That, and many other places, including Svalbard to see the bears!
Solid State vs. Tubes - What if Transistors came first?
What do you guys think?
If transistors came first, and then decades later tubes were invented, would we have any tube amps we would call high end?
Wouldn’t they all fail to reach the height of performance and transparency set by transistor amps?
Best,
E
P.S. I love Conrad Johnson. I'm just wondering how much of our arguments have to do with timing.
If transistors came first, and then decades later tubes were invented, would we have any tube amps we would call high end?
Wouldn’t they all fail to reach the height of performance and transparency set by transistor amps?
Best,
E
P.S. I love Conrad Johnson. I'm just wondering how much of our arguments have to do with timing.
559 responses Add your response
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More pseudoscience, speculation and conjecture predicated upon ad hominems. Shame on you. You cite nothing other than your worthless, methane imbued ipse dixit. 💩 Many, I suspect, like me left tubes in the late sixties, and have used solid state ever since, hence your non sequitur. Regardless of physiologic changes, tubes suck. -Lee Deforest |
The ’ages’ of an audiophile. In the first age (the beginning) the ’audiophile to be’ has superb hearing acuity, no money, an inexpensive SS system, and he is happy until he acquires some knowledge, money, and for many, a divorce. Middle age occurs. He still has pretty good hearing, has more money, buys better equipment, and discovers why tube equipment sounds so good. He now obsesses over all things, buys tube equipment, rolls tubes endlessly, and can avoid all of the nasties from digital stuff. Etc. The last stage begins with the onset of advanced age. His hearing acuity is substantially degraded by a sloping of high frequencies, digital stuff is no longer as intrusive, the loss of the benefits of ’tube sounds’ has become apparent so he questions whether or not he should downgrade his system and return to SS equipment. Probably a good thought! Questions for today, 1) Are most advocates of SS sound old fellas? 2) Why do many manufacturers and sellers of SS stuff say (in its ads) its warm (to some degree or another) and sounds like tubes. Rarely do they say it ’sounds’ like SS? (I did note that the designer/manufacturer of the Kinki amp which is so much talked about here did in fact say that his amp was not warm, a rare bit of honesty I think. |
I simply don't understand how one can conclude that dragging a diamond through a plastic trough doesn't cause wear. It defies logic, physics, and study.It does wear, but takes a *lot* longer than the studies done in the early 1960s concluded (which are the studies most often cited in this regard). A lot has happened with cartridges and tone arm tech since then!! Most audiophiles I know don't listen to any one title long enough to actually wear it out; IMO this just simply isn't an issue. There are ways to get clipping characteristics out of a transistor that are similar to a tube. It's just not done often. The way to do it is to use SITs (Static Induction Transistors) aka VFETs. They have linearity similar to triodes and do have a soft clipping characteristic. They are the only such devices that have these properties other than real triodes. The problem is no-one makes them anymore, and further, no-one ever made driver and low level signal versions- just outputs. They've not been made since the late 70s or early 80s. The industry doesn't want to make linear devices anymore- everything is 'switching' to switching. That's why class D is on the rise. |
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<brayeagleerik wrote: ". . . Peter Walker’s conclusion was that all well-designed amps operated below clipping will sound the same." A Peter Azcel posit? (The Audio Critic)> You can also add Alan Shaw (Harbeth) to that already esteemed list. However, Ken Rockwell back in 2015 posted a technically logical explanation why tube amps are often preferred. https://kenrockwell.com/audio/why-tubes-sound-better.htm |
geoffkait, Not reading past "My understanding is..." makes it difficult to know how true the rest of the writing was. That surely is the difference between us although I hope it is not the main one. For now, I would like to recommend some good reading about matters discussed... https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Childrens-Rock-Mineral/zgbs/books/3278 #7 is a true gem. |
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dave_b, Your daughter is one lucky girl. I was buying it for my friend's daughter who would fly to U.S.A. from Europe just for concert. European tickets had been long gone. Now, tell your daughter it is unimportant music and see what look you get. While you are at that, ask her about tubes. They are all the rage among younger crowd, I hear. |
BTW there is something to be said for the less obtrusive sound of soft clipping tube amps. Class D amps seem to commonly do that nice trick these days though as well. As do a handful of others. Hard versus soft clipping might be more relevant to how good gear commonly sounds in comparison than tube versus SS. Any thoughts on that? |
I got 6 count em 6 tubes in my ARC pre-amp. This is as far as tubes got in my system. They sound very good and different but not better than my all digital Class D integrated amp in the other system that convinced me when it comes time for the next pre-amp change the tubes may be gone altogether. I had two mhdt DACs, similar design, one with tube output stage and one without. I still have the one with no tube. I found I was rolling tubes to get the tube DAC to sound like the non-tube one. So goodbye tube. Those looking for a softer warmer sound would have liked the tube DAC better at least for acoustic instruments but enjoyment of electronic music suffered. Different strokes...... I have one pair of small monitors that are tube friendly. I might give that a shot someday just for something a little different. |