Solid State vs Tubes. What about Solid state 'with' tubes?
By that, I mean hybrid amps, of which there are a few out there and I am in the middle of building one myself; it's sounding very nice.
The idea of a hybrid is to use tubes to amplify the small-signal voltage (phono and pre amp) and use transistors (in my case, Mosfets), to provide the current to drive the speakers (power amp).
The attraction of a solid state power amp is that is much more efficient and uses less electrical energy (juice!) for a given power output than tubes. The whole thing is more compact, cooler, requires less maintainance than a tube power amp and you have a much wider choice of speakers because tube power amps tend to only work their best with very sensitive speakers.
My phono and pre-amp both have 2 12AX7 tubes and 1 12AU7 tube in each. The 12AX7s provide gain and the 12AU7s work as buffers to match impedence with the following stages. I'm using some enhancement mosfets in class A mode as a gain driver in the power amp, followed by lateral mosfets working in AB mode (push pull). Some might sneer at AB push-pull but the crossover distortion is practically nill with these kinds of transistors so there's little reason to overlook them.
Anyway, have fun discovering your sound and look at some of the hybrids out there.
By that, I mean hybrid amps, of which there are a few out there and I am in the middle of building one myself; it's sounding very nice.
The idea of a hybrid is to use tubes to amplify the small-signal voltage (phono and pre amp) and use transistors (in my case, Mosfets), to provide the current to drive the speakers (power amp).
The attraction of a solid state power amp is that is much more efficient and uses less electrical energy (juice!) for a given power output than tubes. The whole thing is more compact, cooler, requires less maintainance than a tube power amp and you have a much wider choice of speakers because tube power amps tend to only work their best with very sensitive speakers.
My phono and pre-amp both have 2 12AX7 tubes and 1 12AU7 tube in each. The 12AX7s provide gain and the 12AU7s work as buffers to match impedence with the following stages. I'm using some enhancement mosfets in class A mode as a gain driver in the power amp, followed by lateral mosfets working in AB mode (push pull). Some might sneer at AB push-pull but the crossover distortion is practically nill with these kinds of transistors so there's little reason to overlook them.
Anyway, have fun discovering your sound and look at some of the hybrids out there.