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Can tube amps give true high end bass?

I got the giant Silverline Grande La Folia speakers. They are really good and true high end in my opinion. They are efficient ca 93Db but got for bass 4 x 9,5ยด dynaudio woofers in each cabinet. I have tried 2 tube amps with them: Antique Sound Labs monos 2x60w and a protype VERY good 2x40W with El34 tubes (more about that amp in a later tread). And I have tried 2 transistor amps: An Ayre V1xe and Krell 450mcx monos. All givin very good sound in the mids and heigths BUT very different in bass. In my opinion the best bass was from the tube amps. Powerful deep bass!!

My dealer clames that such big speakers need a lot of power to control the 8 woofers: You must have several 100W i.e. tranistor or BIG tube amps like big VTL. With the "small" tube amps, that you have tried, the woofers get out of control and "pumping" air in an incorrect way. This movement in the woofers gives sound on it own that you only THINK is good bass!

Beeing an audiophile for 30 years I think I can determine when I hear good bass. But I am puzzled! -How can a 40W tube amp give better bass that Krell 450 monos?
ulf

Showing 2 responses by gregm

gregm
3,411 posts
 
Atma
Most speakers if heavily damped will in fact not be able to reproduce the bass waveform.
A tiny clarification:
"overdamped" could be the result of a combined effect of driver & amp. I.e., if one uses a highly damped Lowther PM4 (x-max 1mm, flux: 24.000 gauss, quoted Fs= ~35Hz) for bass duty and drives this with a low output impedance amp, the audible low frequency result will be... inaudible. The amp-driver combo is over-damped (i.e. the electrical q is approaching 0 :) ).
This is just for the sake of example, no-one to my knowledge uses a PM4 for bass -- but I think it illustrates what atma is referring to.
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gregm
3,411 posts
 
Can tube amps give true high end bass?
Let's assume the speakers are optimally set up in the room (bery few are). Also, that "hi end" bass means as close to the original as possible.
Given these premises, of course a tube CAN produce bass...

It's not primarily a tube vs. ss question. It's a matter of application.

Comments such as
I also have an original master of a jazz trio recorded with very expensive mikes and no compression. The bass sounds best with my SET
can make sense: the set offering very linear amplification (within its limitations) will obviously sound superior to a less linear amplification circuit...

Keep in mind that tubes offer the advantage of a (limited) linear amplification range, whereas transistors need some feedback to stabilise their operation.

The common misconception is that ONE amplifier, be it tube or ss should be called upon to amplify signals in linear fashion going fm dc to daylight, and drive a speaker, in turn expected to reproduce sounds from dc to daylight in a linear fashion...

In an ideal world, we'd have amps for mid-bass down and amps for the rest of the spectrum -- but we don't.

So of course we are ultimately left with the often frustrating task of having to try out infinite spkr-amp combos in hope of striking the magical set-up -- be it tube or ss.
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