solid state vs tubes

Wow! this thread will go on for ever because it is a subjective discussion/argument. Lets take away the tube and solid state fan boys that won't ever accept that the other can be as good or better. Some people are in a particular corner because that is what they believe period. People vote republican or democrate many times, not because the candidate is better than the other, but because they refuse to vote any other way. same is true for tube vs solid state arguments most times. Good Engineering is good engineering. If it is designed and constructed correctly, it will reproduce the electronic signal as it was designed to. Remember those words. as it was designed to. Does the engineer seek to reproduce the signal as accurately as possible or do they seek a particular sound? Many times it is the sound, not signal accuracy, and people develop a personal taste for what they like and totally throw out accuracy. I have compared top of the line tube equipment (apples to apples) with top of the line solid state and as with any piece of equipment designed by different people, there will be differences in sound output. But, I can say as an engineer and as a music lover that they both (excellent top of the line tube and solid state) sound wonderful and I would take either. As I have written many times, take your favorite well recorded music, sit in a room, listen to your music on a tubed amplifier, then remove that one and plug in a solid state amplifier and listen again. compare apples to apples. A $5000 tube amp with a $5000 solid state amp (just make sure they are in similar price and quality range). Designers have compromise points based on the budget and price range of products. That is why price, and quality ranges are so important in comparisons. You can't reasonably take a Audio Research REF 610 amp and compare it with a Yamaha $700 amp and think they would be even close. Don't play with cables or any other item. Just amp to amp and see (listen). It will come down to your personal preference. Don't allow your thinking to be biased by other's ideas or preferences. Listen for yourself. You will find that a good engineer/designer can do tube and solid state equally well. Do you honestly think that Nelson Pass can't design and build a top of the line tube amp? Same with Tube designers doing solid state. Listen to the music. Love the music. Does it sound real? If not, why? First is probably that it was recorded badly. Which is the case most times. Just a bad recording and certain equipment is very forgiving and will not reveal the inaccuracies. Or they are designed for a particular sound. Other equipment will reproduce the signal as it was recorded and will reveal terrible sound. But, it may not be the equipment, but the recording. There are many things going on, not just one thing. Talk to knowledgable friends, listen to equipment and music and have fun. Borrow equipment from people and stores and listen.

minod, you present some lucid arguments but you neglect to discusss the central concern of this thread, nameley the posssibility that in a given stereo system, a tube and solid state amp produce a "sound", which makes it almost impossible to detect the difference between them ?

I think Nelson Pass chose SS because he felt there were already alot of really good sounding tube amps, the trick was to get SS to sound good and he wanted to take on the challenge - don't know whether his stuff sounds tubelike or not, though he often describes the ways in which his circuits are similar to tubes in their simplicity compared with other SS designs. Mrtennis, I have no idea if there will ever be a time when you can detect the difference between SS and tubes, too subjective (yours) to know, but it does seem that there are at least some audiophiles that would be hard pressed to detect the difference and know which was which.

Thanks for the correction Mrtennis; However, what I was trying to say (among other things) is that unless the designer/engineer used the same specs, layout, parts, construction, wiring, grounding, etc. in designing the amps, it won't matter if they are solid state or tube, they will absolutely never sound the same. Apples to apples. Two different 50 WPC tube amps will never sound the same unless they are the same amps. Same for solid state equipment. You will always detect a difference in sound from different equipment, even if they have the same specs. The transfer functions (don't ask) of each piece of equipment are totally differnt. That means that gain, phase, etc. are different based on the design and circuitry. That is what some designers tried to do in the past. Copy transfer function responses of high end equipment in the designs of their own. So, if we are talking about amps, and not pre-amps. First, what speakers are we considering? What is their impedance characteristics over frequency and power? Knowing that, what amps can handle that? If the speakers loads are very difficult, then only a few amps can handle them correctly without oscillating or blowing up. It totally depends on what the engineers intended in the design of the amps. Input impedance, sensitivity, gain, output impedance, load handling characteristics, power, voltage, phase, price, efficiency, etc. All of these must be taken into consideration in the design and as I mentioned earlier, depending on the price point, compromises must be made. So, the short answer is no. No tube amp will sound like a particular solid state amp or visa versa. Even two tube amps don't sound the same. It will ultimately come down to what type of sound you want. Real, altered, bright, fast, etc. This is why the used market is so great. There will always be the next greatest and better piece of equipment coming and someone will absolutely have to have it and will sell their other equipment to make room. I know a person that sold their Mark Levinson 20.6s because he doesn't have room for his top of the line Boulder amps and his Audio Research 610s. So, even though the 20.6's are better still than just about anything out their, they had to go and if I had the inclination, I would grab them. Solid state or not. That is not to say that their aren't any tube amps that are just as good or better, but you are now in the upper ranges of high end. you want great sound? take a listen to be top of the line Boulder amp/pre-amp. I haven't heard a tube set up better. Close or just as good? maybe, but better? I don't know. enjoy the music. Enjoy the race.

Minorl, not to put to fine a point on it but the idea of designing an amplifier to pass a signal without distortion is being heavily glossed over in your arguments, which, other than that, I find myself in agreement with.

The problem lies with the fact that our ears, regardless of the individual, use a set of common rules that govern our perceptions. Now really, that is not a problem except that the bench tests that are commonly used are for the most part not devised with these perceptual rules in mind. So as a result, a common experience is that an amplifier that measures well does not sound good, because **in the attempt to measure well, the human perceptual rules are being violated**.

So it is not true to say that the amplifier that has the 'lowest distortion' will be in fact the amplifier that actually *has* the lowest distortion; the two can be quite different! Often 'higher distortion' amplifiers (as measured on the bench) are lower distortion when subject to the reality of our ears.

In short, the bench measurements come off as an example of the Emperor's New Clothes. Our ears OTOH, are the real thing. Now it is a simple fact that tubes more closely obey these perceptual rules than transistors do, that is why it is so hard to find the transistor amps that really sound like music. However, and I point to Nelsen Pass as an excellent example, when you find such an amplifier it will be because the designer is also looking at how our ears work.