Recently I bought a minimax tubed preamp. After several weeks of listening and comparing to my Plinius Cd-Lad pre, I've decided I like some things about the minimax, but more things about the Plinius 1. minimax adds a sense of realism and increased soundstage depth a little 2. minimax added more hiss to the system 3. better bass with the Plinius 4. better details and clarity with the Plinius 5. Wider soundstage with Plinius
I really enjoyed the increase sense of realism though. Is it possible that a better tubed pre (such as Cary slp-98) would retain the clarity and details of the Plinius and add the midrange lushness? Or would a hybrid tube pre give the best of both worlds (like a Cary slp-308)? thanks for your thoughts rest of system, Bryston 3bst, Ayre cx-7, Audio Physics Libra
My active solid state preamps (H2O Fire) couldn't be more clear, with no discernible foreign harmonics whatsoever. What they are, I don't know. The builder says, unconventional. Whatever, it works.
Atmasphere: Most tubes go into "soft clipping" ( rounded edges ) because they don't have the necessary speed / bandwidth to reproduce the sharp edges that make up a heavily clipped sine wave aka a square wave. Then again, i'm not telling you anything that you don't already know, so this is really for everyone else reading this thread : )
Other than that, i've always been a proponent of having "MEGA" overhead in system capacity. I learned a LONG time ago that it is not sheer spl's that make things sound "loud" and / or "aggressive", but distortion. By using high powered amps that are never pushed, and speakers that aren't easily driven into compression, one can listen at astonishingly high spl's with little to no fatigue. Not only that, but it doesn't sound nearly as loud as it really is. That's because the system is free of distortion, which is what adds the apparent volume that brings both fatigue and ear strain with it.
As far as Muralman's comments go, most good quality switching amps can sound quite clean even when spl's are roaring. This has to do with their reduced duty cycle, which minimizes thermal stress. When it comes to SS amps, the faster that you can dissipate heat, the better off you are. Both sonically and in terms of product lifespan. Sean >
Atmasphere...But, if a tramsistor power amplifier has well designed clip limiting, it will, when overdriven, produce a waveform that looks just like a tube amplifier.
Thanks Atmasphere. I can well believe that it's a murky business trying to discern volume differences using pure sine waves, and also that incipient high-order distortion can cause listener fatigue. But I always regard at arm's length claims which seem to equate A) music signals with sine waves, or B) amp behavior below clipping with amp behavior around clipping (particularly when it comes to preamps, which shouldn't even get anywhere near approaching clipping).
Speaking of preamp distortion, the new Stereophile has THD measurements from JA on the Mac C1000 (figs. 5-6 and 9-10), which for practical purposes seem to indicate all but indistinguishable (not to mention negligible) distortion behavior between the unit's tubed and solid-state options, at least within the limits of the test conditions.
Sean, tubes *are* as fast as transistors, else vacuum-tube radio circuits could not exist. There are many things that limit bandwidth in tube *designs*, but tubes are not the culprit (check out the risetimes on our website sometime). Soft clipping is caused by space charge effects (a cloud of electrons that occurs near the plate of the tube) which is a phenomena of a tube near saturation. It has nothing to do with bandwidth.
Eldartford, there are transistor amps now that have a 'soft clipping' feature, but clipping distortion is a gross manifestation of the effects that I am referring to. Unfortunately these 'soft clipping' amps still retain the transistor/odd-ordered harmonic signature that the ear detects so easily. This is my own opinion, but I feel this issue of higher/odd ordered harmonics is one of the more important issues that seperates the subjectivists from the objectivists.
Atmasphere, A pox on all foreign harmonics, for they are all a type of signal pollution. I can hear tube coloration as easily as solid state irritation.
Tvad: Because the question and the discussion may please the questioner and the discussers. Chatting about audio is a wholly different activity than listening to it, enjoyable for different reasons.
Atmasphere: My mistake in not choosing my wording more carefully. I know that tubes themselves are VERY broadband in nature with the absolute bandwidth being circuit dependent. It is this lack of circuit bandwidth and / or power supply limitations / internal impedances that i was speaking of in terms of SS square waving vs tube "soft" clipping.
Other than that, i'm quite certain that there are other things involved, in which i'll have to defer to your expertise in this area : ) Sean >
Were you to invest in a Cary SLP 98, then search for a NOS pair of TungSol 6SN7GTs(black, round plate from the 40's), and a pair of NOS Sylvania 6SN7Ws(tall bottle, either metal or bakelite base): you would find yourself listening to your entire disc collection afresh, amazed at the detail/imaging accuracy/soundstage depth and width/timbre/focus and pace that you missed before. That's providing the rest of the system(including your room) is up to the task. The right tubes are essential for accurate/non-euphonic/musical reproduction, and the above are the cream of the crop in the 6SN7 family.
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