Why Tube Amps Sound Different (and better) Than SS Amps
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Please go back and reread the text. It is done at 0VU, using a VU meter. That's not much power at all. Do it at 1 watt. You'll see very quickly what I am talking about.
What about SET amps with Tetrode/Ultralinear and used within specification-parameters?
Cheers
Orb
You're kidding right? A SE amplifer can't do orchestral on Avantegarde speakers? Think Bill Hart or Larry Toy would beg to disagree with you. Or Wilson speakers? So you totally discount the stunned reaction from everyone who has visited Steve's and heard his LAMM amps?
Or have you heard the Kronzilla, WAVAC, Audio Note, NAT Audio, etc. SET amplifiers.or are you basing everything on your amps?
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Yes, of course, because it directly tests what's being claimed.
Sure, but obviously not at 0.1 percent. Analog tape distortion at an amount that adds "character" is more like 2 to 5 percent distortion. And how many audiophiles complain about that level of odd-order distortion?
The reason "we still have these silly arguments 40-50 years on" is because some people prefer to believe in magic, and refuse to simply test this for themselves. For example, the notion that we can hear odd-order distortion that's too soft to measure, and that odd-order distortion as low as 0.001 percent is audible, and that distortion as soft as 0.1 percent can be "quite intolerable." All you have to do is add a few sine waves in an audio editor program to know this is completely wrong!
Not everyone has and knows how to use audio editing software, so I'll do the work and anyone reading can decide for themselves at what level odd-order 3rd harmonic distortion is objectionable or even audible. HERE is a link to a short Wave file that plays 1 KHz at -3 dB for 7 seconds. I inserted a 3 KHz 3rd harmonic tone that sustains for one second at 10 percent (-23 dB), then at 1 percent (-43 dB), then at 0.1 percent (-63 dB). Anyone can hear when there's 10 percent THD, but 1 percent is difficult to notice, and 0.1 percent is probably impossible for anyone to hear no matter how good their ears are. The image below shows how the added distortion tone pulses on and off, just so it's perfectly clear what the file contains.
--Ethan
Ok, I'll bite too...
Which SET amp was that, exactly? Was it a 2a3 or 45? 300B or 211? Direct coupled? Interstage transformer coupled? Choke-loaded driver stages? Chokes in the ground leg of the pi filter? Chokes before or after the rectifier? Which rectifier? Which transformers? Global negative feedback or none? What was the output impedance?
And speakers... Which where those? Planars? Stats? Dynamics? What was their sensitivity? Their efficiency? Any awkward phase angles from the crossover? A sub 4-ohm load dipping to 2 ohms below 100Hz?
Unless of course, the SET amp simply revealed more of the micro dynamics, harmonics and textural detail that was on the recording - details that were masked and suppressed by the "cleaner" and better-measuring solid state design. Because well-measuring solid state amps never do that, right?
And this from the other guy in this thread who uses a dbx Expander...
Sheesh.
You would in fact expect exactly that result. Timbre is defined as two signals that sound equally loud with the same fundamental frequency which sound different. The difference is in the number, and relative amplitude of harmonics. Timbre is nowhere near the mystery some make it out to be. If one piece of equipment is clean and another has audible levels of harmonic distortion that will alter the levels of and add harmonics that weren't there originally. That will alter perceived timbre. It of course will add richness and apparent complexity which many will perceive as more timbre or better timbre. Not odd at all.
Now if the harmonic distortion gets on up there, yes, compared to a clean representation the extra richness will mask other low level details. I am not saying all SET's have this effect. I have only heard a small number of them. All I have heard did this. It was a rich, somewhat smooth sound, that the owners of said SET's loved and craved. I found it boring after short period of time myself. My own preference is push-pull triode sound which isn't transparent either. But its effect is more enjoyable to me. But true transparency has its own allure as well.
This sounds ill conceived in the extreme. The SET, though measurably more colored, reveals micro-dynamics, harmonics, and detail that was on the recording. Details masked by cleaner solid state. Just prima facie this makes no sense. SS amps if good are measurably cleaner, and will reveal quite well what is on the recording while a dirtier amp by measurement will by definition muddle and cover up the finest details or create artifacts which may be perceived as detail when it actually is added artifact. Any surprise that an amp adding subtle artifacts may sound like more is happening than a clean one?
Thanks for your explanation. But I am sorry I do not understand above sentence. Could you please clarify?
Well, my parallel push-pull triode amp sounds as clean as a Spectral (a statement as many times ignored as repeated on this thread), thus transparent if you will -- on my speakers that is. On a difficult load the sound would not just be anemic, it would color; I have heard this myself with an amp similar to mine (not as heavily modified from stock). The Spectral of course will remain transparent on a wider range of speakers.
