Why so many tubes?

There's a 50cc class of racing motorbikes. Back in the 50s and 60s it became all about how many cylinders you could get to displace only 50cc. Things got real small and because things really didn't weigh all that much revs were over 20,000! So they put a stop to it and 50cc is now limited to one cylinder.


In the audio world this would be akin to using a lot of really small tubes to make an amp but it would be a really poor analogy.

@ghasley

Yeah, you gearheads are too deep in the weeds on this.

The point...the general point...is that you can run a bunch of small tubes softly (small piston v-12 jaguar) vs fewer big tubes (big block American V8) run really hard. " Depends on the designers goals".

Do you get it now? It’s the general idea as an analogy.

It’s just a valid comparison...not the exact same thing.

Actually thats a great comparison, a v12 Jab vs a big block American v8. I know which one Id rather drive cross country!

A single output tube per channel is the best sound quality, each additional power tube thereafter introduces more and more audible tradeoffs.

AWD Porsche Turbo = all weather attack jet.  Displacement HP is meaningless IF ya can’t it connected to pavement….Ask those helpless Vette or Viper jockeys… Dry day might be a gunfight…

Systems engineering !

Seems like a complicated way to reproduce music

Yes, it is. It’s taking sound vibrations, storing it on a physical media, then retrieving the signal, modifying and amplifying the signal as needed to drive transducers in speakers. It’s an imperfect process, a facsimile of reality, but that’s all we got for now.

Then you have high end audio which emphasizes quality sonics which often means: lowering the noise floor, minimizing EMF and RFI interference, cleaning the AC power, minimizing distortion, shortening the signal paths, minimizing internal vibrations, controlling case vibrations, designing better circuits, using higher quality/specification parts, using cutting edge materials and techniques,...etc.