten alive, and I cannot say you (a collective "you") are wrong to do so.

 

[Ethan Winer]

you will hear 0.00001 THD.

And unicorns are real!

Myles, did you even listen to my example Wave file?

--Ethan

 

[DonH50]

Don,

Considering the gear you refer I would expect you to disagree. There is very little to compare between the gear you list and SoundLabs of that period and current gear. The Soundlab's still have an impressive midrange, but nothing else is as it was. I good friend of mine still owns the old A1 Soundlabs (1993 vintage) and they sound veiled and harsh compared to mine, not tho speak about the enormous difference in efficiency. If you want technical details just compare that the bandwidth of the old treble transformer only went up to 17 kHz with considerable losses and distortion, and the new toroid's go up to 25 kHz with minimal distortion, the old crossover and HV units, and the rigidity of the stricture.

I am repeating ourselves, but trying to substantiate conclusions on auditions carried 30 years ago is nice to show our age and background, but not of any use in this particular debate, as it will be most probably misused or misunderstood. BTW, I am now listening to an upgraded Oracle Premier (new motor, motor drive electronics, suspension, bearing and acrylic mat platter ) with a Graham tonearm - believe me, night and day compared with the old Oracle with the tacky mat!

See my previous post.

As for LP's, my opinion has long been most of the problem is with the medium and not the playback gear.

I will let this be another learning experience and reminder to not post any subjective opinions but stick to that which I know and is either still valid (physics, engineering principles) or experience of very recent vintage. In this crowd I have essentially none of the latter since there are not alot of high-end stores nearby.

 

[Orb]

This is why I shy away from these discussions and need to stay the heck away.

I have not heard recent SoundLabs speakers at all. I have not heard recent ARC gear except very briefly. I have heard McIntosh and Jadis in the last year or two, driving Focal and B&W speakers (various models, not sure on Focal, up to 802D B&W). I did not have a lot of listening time and expectation bias is significant for me, so while I thought the tube gear was better than I remembered it did not sound as "clear" to me nor as tight in the bass as the Classe and Krell amps I compared on the same systems. I did feel the Classe was more "tube-like" than the Krell. And I still feel my subjective impressions are pretty worthless, which is what I have been trying to clearly state whenever I give a subjective impression. While my gut says there are limitations very difficult if not impractical to get around, the fact is I have not enough time on modern gear to say anything about it. I really try to make that clear when I post, and is why I try really hard to not get drawn into these subjective discussions. The fundamental physics of the devices has not changed so I am comfortable with that, but every time I post a subjective opinion I get eaten alive, and I cannot say you (a collective "you") are wrong to do so.

Don I was not suggesting your perception and subjective listening is wrong, I was interested if that experience was with the older generation of amps rather than their latest as it was confusing from your post due to it mentioning some older models.
Apologies if my own post was not clear that my interest was in your subjective thoughts and which products they were associated with.
Unlike some on these forums, I am not a stickler for objective dbt to formulate a view from ones subjective experiences as it is very difficult to have the scope/context of those dbt mean much usually beyond a limited conclusion.
BTW you will find myself and Microstrip one of the more broad approach with regards to the benefits of both subjective and objective listening, especially when involving discussions with engineering, however some on here tend to use objective arguments it seems when it only suits them (this is definitely not you as many of us do respect your views and experience).
Most of what I added to that earlier post was for the benefit of others as I appreciate you understand the primary factors involved with tubes and influencing their distortion/bass control.
Cheers
Orb

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,

Apologies accepted. So we agree that we should only debate good tube amplifiers versus good solid state amplifiers, but as we should not debate bad solid state amplifiers versus good solid state amplifiers or bad tube amplifiers versus good tube amplifiers, we do not know what are the real good amplifiers we are allowed to debate. Time for a drink ...

As I said in my errant post, I'd invite a quantitative discussion of good tube amplifiers vs midfi solid state. We could even take the vs out altogether. I'd love to witness a quantitative discussion of this...

Finally, "tube" sound isn't about an enhanced presence region or "warmth." It's about the whole note and space of an auditorium. It's about strings not sounding chopped off or with so much leading edge, faking dynamics. It's about notes having decay like my brother's Steinway that I play. In general it's about flow. And in my experience, its VERY difficult to get flow right with SS.

A quantitative discussion of "the whole note and space of the auditorium," in tubes, of the "chopped off strings" and fake dynamics of solid state, and solid state's lack of "flow." Yes indeed, I'd love to see the quantitative discussion of that. When ya'll are ready to get quantitative, let me know. I wouldn't miss that for the world.

Tim

 

[Ethan Winer]

Ethan, did you try this as a DBT ABX and if so what was the statistical significance at 1%,3%?
Furthermore what about other frequencies as it seems you have chosen one of the most ideal, such as 70HZ or 10kHz (these are far from being the worst ones as well in terms of perception).