I do not see why a SET amp cannot be transparent on suitable speakers, even though it probably will be even more finicky when it comes to speaker choice (the speakers most likely must be extremely sensitive, for starters).
Isn't it sad the ears don't hear numbers? Guess someone forgot to tell them. Repeat after me, you will hear 0.00001 THD.....
And yet here we are, 38 pages and 381 posts on, trading ill-conceived rhetoric back and forth with people apropos single ended triode amplifiers who:
So here's my suggestion: Go hear a bunch more, and in you can, some directly-heated triode amplifiers operating linearly well below their power output producing a tiny amount of second-order harmonic distortion and no higher order distortion into some copasetic speakers. Then tell me about your experience, rather than you opinion. If it's impossible for you to conceive that an amp that measures well may in fact suppress and kill off some of what's on the recording in order for it to measure well, then you'll have a lifetime of musical bliss available to you from cheap solid state the rest of your life.
Look dude, I'm not picking on you. And to be honest, after 50 posts, I'm already out for the count.
Given that life is short and forums are no respecter of just how much time can be consumed by circular arguments on the internet with persons of variable life experience, I'll make this my last post - for my sake, if not for yours.
So I'll end with some context.
It was around the time that I migrated from a full-blown Naim system to a Wadia 581, a VTL 6.5/MB-450 combo, Dynaudio C2's, Finite Element Racks and footers, and Nordost and Wireworld cabling in a large acoustically-treated and dedicated room that I fell out of love with hi-fi. Six figures is a lot to spend on any depreciating asset, but that was the cost of nirvana, apparently. Not only that, I had also built and funded a boutique recording studio filled with expensive mics, outboard, AD and DA converters and modified active ATCs with various collections of vintage drums kits, guitars and amps.
Having loved music all my life, sung in the choir, played in wind bands, jazz bands, brass bands, orchestras, pop bands, rock bands, electronica acts and progressive metals bands, I had made my passion my career, and begun the upwardly-mobile ascent toward being a full-time producer/engineer, owning the most select gear put to use in the service of the most discriminating of clients.
Only, I didn't own it. The bank did. Overnight, the credit bubble with which my home and business were fuelled burst, along with the hopes and dreams of my clients - talented though they were. We were forced to liquidate everything and came up short to the tune of multiples of thousands of dollars.
I was forced to consider whether my chosen career was really all that sustainable, built as it were on the illusion of liquidity. I decided it was not, and went back to university to emerge into the wonderful world of advertising, built on the illusion of limitless consumption.
And it was during that time that I began to ask some critical questions. Though I had owned many fine hi-fi systems from many fine manufacturers, I had often wondered why when listening to music through the large collection of audiophile-approved components in an audiophile-approved room did I constantly find my attention wandering? I would often catch myself playing guitar or reading a book while listening. No bad thing in itself, but I wondered: Was I bored? I had owned many and various iterations of solid-state and valves, owned vinyl and digital - in this sense I was fairly agnostic. If "high-fidelity" exists beyond Platonic idealism, then I can say I had attempted to realise it, only to come up short.
It was not long after that I discovered idler drive turntables, low-powered SETs and horns. I was riveted. I began connecting again to the music. To the songs. To the lyrics. If music made by human beings as an act of volitional expression and intention can be captured, then surely that same expression and intention can be played back, no? Wasn't that the reason I had become a producer - to capture human creativity and emotion via the medium of sound? If so, why had the six-figure system in the dedicated room been so lacklustre, so… flaccid in those areas? Don't get me wrong - it sounded great. But it couldn't deliver the expression, intention, purpose, emotion and meaning of the music in the way the idler drive/SET/horn system could. Conceptually it departed from the idealism perpetuated by certain factions - subjectively it was revelatory. If there was anything that reproduced the gestalt of hearing musicians creating art in real-time that I frequently experienced in the bands I played in and the artists I recorded, this came the closest.
And so, I began making plans for an all-out assault on a state-of-the-art idler drive/SET/horn-based system with bespoke transformers and field-coil power supplies, all hand-wired with silver. Having learned some simple lessons from the financial crisis we had been co-conspirators in, we had decided to prohibit ourselves from becoming indebted to another party and would save for whatever we wanted. This proved felicitous in that I was making amazing amounts of money from freelancing in advertising. My work was good. People liked it. I became successful and people liked it more. Soon the work became a tidal wave of dollars lashing the shores of our sun-kissed lives, and we rode it all the way to the bank.
However, in the midst of this saga we had introduced three beautiful little children. They were born so perfect and well-formed I was amazed that less than three minutes of my time and energy could produce such wonders. (Ok, ok… less than two minutes.) We liked them a lot. The problem was I wasn't seeing much of them, nor my wife who bore them. Working six and seven day weeks will do that. Sure, the money was nice. It was great, and yet…
So in the year that I turned 39 I began to reflect on our decidedly first-world situation. We had everything we could want in abundance and no time to enjoy it. We had introduced children who needed us yet I was never around to be needed. So we made The Decision.
