Ever since I changed speakers from a pair of Maggie's to Proac's, I find the tonal balance more accurate with a ss, especially acoustic wood instruments. Tubes seem to lack that tonal accuracy. I believe it's a more realistic and accurate rendering. Is that a fair assessment? I'm not arguing tubes don't sound good with it's rich, warm sound but just not as accurate.
What are some of the speakers that sound especially accurate and good
with Atma-sphere OTL amps? Some examples would be helpful to illustrate
you're point.
Quad ESLs, Sound Lab ESLs, Classic Audio Loudspeakers (I have T-3s at home), Audiokinesis, Harbeth (some models work better than others, check with us on that one), ProAc, Merlin, Spendor, JM Labs, Most single-driver full range loudspeakers like Lowther, PHY and so on, Sonus Faber (as long as the speaker employs a single woofer), JBL, Altec and many other classic horn systems, Avant Garde, Vandersteen (usually the older ones- some of the newer ones are harder to drive), DeVore Fidelity, Voxativ, Spatial Audio, PureAudio Project, Salk... I can go on for quite a bit! Especially with our smaller OTLs, what you want to look for is that the woofer impedance curve is benign and nominally 8 ohms. So many 2-way speakers work quite well.
What we came to conclude is that flat frequency response is meaningless if the amplifier imparts audible coloration. A good example of that is harshness and brightness caused by low level high ordered harmonic distortion in solid state amps. Its hard to call that 'neutral' when everything you play through it is bright... The reason for this is the ear converts all forms of distortion into tonality (assigning 'bright' and 'harsh' to the higher ordered harmonics) and will favor that over actual frequency response, to such a degree that getting the speaker to be perfectly flat (which appears to be a Sisyphean task anyway) is pointless if the amp causes colorations due to distortion.
If you can keep the harmonic distortion to the lower orders the distortion will be less audible (as the ear is far less sensitive to the lower orders), and there are ways to do that without feedback (the latter of which is often rightly blamed for brightness and harshness in most amplifiers- the reason that is the case is a topic for another thread). If you promote linearity in the amplifier you can achieve fairly low distortion without feedback. Our amps at full power can be as low as 0.5% THD with about 0.05% or less IMD, which is better than a lot of tubes amps running feedback. If you can get the IM and higher ordered harmonics down, that is how you get to 'neutral'.
That is what we've been doing for the last 45 years, but that has also meant that we have to vet the speaker to work with our amps. That's really not all that hard which is why we've been around for so long.
Your post and remarks are interesting and rightful thinking....
I have embed my aown audio system, not perfectly for sure, but rightfulle, mechanically, electrically, and acoustically; then my judgement criteria for the difference between S.S. design or tubes design, will comes if i compares to the most essential audio impression, the tonal timbre of an instrument, his naturalness....
When your system begins to be rightfully embed in his 3 dimensions, where resonance and vibrations are controlled, when the electrical noise of the house is not to high, and the acoustic of the room rightly controlled, the more fundamental experience you enjoy is rightful timbre and imaging....
That is my experience....
Absolutely accurate and pure system tonality is an aspirational sonic utopia that can be attempted but is rarely achieved.
You are right in the absolute, no audio system is perfect, but when we go in the right direction this "utopia" begins to be a feeling that guide us in the right direction.... That is all my pretense and the sense of my remarks about timbre...
You post that "the real accuracy of a S.S. design or tubes design is not in the subjective impression of clarity or details, it is in the perception of the real tonal timbre of instrument and voices.....
"Is the piano sounding like a real piano?"
What you post may be true in theory, but here again you are touching on whether one's system, ... from source signal input, starting with phono cartridge, CDP or whatever, is changed as the signal works its way through the electronics, and then is converted back into sound through the speakers.
I touched on the speaker point in an earlier post. Let's assume that the electronics and the speakers are doing a good job of converting the electronic signal back into sound energy. What about room affects?
One more point about speakers. There have been a number of threads which discussed at great length time coherence. Some speaker manufacturers have designed their speakers to be purportedly time coherent. For example, Vandersteen, Green Mountain, and possibly Thiels. Indeed, the late, great Roy Johnson of Green Mountain wrote a number of fascinating articles about time coherence and how high order cross-overs screw up the time coordination of the various drivers in a dynamic speaker system.
According to time coherence enthusiasts, speakers that are not time coherent can affect whether a "piano sound[s] like a real piano."
So we end where we began. Absolutely accurate and pure system tonality is an aspirational sonic utopia that can be attempted but is rarely achieved. So, I say, if it sounds good, enjoy the fantasy.
