The Future of Audio Amplification

Luckily the tube amp industry is alive and well, and should be thriving for many years to come...If I'm fooling myself by enjoying a tube preamp, a single ended tube power amp, and efficient horn speakers, regardless of the specs (I honestly don't have a clue what the actual specs are for my Dennid Had power amp), it makes absolutely no difference to me what anybody else claims about how this stuff sounds in my home. That said, my Class D bass amp is fine...I just patted its little head and told it to not be intimidated by all the tube amps around it.

The esthetic beauty of tubes is appealing to many (and deemed silly to others), and with modern technological improvements accumulated over a century or so of refinement, tube amps are currently good enough to still be considered among the best sounding music reproduction devices out there. I think it's based on the relative simplicity of their designs along with the linearity of tubes relative to other things, and hats off to Class D designers for making efficient and explosively powerful amps that work well and fit into small spaces (like live sound speakers). However, for many of us tubes are simply more fun...I was floored when I first heard the little single ended amp I now use, and felt that everything I knew was sort of wrong. Dynamic range from 12wpc? Yep...matched with efficient speakers of course. Noise? No problemo...Heat? Only 4 tubes there sparky, and they last a long time. I can live with the thousands of SS A/B and D watts I use mixing live shows, and my 10 or 12 tube watts in my hifi rig...as long as tubes are available.

Efficient speakers with small single ended tube amps don't require much juice, and for my money sound more like music. Many with all SS gear leave it on all the time thus actually wasting juice, and I assume most tubers don't, unless by accident like when they pass out or die. I mentioned I have a Class D 350 watt Ampeg bass amp (of the Porta Flex amps, this is the smallest) screwed onto the top of a "Porta Flex" bass cab, and it's very cute...sounds fine, which leads me to suggest counting the tube amps available in any high end audio store, and then walk into a guitar store...notice anything? Dozens of tube amps from tiny to gigantic. Modeling amps, small SS practice amps...none sound like a classic tube guitar amp, and it's likely they never will. Why is that?

Tube preamp, tube power amp, tube guitar amps, tube paper towel innards, if innards is what those are called.

I recently heard the Julian Lage trio at the Berklee Performance Center from a 5th row center section aisle seat. A Class D 8 boxes per side "Phased array" above me...sounded great. I did a show with his trio a couple of years ago using a Class A/B system...he sounded great there also. I’ve heard recordings of his trio through my Class A single ended 12WPC tube amp, and clearly, small wattage little hand wired tube amps are the future, and the past...or something. Tonight I’ll be at the last show of a John Scofield stand at "Scullers" (off the Mass pike), they use what I assume are Class D phased array speakers, and he’s promoting his new thing, "66." Feel free to say hello, assuming you can get through my bodyguards.