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For anyone who moved from tubes to solid state — a question

I'm the happy owner of a fairly new tube preamp and monoblock amps. I love it and have bought new tubes. To have another option for warmer weather or possibly a second listening room, I got a very good solid state integrated. I've run the tube preamp with the solid state amp and it sounds quite nice. I love all tubes, too.

But this question is for you. Please forget the convenience factor for a moment, including the issue of tube replacement etc. Also, forget about those cases where you bought new speakers and needed more power, etc.

Assuming you had quality tube gear with sufficient power — here's the question if you abandoned tubes for SONIC reasons:

What what is that tubes couldn't give you?
What did your solid state gear do for you which was so much better that you divorced to marry anew?

I'm curious about what people list as the positive sonic reasons they love solid state (including A, AB, D, etc.).

Thanks.
hilde45

Showing 1 response by terry9

terry9
2,354 posts
 
What I don’t like about tubes is the high voltage supplies. If something goes badly wrong you can blow up speakers, and if you like Quad ESL's, well, you can end up a lot of KV over-voltage, leaving just about everything dead but the frame. Unless you have really good protection circuits, which aren’t really good for the sound.

So I built very clean SS amps with +/- 25VDC rails. This cannot drive my ESL’s into protection, so I was able to disconnect the protection circuit and improve clarity considerably.

Maybe there are better amps out there, but the system of amp-speaker, I suspect, is as good as anyone’s. At least, anyone who doesn’t have access to military or equivalent hardware.


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