Tube or solid state

If you have the budget : go for a Technics R1000. Best amp on the market at any price

Use tube only if you prefer Low Fi and enjoy this vintage sound. :)

Vintage sound, AK LOW FI is mostly lots of harmonic distorsion, high noise ratio, and spectral non linearity. 

I'm not saying that it's Bad, or that I don't like it : I just that it's not HI Fi anymore since 50 years to be fair.

You may find this article instructive : The return of tube amps!

Of course, as stated above : I'm an ignorant (I'm just an Hifi audio enthusiast since 40 years, professional Jazz musician and teacher since 30 years, endorsed demonstrator for several manufacturers, electronic engineer by my studies, and also administrator of several high fidelity discussion groups, .... but I just discovered that I'm an ignorant compared to some of the experts around here, as it seems).

Still, obvious facts are there :) so it's not a matter of what I posted, or what I'm thinking : just obvious facts.

The musicality of the "tube" sound is a real phenomenon. It has long been known that listeners appreciate the addition of a certain amount of second harmonic distortion, and tube amplifiers produce just that, due to enormous difficulties in maintaining good linearity with acceptable feedback coefficients. 

While this distortion may sound nice, Hifi is supposed to be about precision, and if the sound needs to be altered in this way: it should be limited to a front panel adjustment of the pre-amp or integrated amp, like "Smooth Old Sound: ON/OFF". 

Tubes offer some advantages - their overdrive behavior is smoother than solid state, so even when clipping the sound is less "harsh" (even harmonics). While this is desirable for a guitar amplifier that runs on distortion most of the time, it is of no use in Hifi, where distortion must be completely avoided. 

Tube amps also (usually, but not always) have a much higher output impedance than solid-state amps, which makes some speakers sound better and others noisy, so results are unpredictable. 

In fact there are very few tube amps of any cost that will outperform a very basic modern transistor amp. 

Indeed, the vast majority of transistor amps are so superior in every way to any tube amp, that it is hard to justify the use of tubes in anything other than guitar amplification, where, despite lots of marketing hype: no transistor amp has ever been able to sound exactly the same as a tube amp...we're getting close...but it's not the same.

The appearance of monoblock class A triode tube amplifiers ... is truly amazing. They typically have abysmal 1-5% harmonic distortion at rated rpm, are low power (typically less than 5W continuous), not to mention the wear and tear/planned obsolescence of tube technology. Such an amplifier generates large amounts of second order harmonic distortion and requires a very large output transformer. The distortion inherent in the iron-core transformer is ubiquitous, and only violent feedback can eliminate it. Significant feedback around a transformer is extremely difficult to achieve correctly, as phase irregularities usually cause the amplifier to oscillate.... 

In summary: it may have been the state of the art 50 years ago, but there is no valid reason to use tubes for high fidelity amplification: as long as we know why not praise the virtues of wax cylinders or vinyl... as having a sound superior to the CD, LOOL 😅

Below is the typical form of reproduction of a "square" signal by a very good tube amp, at 100Hz, 1000Hz, and 10KHz, I let you judge the massacre...

 

Recently in a review I saw an amp over $2800, a class A triode thingy advertised 4% THD at 10 watts....which is absolutely appalling for an amp...even low range: most powered PC speakers do better than that!

I have no doubt that many tube amps have a very smooth, not unpleasant sound... it's not Hifi, but I must admit that I do like Lowfi, from time to time. ..

invalid

822 posts

02-05-2023 at 03:07pm

If it sounds closer to the real thing than transistor amps then it doesn’t matter what wave you measure.

First of all High Fidelity has never been supposed to reproduce reality but to reproduce the recording.

Now, even if it’s hard to believe for someone who never worked professionaly in recording studios, the truth is : at least 50% of what you listen has been created with digital processing in the studio.

But overall the statement of Mr Invalid ...is....as his name suggest  : if the Fidelity (fidelity to recordings) matters : tube technology has to be avoided, since it’s not HiFi by any means for today’s standards.

@spaceguitarist FWIW there are tube amps that can reproduce those squarewaves and do it properly, on account of having full power response to less than 2 Hz on the bottom end (so no measurable square wave tilt at 20Hz) and response well past 100KHz on the top end.

No, you are totally wrong.

Even the most "high end" tube amps, sold at stupidly high prices : deliver more than bearable distorsion to still be called "hifi" gear. And of course they can’t reproduce square waves (who cares... music isn’t square waves). Not to mention the electricity consumption which is totally ridiculous in our time of global warming and energy crisis. Not to mention wear, microphonic parasites, noise ratio, ...

Again : I’m not stating that tube amps don’t sound good : they often do, at least just like any well built amp can sound good (you can easily find as much shitty tube amps as good ones).

But this kind of deprecated technology is called LOWFI , not HIFI, for good reasons : it doesn’t provide "fidelity" at 2023 expectations.

You could read this funny review from ASR (and trust me if I tell you that ASR is not my cup of tea as I think they understand nothing to audiophile reproduction... but at least if you focus on technical details : it’s an information source of reference).

Luxman SQ-N150 Review

@spaceguitarist you regurgitating ASR says all I need to hear from you.

LOOOL 😂  you did not even manage to read up to the end of my post, and you don't provide any argument that could give any credibility to your opinion : so maybe you just wanted to prove that you're not able to have any opinion on the subject ?

I’m sorry. I disagree with you. You are completely wrong in much of what you write, and you write in antagonistic, derogatory fashion, disguised as “enlightenment”. Some of your facts are actual facts, but some of your “facts” are only your personal opinion, no more than that. And that is 100% fact. 

You should provide at least 1 argument

it is contradictory to say that tube amplification is “LOWFI”, while admitting that tube amplifiers can “sound good”

LOWFI ""can"" sound good as long as the listener is expecting LOWFI : there’s no contradiction.

In some cases LOWFI amplification is better, especially with old recordings that are not able to provide good listening experience by themselves but require the amp to add some kind of "body" to the sound (what tube amps are usually doing well with a hudge amount of added distorsion).

Anyway : the world of LOWFI fanatics is very small today : 1) electric guitarists (for most kind of music : electric guitar microphones are unable to provide enough "body" by themselves), 2) phonographs and audiophiles tube amps for those who are searching for the good old sound of their youth, 3) some newcomers who believe what marketing says...

To come back to the main post’s question : tube preamp is total nonsense. What makes tubes enjoyable is second order distorsion at high operating level, preferably in class A operation. But even with this in mind : latest FET FDA are doing better.

So the answer is : no tube anywhere if HIFI is expected ! and tubes only at the power stage if LOWFI is expected.