ABX test? Why? I made that file simply so people can assess for themselves what's audible, and see how totally ridiculous it is for anyone to claim that 0.00001 percent distortion, or even 0.001 percent, is audible at all let alone a problem. I picked 1 KHz because Atmasphere mentioned amp measurements, and simple measurements at one frequency are usually at 1 KHz. I'll be glad to make another file using whatever frequencies you'd like.

While what you have done is interesting to do, unfortunately the test is too simplistic as it does not correlate well to actual music-complex sounds and I am not sure too much of a conclusion can be reached with this.

Tell me specifically what type of file you'd like me to create, and I'll do that adding various amounts of distortion.

Keith Howard did a more advanced model where he applied distortion to the actual music, and created multiple scenarios such odd,even,equal,etc patterns. His conclusion was that it is very difficult to hear distortion at 3% with music

Exactly my point. The notion that infinitesimal amounts of distortion are damaging is so patently ridiculous it's amazing "we still have these silly arguments 40-50 years on."

My recent AES Damn Lies video plays music with two types of distortion added at 5 percent. Since music varies in level it's impossible to add exactly 5 percent clipping distortion continuously, though the other type was crossover distortion which can be maintained more or less. That section starts at 20:50 into the video.

--Ethan

 

[microstrip]

As I said in my errant post, I'd invite a quantitative discussion of good tube amplifiers vs midfi solid state. We could even take the vs out altogether. I'd love to witness a quantitative discussion of this...

Tim

Tim,

I fail to understand what is your pleasure of debating quantitative values that we do not know how to correlate with perceived sound quality. Just by curiosity, what are the specific parameters that you would love to witness the quantitative discussion?

 

[Orb]

Why the ABX:
Because Ethan it would be an eye opener for many who would try to pass such a dbt ABX involving thd and maybe help to stop the assumption that it is thd in tubes that gives them their sound (talking about tube amps working within their parameters), also using something like I think Foobar it is easier to do such ABX tests.
Regarding what would be valid levels I would say needs to cover bass, mid and most sensitive, high; so one below 100hz, one between 1khz-4khz (that you have already), one between 10khz-14khz.
And created with thd at 4%, and then 1%.

As it is a tone and easier than music, will be interesting to see how many if any will get close to statistical significance (lets say 11-12 out of 15 correct for simplicity) with 1%thd tones compared to 3% and for what of the 3 frequencies created.
TBH I would not do the test myself as I am biased against passing it as I know how hard it is to audibly hear 3% with music, but I would like to think some others interested in thd will try it.
Anyway something to mull over and not suggesting you really need to do this Ethan as unfortunately its use is a bit limited.
Thanks
Orb

 

[esldude]

God I hate to bring this old horse out of the barn to be beaten again, but are the reports of these analog- like digital colorations purely anecdotal, or have any of them been tested in blind listening?

Tim

I'll gladly help you beat that old horse. At one time analog like was using LP as a reference. A decidedly bad reference in my opinion. For how long have we read about DAC's sounding like LP's. Sorry, if someone makes one, don't bring it to me. More recently it usually refers to a smooth and easy quality. Having compared a meter of interconnect with an AD-DA conversion I am not sure all that much is lost nor any adverse sound added. So any such analog-like digital must be losing part of the signal.

 

[mep]

Are you sure you know what quantitative means? I'd be thrilled to discuss this with you quantitatively. That discussion would begin with a handful of bench reports on a handful of tube amps with lower noise, lower distortion, better separation, wider range and flatter FR than a good solid state amp. What do I mean by good? For this exercise, midfi should be fine. Beat this $500 Emotiva quantitatively with a tube amp. Beat it with the same headroom, so we have a decent choice of speakers, at less than a four times the cost and I'll buy you one -- http://shop.emotiva.com/collections/x-series/products/xpa200

Qualitatively? I'd just as soon argue immaculate conception with a nun.

Tim

This spec from the site you linked to for the Emotiva amp isn't so hot:

Signal to Noise Ratio (9/28/2012 1:32:23 PM)
Ch1
78.454 dB
Ch2
74.786 dB

 

[treitz3]

So any such analog-like digital must be losing part of the signal.

That's not what they are referring too.

Tom

 

[esldude]

analog = continuous

analog like sound = continuous sounding

Digital to audio conversion provides a continuous analog signal at the output. While the sampling is discontinuous the resulting waveform is not. The only discontinuity is in the mind of the listener. Since they cannot in any way hear a discontinuity that isn't there, what they think they are hearing isn't much of a guide.