By the way the real accuracy of a S.S. design or tubes design is not in the subjective impression of clarity or details, it is in the perception of the real tonal timbre of instrument and voices.....
Is the piano sounding like a real piano?
Timbre naturalness is ALL there is, those who want details can buy a microscope...
Berning ZOTL amplifier apparently contradict that widely held, not always true tough, opinions about distorted sound tubes.....
I never listen to a ZOTL.... I only dream to buy one....
My post is only an invitation to read about an interesting new technology....
By the way i hate short life duration tubes with a slow degradation at a certain point in times, especially when they are very good sound, and i hate more the heating furnace of tubes amplifier....Nothing of that with the ZOTL technology tough.... Then.... I dream to have the best of the 2 worlds without their defects........
Berning is a physicist by the way.....He recreate tube tech from the beginning....And the price is not so high even for me someday....
I apologize to mimicking a marketing publicity.... But i dream a lot....And has read a lot about that....
Personally, I prefer tube sound over the SS gear I have listened to. But I have listened exhaustively to SS gear. I have all Aesthetix Eclipse models -Atlas, Janus, Romulus playing through new Raidho TD3.8s. I've rolled low-noise NOS tubes (Tele & Amperex) to get the sound that I love.
My only thought about using SS would be as separate phono pre, bypassing my Janus phono stage to lower the noise flow and to eliminate a low-level tube rush. I demo'd a new version Krell phono pre and really liked it. Maybe the quietness of SS made me perceive the unit as presenting more accurate/detailed information.
So as a follow-on question, which component benefits more from SS over tubes, or vice versa?
What are some of the speakers that sound especially accurate and good with Atma-sphere OTL amps? Some examples would be helpful to illustrate you're point.
I recall the sound of the AudioKinesis Jazz Modules with your S-30 amp - which sounded very accurate (don't know if it was, or not - but, it sounded like it).
On the other hand... I think Harbeth's sound much better and more accurate with selected SS amps, which is one of the reasons why Harbeth uses amps like Hegels at shows.
I have no idea what the engineering principals are that determine such "synergy" between the amp and speakers - but, it is "magical" when you find that combination.
but then those easy to drive/efficient speakers themselves are not the most accurate things to listen to.
This is highly debatable! Many of the Wilson speakers made in the last 20 years are very easy to drive. An easy load to drive has a serious advantage- less thermal compression. A horn can be properly designed so that it has smooth response, and has controlled directivity so that early reflections from side walls won't cause harshness. The idea that only hard to drive speakers can be accurate is a topic for another thread, but also obviously false.
Don_C55: "When you look at your wife or GF after she rolls out of bed in the morning that is accuracy.... when she is made up for a nite on the town.....that is beauty."
So the question for us is where is the median? The hybrid that isn’t a compromise? Maybe just a brush thru the hair with a smile and little on? (I’m not specifying gender here!)
Kinda like using good cabling and acoustics to tweak final product.
I was makinga YT vid on my new IC's and some guy knocked on my back door thinking it was a live band,,,, I told him i was makinga vid and could not offer hima free beer.... SS can't replicatea live feeling,, Tubes Can make it LIVE
You ask for "accuracy", which means NO coloration’s.
Of coarse they are, any "good" solid state is more accurate than "good" tubes, especially into medium to hard to drive speakers.
An OTL tube amp into very easy/efficient speakers can equal them for accuracy and also on the test bench, but then those easy to drive/efficient speakers themselves are not the most accurate things to listen to.
Many people take the brightness of traditional solid state as detail but in fact most of the time its simply distortion. If the amp is truly low distortion at all frequencies then it will be more detailed but also relaxed.
If we are talking about preferences, that is another matter entirely unrelated to what is 'more accurate'!
I don't find ss to be less pleasing to the ears. Infact, I prefer the more natural sound of it. Maybe I just like it's coloration more and tube coloration is just too much. Eitherway, I guess the point of the hobby is to find something you like, not necessarily true fidelity.
The problem here is what solid state amp vs what tube amp.
And this has everything to do with Gain Bandwidth Product, which is a factor that can limit how much feedback an amplifier has. For this reason, IMO traditional solid state amps are not more accurate, as nearly all of them in the last 60 years have been brighter and harsher than real life.
But tube amps also have insufficient Gain Bandwidth Product; what has saved them and why they are still around so many decades after being declared ’obsolete’ is that they tend to make lower ordered harmonic distortion, which is fairly inaudible to the human ear, as opposed to the higher ordered harmonic distortion of solid state.
