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Tube Vs. SS Preamps

Oddly in +25 yrs in the hobby, I’ve never really owned a tube preamp. Can you comment on what the differences are in general sonic terms? I want a really fatigue free sound with lots of body (I run class A and class AB solid state amps).

Do you find SS preamps to be fatiguing typically, more so on average than tube ones? Or is it simply the added bloom that's appealing with tube preamps?

greg7
jaymark's avatar
jaymark
547 posts
 

SPL Elector is a solid state preamp that does a nice job of mimicking an excellent tube preamp.  Beautiful, airy, textured sound with great tone colors.  Also, clear as a bell...

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,407 posts
 

let’s diaggregate a little

lesser/older tube gear provides

  1. rolled off treble
  2. little to no deep bass, poor bass damping
  3. enriched/expanded midrange and midbass
  4. lower sense of drive and rhythm and attack when needed
  5. improved imaging and sense of natural ’decay’ on notes (think piano natural reverb)
  6. reduced sense of grain and grit in treble and mids (pleasant smoothing effect)

@jjss49 

The H/K Citation 1 preamp has bandwidth to over 100KHz. Properly refurbished they give many high end preamps a run for the money. Its real weakness is the phono section won't do LOMC cartridges. H/K was good about bandwidth in their power amps as well (the Citation 5 had bandwidth to 100KHz as well) since Stuart Hegeman (the designer) was a big advocate of wide bandwidth and low impedance power supplies. Your characterization of older equipment isn't entirely accurate.

 

jjss49's avatar
jjss49
6,926 posts
 

ralph - first of all happy holidays to you and yours 🎄🎄🎄

re your comment, i never had the pleasure of having citation gear back in the day, am sure they were wide bandwidth as you say ... my thoughts were based on my own, generalized experiences in the late 80’s, 90’s, 00’s using/trying tube pre’s from cj, macintosh, dynaco, cary/dennis had and arc...

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