 

[mep]

I'll gladly help you beat that old horse. At one time analog like was using LP as a reference. A decidedly bad reference in my opinion. For how long have we read about DAC's sounding like LP's. Sorry, if someone makes one, don't bring it to me. More recently it usually refers to a smooth and easy quality. Having compared a meter of interconnect with an AD-DA conversion I am not sure all that much is lost nor any adverse sound added. So any such analog-like digital must be losing part of the signal.

Man, somehow I missed those discussions/reviews. I have never heard a DAC sound like an LP. Great LPs played back over really good LP rigs and phono stages take on a sound quality close to the tape the LPs came from. DSD shares some of those qualities that you hear from the analog cousins twice removed. And thus the statement "sounds analog-like."

 

[mep]

Digital to audio conversion provides a continuous analog signal at the output. While the sampling is discontinuous the resulting waveform is not. The only discontinuity is in the mind of the listener. Since they cannot in any way hear a discontinuity that isn't there, what they think they are hearing isn't much of a guide.

This entire hobby is built around "what they think they are hearing." Even if people aren't using the 'correct' adjectives in your book to describe what they are hearing, it doesn't diminish the fact that we all hear things differently and what some find objectionable others find pleasurable (or more accurate) and vice versa.

 

[microstrip]

Digital to audio conversion provides a continuous analog signal at the output. While the sampling is discontinuous the resulting waveform is not. The only discontinuity is in the mind of the listener. Since they cannot in any way hear a discontinuity that isn't there, what they think they are hearing isn't much of a guide.

Esldude,

You are playing with words. Once you have the samples, the continuity line is created by processing - analog, digital or both. Most people will tell you that the difference between DACs sound is due to the way this line is established. If people can listen to differences there it is because it was not originally continuous, and the discontinuity was there. Or we can pretend the differences only exist in their minds.

 

[esldude]

As I said in my errant post, I'd invite a quantitative discussion of good tube amplifiers vs midfi solid state. We could even take the vs out altogether. I'd love to witness a quantitative discussion of this...



A quantitative discussion of "the whole note and space of the auditorium," in tubes, of the "chopped off strings" and fake dynamics of solid state, and solid state's lack of "flow." Yes indeed, I'd love to see the quantitative discussion of that. When ya'll are ready to get quantitative, let me know. I wouldn't miss that for the world.

Tim

Oh I would like to see a quantitative analysis of this oft repeated result about chopped off decay. One could use a recorded pluck of a stringed instrument or an artificially generated one with known decay. See if there is a difference in how long someone will hear it until they say it disappears. I have done this informally, and have seen one person claim to be hearing it after it actually had stopped already. I am sure we could come up with other appropriate tests.

 

[mep]

Oh I would like to see a quantitative analysis of this oft repeated result about chopped off decay. One could use a recorded pluck of a stringed instrument or an artificially generated one with known decay. See if there is a difference in how long someone will hear it until they say it disappears. I have done this informally, and have seen one person claim to be hearing it after it actually had stopped already. I am sure we could come up with other appropriate tests.

Conversely, I have been around people who couldn't hear a firecracker if you set it off next to their ear. Unless you were running the test and looking at the signal on a scope, how can you be sure he wasn't hearing what was there and you couldn't?

 

[MylesBAstor]

Why the ABX:
Because Ethan it would be an eye opener for many who would try to pass such a dbt ABX involving thd and maybe help to stop the assumption that it is thd in tubes that gives them their sound (talking about tube amps working within their parameters), also using something like I think Foobar it is easier to do such ABX tests.
Regarding what would be valid levels I would say needs to cover bass, mid and most sensitive, high; so one below 100hz, one between 1khz-4khz (that you have already), one between 10khz-14khz.
And created with thd at 4%, and then 1%.

As it is a tone and easier than music, will be interesting to see how many if any will get close to statistical significance (lets say 11-12 out of 15 correct for simplicity) with 1%thd tones compared to 3% and for what of the 3 frequencies created.
TBH I would not do the test myself as I am biased against passing it as I know how hard it is to audibly hear 3% with music, but I would like to think some others interested in thd will try it.
Anyway something to mull over and not suggesting you really need to do this Ethan as unfortunately its use is a bit limited.
Thanks
Orb

Oh boy here we go again. When will people learn that all ABX tests prove is that short term memory is fallible. We already knew that .... Duh....

People you gotta read up and understand more about short and long term memory and about serial vs. parallel processing processes that go on in the brain. To wit, short term memory has limited *disc* space, is easily filled and of short duration. Or we don't to this day understand how, why and which short term (and there is unconscious processing going on) memories are converted to long term memories. Ever wonder why crime witnesses are unreliable? Or why perception decreases with the complexity of the task? (Guess how many variables are going on during a listening session, conscious or unconscious?) But no ABX proponents continue to repeat their mantra like Moonies... Oh well ignorance is bliss.