OTOH if you can get enough gain bandwidth product, then it is possible to build a solid state amp that finally has enough feedback, such that at higher frequencies distortion is still controlled. In terms of traditional solid state amps you can count on one hand the amps that have succeeded in this way- the Benchmark amp appears to one of them. There are also class D amps that do too- because its relatively easy to get gain with class D and you don’t have to worry if the amp goes into oscillation- in fact in a class D amp, that would be something that you want!
Its this oscillation issue that is why prior amp designs have had insufficient feedback: add too much and the amp will go into oscillation at some frequency, owing to the phase margins of the amp being exceeded. Because that generally isn’t a good behavior on the part of an amp, lessor amounts of feedback are used to promote stability. But that means the amp won’t have enough feedback at higher frequencies and so it will sound harsh. But nevermind, many manufacturers have a simple solution for that called ’lying’.
This is why feedback has gotten a bad rap (I’ve not yet mentioned that its application results in distortion as well; see the writings of Norman Crowhurst from 50 years ago...). A pragmatic designer might instead build an amp with no feedback at all, generally designing so it makes the distortion that is relatively inaudible and doesn’t make the distortion that is. At least that way you avoid the gain bandwidth issue! And there are ways to minimize distortion without feedback; some zero feedback amps have some pretty impressive distortion figures.
So it really does make a difference of which amps you’re talking about; ignoring all this simply means that the blanket statement
we are painting a watercolour here, not fastidiously documenting an actual event".
That might be what you’re doing but the original question was not how can I paint a watercolor but which device REPRODUCES the original more ACCURATE. If you have 1% THD then you’re not reproducing the original but coloring it with distortion and that’s fine if that’s your goal but it’s not answering the OP question of Accuracy it's just offering your preference.
Well, it dependes on what SS and tube amp you are comparing and your personal taste.
My 300B 805 tube amp (48 wpc) has about 1% THD vs 0.0001% on my Class D amp (400 wpc), both very rewarded among audiophiles. Guess what, I prefer by a WIDE margin the tube amp. Much more real, 3D soundstage, grip, balls, tone and dynamic sound.
I agree 100% with @jjss49 when he says above "we are painting a watercolour here, not fastidiously documenting an actual event".
I thought the question was which is more accurate in reproducing not creating. The artist and associatiated technicians creates, we simply try to reproduce what they created. In order to be faithful to that creation then accuracy is paramount. If I don't care for the creation then I can color it with distortion or tone controls that's my decision. But to answer the original question which is more accurate solid state or tubes in reproducing I would say solid state.
I assume by true fidelity you mean high fidelity? High fidelity in audio means reproduction of sound without distortion and color that remains true to the original. In order to achieve that you need very accurate measuring equipment. The biggest obstacle now is speakers and room.
I have some tube amps. I've been recently swapping out interconnects. The difference is apparent. Of course, how apparent depends on the amp and the speakers.
I took these over to a buddy's place who had also heard the differences at my place. We played on his nice SS system. We pretty much could not tell the difference.
Why? Only guesses, but we all (others too) heard distinct differences on some of my tube amps.
jaferd -- Accuracy in a system can be a double-edged sword. If fate decrees it that your favorite music has been recorded terribly, sometimes it helps if your system is slightly more forgiving, i.e., more euphonic & less accurate.
This may be more of a philosophical question but isn't there only one true fidelity and is the technology there, either ss or tube or a combo that's capable of achieving that or is that a myth? Then there's also a good likelihood that accurate reproduction may not be pleasing although I've never thought live orchestra or acoustic bands sound bad.
Proac’s could be a nightmare for some SS. Their roller coaster impedance is not transformer ideal.
BTW, I have tube and SS amps. Tubes drive the mids & tweets on LFT-8b, both of which are near resistors. M-125s drive the mids, PL5 tweets. NuPrime ST-10 for the woofs. The M-125s are highly modified to correct factory defects. See
http://www.ielogical.com/Audio/VTA_M-125.php
SS might be more accurate, tonal balanced, refined, dynamic,,, is my guess, anda position held by the SS community. Yet in my experiences and for my taste, the choice is very simple, ~~Tubes~~~ always and forever,,,= I have no interest whatsoever to consider employing SS amplification. IMHO SS is old dinosaurish technology,,which we had no choice but to use back in the day,,,Maraztn, Rotel, NAD, Nachimishi, Krell.
nahhh I ;'ll forgo your beliefs that SS has tonal superiority, dynamics, superior sonics~~ over my tube selection,, Yeah guess I'll hang with the tube-let-down-sound, Oh how dull and boring is the tube sound vs the spectacular, stunning, wonderful world of SS experiences..Ohh what I am missing out on. Yeah I'll stay with the loser-tube sound. Snakeoil buster here
As with every component, it depends entirely upon the IMPLEMENTATION, not the categorisation. There is one well known manufacturer that has been criticised by some for producing tube amps that sound too analytical and ‚solid state‘. The reverse has been said about a few solid state manufacturers.
