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Tubes vs Tubeless

Hi,

Very, very (did I say "very") new to this adventure. I had a nice lower end, high end system 30 years ago and life got in the way and I had to part with that system. I now have a basic set up with a Belles Aria integrated amp with Vandersteen 2ce Signature speakers and a Linn DAC with a basic turntable.

I'm thinking of an upgrade and going full in on a dac system and leaving the vinyl to the side. I love albums but my collection is not huge, I'm getting older and I enjoy the simplicity of streaming music at the touch of a fingertip.

I have never owned a system with tubes and read in one of the forums about the Aric Audio systems and it really piqued my interest.

So, the question is, will there be a considerable difference in sound quality with a tube system of the Aric quality paired with a DAC or is the tube system a better advantage with vinyl?

Thank you

bahston
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,404 posts
 

Vandersteen prefer zero feedback design amplifiers. 

@bigkidz I know Richard says that, but its not actually true. I tried to disabuse him of that notion a few years ago...

bahston OP
30 posts
 

Thank you for that tidbit.

helomech
2,005 posts
 

I tried tubes on that same model of speaker a few years back and it was a terrible combination—incredibly veiled and 2-dimensional. The Vandersteen 1Ci, OTOH, performed decently with tubes. 

These days I use SS because I haven’t encountered a tube design that can do anything better than good SS. That’s after I learned how critical it is to level-match components when comparing them. 
 

bahston OP
30 posts
 

Interesting.

 

decooney
2,564 posts
 

The whole "zero negative feedback" design philosophy has always been interesting to me, and reading different designers and tech debate this for different reasons. "Distortion" vs "Musicality", etc. So what does it realy mean to different designers.

Seems Richard Vandersteen and Mike Sanders are on a similar page about this, and I read oup on it becasue way back during the early hears of the 2C speakers and onward there were a lot of Vandy speakers paired with QS amps out here in US-West.  

Looking up specs for some of Mike’s stuff I could only find a few with up to 10db feedback used in only 3 amps, like Horn Monos used with super efficient speakers. 

General Findings

"Quicksilver is known for minimalist, simple tube designs, they do not exclusively use zero-feedback circuits across their entire range."

  • Zero Feedback Models: Several of their designs, particularly their headphone amplifiers and some monoblocks, are designed with zero feedback to improve musicality and reduce distortion artifacts 
  • Variable Feedback Levels: Quicksilver amplifiers, designed by Mike Sanders, often use low levels of negative feedback rather than none at all to optimize performance.
  • Specific Examples:
    • Horn Mono: Uses 10dB of feedback 
    • Mini Mono: Uses 20dB of feedback 
    • Headphone Amp: Explicitly designed with "no circuit boards or transistors" and implies a zero-feedback, simple circuit design 
  • Design Philosophy: The amplifiers are designed to be "tube-like" with high reliability, aiming for a balance between low distortion and high musicality

 

How accurate this is I don’t know.  Interesting to read up on this more between different speaker and amp designers and what each of them believe. 

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