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Can tube amps give true high end bass?

I got the giant Silverline Grande La Folia speakers. They are really good and true high end in my opinion. They are efficient ca 93Db but got for bass 4 x 9,5ยด dynaudio woofers in each cabinet. I have tried 2 tube amps with them: Antique Sound Labs monos 2x60w and a protype VERY good 2x40W with El34 tubes (more about that amp in a later tread). And I have tried 2 transistor amps: An Ayre V1xe and Krell 450mcx monos. All givin very good sound in the mids and heigths BUT very different in bass. In my opinion the best bass was from the tube amps. Powerful deep bass!!

My dealer clames that such big speakers need a lot of power to control the 8 woofers: You must have several 100W i.e. tranistor or BIG tube amps like big VTL. With the "small" tube amps, that you have tried, the woofers get out of control and "pumping" air in an incorrect way. This movement in the woofers gives sound on it own that you only THINK is good bass!

Beeing an audiophile for 30 years I think I can determine when I hear good bass. But I am puzzled! -How can a 40W tube amp give better bass that Krell 450 monos?
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Showing 1 response by amfibius

amfibius
282 posts
 
T bone, I think that Jmaldonado is talking about the damping factor. The damping factor refers to the amp's ability to control the motion of the driver. The DF is a ratio of the impedance of the speaker and the output impedance of the amplifier. Most SET amps have DF's around 10-20, whereas good SS amps have a DF of >100. A system with a poor DF will be unable to start and stop the woofer with any great degree of precision, so the woofer cone will continue to oscillate for a period of time. This gives "bloom" to the bass. You can get used to it ... in fact it's one of my guilty pleasures :)

The other thing to note is that speaker impedance curves are not linear and tend to drop around the bass region.

Most tube amps have output transformers which will help to lower the output impedance but output transformers can introduce their own sonic colourations as well.
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