Some experts say all ss amps sound the same i don't believe that. Some don't like the sound of mcintosh so amps I happen to like the sound of mine. but with all the discussion about ss vs tube it still comes down to personal preference. And as others have said before it also depends on matching components to reach that personal preference.
No system or listening environment is going to be totally accurate, so why not go with what you enjoy listening to the most. What do you really have to prove?
Funny. I recently switched from my Conrad Johnson pv-11 to my krell Pam 5 and the krell has way more detail. I even had nos telefunken 12au7’s in the cj. I think I’ll be staying with the krell for a while. Maybe look into buying a nice Ayre pre. I believe I’m hearing a lack of distortion. The krell also has a separate power supply and is a very quiet pre.
Again, it is all about the design. Have you heard a 101D DHT tube sound? I find SS has a sorter decay so piano never sound correct to my ears but again it depends on the amp design.
this is such a complex question; beginning with "is accuracy always what we want?" and "on what distortion weighting algorithm do you define accuracy?" bell Labs and H.264/MPEG both championed subjective testing to optimize trade offs. Neither are exactly audiofools as the word goes....
Music theory tells us that there are distortions that are consonant and others that are dissonant. The finest pianos and violins have significant consonant distortion, from their cases and sounding boards. Is that a bad thing? Down with Steinway and Boesendorfer?
Obviously there is a wide spectrum within each camp as well. Old CJ stuff was lush but wildly inaccurate. I suspect, but cannot prove, that some SS gear is in many ways accurate but generates enough dissonant distortion to be no enjoyable (on some music anyway).
And then there is the SS gear explicitly designs to minimize the dissonant distortions ("SS sound") - whether you buy that logic or not. I actually do but warn that its really hard since we rarely know everything to measure. Wish I did. G
The OP is slapping paint with a 12 inch wide brush.
Yes, ... most tube amps have higher output impedances that SS amps. My amp, an ARC Ref 150 SE, has an output impedance of roughly .76 ohms off the 8 ohm taps. By contrast, most SS amps have output impedances that are much, much lower, ... some close to zero.
And as other posters have noted, most speakers were voiced to be driven by a low output impedance SS amp. So, if a tube amp has a high'ish output impedance, ... yes, ... a speaker that was voiced to be driven by a SS amp, will not produce a linear FR if driven by a high'ish output impedance tube amp.
In the case of my ARC Ref 150 SE, I calculated that the FR variation between the low impedance point of my speakers (say 4 ohms in the bass region) and the high point (say 23 ohms at the 2.2K Hz mid-to-tweeter x-over point) is roughly 1.6 db. It's an Ohm's Law thing.
But that does not end the story, ...ergo my point about the 12 inch brush. As don_c55 notes, a particular tube amp/speaker combo may just sound wonderful. Just because ...
The OP should check Ralph Karsten's (Atmasphere's) posts over the years. He speaks at great length about why some tube amps sound so good, despite being "tone controls."
As the amp output impedance goes up, the frequency output tends to track the speaker impedance more. That is, the frequency output looks like the impedance curve, instead of the original curve of the speaker.
As a result of this, a tube amp can be "tuned" by the speaker load.
SS has higher 7th and 9th harmonic distortion than tubes and that is not as natural sounding to the ear!
Tubes have higher 2nd and 3rd harmonics, however that is generally more pleasant, so there is a subjective sonic trade off between tubes and SS.
I prefer beauty over accuracy.
When you look at your wife or GF after she rolls out of bed in the morning that is accuracy.... when she is made up for a nite on the town.....that is beauty.
Some SS has the beauty of tubes and some tubes do not have beauty.
Depends on the tube amp some have very good measurements very linear and some SS amps measure pretty bad. That said it seems most people who like tubes do like the coloration tubes offer. There is no right or wrong but if accurate and neutral are your goals SS is easier to find that with.
I don't think measurements and graphs reflect how a speaker truly sounds and if accurate high fidelity is the goal, would that mean that solid state is the only way to go?
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