if looking for a tube preamp and it’s your first, then try to look at finding one that is very good at clamping output transients.
Sometimes it’s the other way around.
Eg, the Moscode 600 (tube/ss hybrid amplifier), in my experience, is phenomenally good at cutting out extreme transients, and saving amplifiers and speakers.
In more than probably 100 cases, in the one living room, it cut out the speaker relay when confronted by the injected RF and carrier noise from a cab driver’s radio.
The noise was injected into a tube preamp (Paragon system E, heavily modded out). This is a tube preamp that is good for about 40V-50V RMS and more, on it’s output. when it was hit by that RF modulated RF blast, the output would swing wildly. The Moscode 600 amplifier would cut the signal out entirety, and all would be good. Then it would come back on line when all was clear.
The Paragon, designed to sound as clean as possible with no interfering extra components and circuits in those areas... gives zero Fk’s about it’s output transients... and counts on a responsible application, by it’s owner (like good fully automatic shotgun handling in close spaces) of a what is essentially a hair trigger transient bomb machine.
To avoid possible turn on/turn off sequencing and power outage problems and possible cable problems, etc...it would be best to find a preamp that is good at controlling it’s output via relays at the output and protection circuits being involved. Just to use that item as ’tube preamp training wheels’ for tube preamp newbies.
Tube preamps, when well done and well made, give much reward (all of it, the sum total of available and possible reward, actually) in the area of actual live and correct dynamic scaling and micro detail and the associated correct warmth in correctly expressed real world harmonics. Accept no SS substitutes.
The only transistor that does it right is a V-Fet or properly designed SIT transistor (both) for line level signals.
And there were only about....4 made. Four single models of small signal V-Fet transistors. that’s it.
The near parallel development (in time) and release of the less expensive FET transistors killed the transistor equivalent to a ’line level’ (small signal) tube, before it was truly born..and audio has been suffering for it, mightily, ever since.
Since we now know this, we can go back now.. and get correct and linear gain small signal transistors, for pennies more each than the FET transistors of today.... and finally move past the approximate 40 years of correct sound reproduction -that was lost to the ether.
The next point, is that everyone’s ears were trained incorrectly re the idea of reproducing sound, due to the incorrect non linear gain transistors (BJT and FET transistors, ALL of them!) being in play. What was an acceptable seeming quality downgrade...became a norm, even though it is inherently wrong.
You know now, if one can read and cognate this post... that this statement is possibly very true. for you know of many other (outside of audio) legacy conditions that are inherently incorrect. This is just another one of them.
Apologies to anyone who disagrees with this..they are easily proven wrong (via analysis of the data and facts) ..and they really need to go and deal with it.
Linear gain is unbelievably critical to sound reproduction being properly presented to the human ear. The device in play MUST inherently be of a linear gain nature. It’s where we started, re triode tubes....and we lost the magic along the way, due to ease of use, gaming circuitry and lower costs, more availability, etc.
Here's the kicker, the clue the single critical data point in all this. Even& Odd ordered harmonics, that are incorrectly scaled and not put in proper place, in time and level, WILL be heard by the ear, very easily. so those incorrect signals are heard by the ear/brain combination easily, due to human design and wiring. We then mistake this incorrect but easily noticed stuff as detail. Incorrect detail is literally presented to the ear, and very much is heard, as we are designed from the ground up to recognize, first, things that are out of place. it’s part of the human survival mechanism. this would be a long story on human physiology and inherent animal level design of the human body. It’s there and it’s very very real. the trick is to recognize this, consciously and work the logic - from there.
We threw it all away, for a very dubious set of gains. To be fair, we did not know how important linear gain devices were, at those times.
Nor could a few clear headed audio enthusiasts steer an entire electronics industry that cared not one whit about the tiny (in comparison) audio world.
Some did know, but few were listening. eg, the Sony engineers who came up with the V-fet and pressed it into service in audio.
Sometimes it’s the other way around.
Eg, the Moscode 600 (tube/ss hybrid amplifier), in my experience, is phenomenally good at cutting out extreme transients, and saving amplifiers and speakers.
In more than probably 100 cases, in the one living room, it cut out the speaker relay when confronted by the injected RF and carrier noise from a cab driver’s radio.
The noise was injected into a tube preamp (Paragon system E, heavily modded out). This is a tube preamp that is good for about 40V-50V RMS and more, on it’s output. when it was hit by that RF modulated RF blast, the output would swing wildly. The Moscode 600 amplifier would cut the signal out entirety, and all would be good. Then it would come back on line when all was clear.
The Paragon, designed to sound as clean as possible with no interfering extra components and circuits in those areas... gives zero Fk’s about it’s output transients... and counts on a responsible application, by it’s owner (like good fully automatic shotgun handling in close spaces) of a what is essentially a hair trigger transient bomb machine.
To avoid possible turn on/turn off sequencing and power outage problems and possible cable problems, etc...it would be best to find a preamp that is good at controlling it’s output via relays at the output and protection circuits being involved. Just to use that item as ’tube preamp training wheels’ for tube preamp newbies.
Tube preamps, when well done and well made, give much reward (all of it, the sum total of available and possible reward, actually) in the area of actual live and correct dynamic scaling and micro detail and the associated correct warmth in correctly expressed real world harmonics. Accept no SS substitutes.
The only transistor that does it right is a V-Fet or properly designed SIT transistor (both) for line level signals.
And there were only about....4 made. Four single models of small signal V-Fet transistors. that’s it.
The near parallel development (in time) and release of the less expensive FET transistors killed the transistor equivalent to a ’line level’ (small signal) tube, before it was truly born..and audio has been suffering for it, mightily, ever since.
Since we now know this, we can go back now.. and get correct and linear gain small signal transistors, for pennies more each than the FET transistors of today.... and finally move past the approximate 40 years of correct sound reproduction -that was lost to the ether.
The next point, is that everyone’s ears were trained incorrectly re the idea of reproducing sound, due to the incorrect non linear gain transistors (BJT and FET transistors, ALL of them!) being in play. What was an acceptable seeming quality downgrade...became a norm, even though it is inherently wrong.
You know now, if one can read and cognate this post... that this statement is possibly very true. for you know of many other (outside of audio) legacy conditions that are inherently incorrect. This is just another one of them.
Apologies to anyone who disagrees with this..they are easily proven wrong (via analysis of the data and facts) ..and they really need to go and deal with it.
Linear gain is unbelievably critical to sound reproduction being properly presented to the human ear. The device in play MUST inherently be of a linear gain nature. It’s where we started, re triode tubes....and we lost the magic along the way, due to ease of use, gaming circuitry and lower costs, more availability, etc.
Here's the kicker, the clue the single critical data point in all this. Even& Odd ordered harmonics, that are incorrectly scaled and not put in proper place, in time and level, WILL be heard by the ear, very easily. so those incorrect signals are heard by the ear/brain combination easily, due to human design and wiring. We then mistake this incorrect but easily noticed stuff as detail. Incorrect detail is literally presented to the ear, and very much is heard, as we are designed from the ground up to recognize, first, things that are out of place. it’s part of the human survival mechanism. this would be a long story on human physiology and inherent animal level design of the human body. It’s there and it’s very very real. the trick is to recognize this, consciously and work the logic - from there.
We threw it all away, for a very dubious set of gains. To be fair, we did not know how important linear gain devices were, at those times.
Nor could a few clear headed audio enthusiasts steer an entire electronics industry that cared not one whit about the tiny (in comparison) audio world.
Some did know, but few were listening. eg, the Sony engineers who came up with the V-fet and pressed it into service in audio.