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Digital Source with Tube Amplification

For perspective, I will be turning 36 next week so I didn't grow up listening to vinyl and have never really experienced tube amplification. I am getting a Yaqin EL34 tube integrated in the next couple of weeks and my dad thought it would be fun to use his vintage turntable as a source for a true analog listening experience. Logistics will likely make this difficult as we live states apart.

This discussion made me wonder what other peoples experiences have been using different combinations of gear. On the analog end you have a turntable and tube amplifier and on the digital end you have a CD player and a solid state amplifier.

I am curious if the people that prefer the analog systems enjoy the sound of a turntable with a solid state amplifier or a CD player with a tube amplifier more. Is one combination more analog sounding than the other in your experience?

Obviously, every experience and system is different so I am just looking for general observations based of your experiences.
mceljo

Showing 1 response by almarg

almarg's avatar
almarg
9,670 posts
 
Is it not possible to state an opinion without 75% of the post being caveats?
No, IMO there are way too many variables involved to be able to make any generalizations that would be meaningful and useful, the variables including even the recordings as Mapman indicated. And whether the goal is to make the (sonically) best recordings sound their best, or to make run-of-the-mill recordings sound as good as possible.

FWIW, though, since you are asking for experiences, my system has evolved over the years such that I now use a solid state preamp for both analog and digital sources, and a tube power amp. I've never used an integrated amp.

Regards,
-- Al
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