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differences between tube and solid state designs

this topic may have been beaten to death.

however, my experience attending ces shows has demonstrated to my eras that the differences between push pull tube and solid state amplifiers sound very similar.

i notice today's tube amps, e.g., contad johnson, audio research, wolcott audio, etc., do not exhibit many of the classic colorations associated with tube designs and sound a lot like solid state, especially with respect to frequency response, i.e., spectral balance.

there may be still be slight audible differences between the 2 formats.

has anyone perceived a narrowing of sonic differences between the two designs and if so if differences are slight, why buy a tube amp.

note, i have deliberately excluded class a and single ended amps, at low wattage, from this discussion. some of them have more of a vintage or classic tube sound, especially relative to bass and treble response.
mrtennis

Showing 1 response by jayarr

jayarr
117 posts
 
Talk about painting opinion with broad strokes of the brush. I see this all the time regarding tube amps. The critical factor with tube amps is the speaker/amp combination. If this match has not been carefully chosen then sonics will suffer considerably. For example, an SET amp and horns can sound marvelous with very small amounts of distortion(103 dB sensitive speakers require only milliwatts to produce loud music--the distortion curve is very low at this level) and a properly designed transformer(expensive) will not appreciably alter frequency response at the extremes. Tube amps require judicious choices of partnering speakers which is quite different from SS amps which are basically plug and play with just about any speakers. I started out with SS and moved on to tube amps. I did this for a good reason--not just following the herd. Tubes allow you to see into the performance and connect with the music in a way that most SS amps cannot. I'm not talking about a romantic midrange(added harmonic distortion) or a shelved down upper frequencies which may make digital sound more palatable. There is a 3D quality to tubes that SS just doesn't address in most cases. That's why I "converted" and will remain so. As to adding tubes to "sweeten" or warm up the sound I have not found this to be the case with the tube amps I prefer. I did not prefer any of the tubed DAC's I auditioned before settling on a SS CD player. My preference is for tubes to be at the amp/speaker interface where I believe tubes to be the most critical for musical realism.

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