We sold everything and spared nothing. We used the money to move away from our very expensive apartment in our very expensive city and moved thousands of miles to rural France for a simpler life. I took less work and made less money. We had none of the things we previously considered essential to our well being, and yet discovered that in our marriage, our children and the time that we had now freed up for ourselves we actually had everything. Suddenly the very expensive hand-wound transformers I wanted seemed… redundant. If having tungar power supplies for field-coil drivers in hand-crafted horns meant spending less time together as a family, then I would gladly do without.
I still love music. My wife (a flautist) and our children (yet to choose instruments for themselves) love music too. We listen to it all the time. But I'm much less concerned as to what its played on. For now, at least, we've found contentment in being a family who are not tied to expensive things and the concomitant need to fund them by working 24/7. An idler drive turntable, boutique single-ended directly heated triode amps and horns may indeed find themselves sharing our living room one day (or maybe a Devialet and some LS3/5a's will - who knows?), but regardless, I remain convinced the future welfare of our family will remain joyfully and musically intact.
This is a good forum, and I have no doubt it will be better without me. It's been a pleasant distraction from real life but for me, it's run its course. At the very least, my family will appreciate me not staring into my Mac any more than I need to. Shalom.
From wikipedia on timbre:
In music, timbre (/?tæmb?r/ TAM-b?r or /?t?mb?r/ TIM-b?r) also known as tone color or tone quality from psychoacoustics, is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the perception of timbre include spectrum and envelope.
In simple terms, timbre is what makes a particular musical sound different from another, even when they have the same pitch and loudness. For instance, it is the difference between a guitar and a piano playing the same note at the same loudness. Experienced musicians are able to distinguish between different instruments based on their varied timbres, even if those instruments are playing notes at the same pitch and loudness.
Well, I think I said if clean enough a tube amp will begin to sound like a solid state amp. Without the particulars of yours that is certainly possible. I think it was 40 years ago now early comparisons to SS and tube showed in blind tests that if the tube amp was used in its most linear range it wasn't perceived as different to SS. Apparently you yourself have heard with a difficult load the SS can stay cleaner. I would think the REL Storm takes plenty of the load off your tube amp.
Could an SET sound as clean, sure if loaded gently enough and its abilities were enough. Those few I have heard were short of that. Have messed with single ended transistor low power amps a few years back. Similar issues. With an easy enough load not bad, most loads were too much, and the distortion was more objectionable than tubes which is nothing new. I also once owned a Pass Aleph 3. 30 watts and very clean single ended FET. Sounded clean and nice with loads it could handle. Something like a difficult speaker like a Thiel and it could be hard and harsh. Simple distortion on peaks really. More than it could do. Unlike many SET triodes it was very clean as long as not pushed.
Wow! I had no idea you had to be an experienced musician to distinguish between two different instruments playing notes at the "same pitch and loudness."
Or some would say if poorly designed enough.
Which SETamplifier (s) on what speaker (s)?
It's clear that SETs, in contrast to other tube amps, must be more carefully matched to the speaker in order to reap the full benefits.
The problem is how does a high fidelity amp, one that adds very, very little to the input signal, kill off or cover information in that input signal? If it were missing that too would show as a distortion. On the other hand, usually noisier, and more distorted output from a lower fidelity amp can add to the input signal in ways well known to sound like additional retrieved detail. It actually is added to something as it wasn't there. It happens to sound good to many or even most people. Music is about enjoyment, so enjoy it that is fine. Just don't mistake it for superior fidelity. There is nothing wrong about saying something is too clinical, too clean I like more spice in my sound.
As for hearing more SET's, I haven't heard them all. Heard several. Owned one SS and one tubed one. Maybe there are some clean enough, but then they only would be getting as clean as SS. It is forum common problem. Talk about a piece of equipment in particular and people complain that doesn't apply to all of a genre. Talk about a genre of equipment in general and people will complain it doesn't apply to each one go listen some more. You can't win on that one.
Thank you for the context of your ideas. That is valuable to understand and communicate. Glad you have settled into what sounds like a sustainable, good, enjoyable balance in your life.
Take care, and whatever you do, don't let the hobby get in the way of enjoying music.
Well just to be nit picky. The item you quoted didn't say you had to be. It just said experienced musicians could. Which doesn't preclude others. One example of perhaps what they had in mind. Many times listening to a recording people will assume a violin when they are hearing a viola. Musicians jump on that in a heartbeat. Other people hear it too, but sometimes are sloppy about describing it.
No, but it sure inferred it. Look, you didn't write the comment, you just quoted it. I just don't think it's particularly brilliant.
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