Tube Amp Suggestions

Wow! This is like some Monty Python lost episode. I think Dida is actually Eric Idle (wink, wink, nod, nod).

Specifications are important; agreed. But, which specifications and at what point is the chase for numbers inefficient? Amp companies were chasing high power and vanishing distortion in the 1980s. Is there really any difference between .5% THD and .1%? I don't think so in the real world. Same thing with things rated past 20k; who can hear past 20K? Yes, I understand about harmonics and that is one reason I think analogue recordings sound better than 44.1 (or 48khz) recordings. I have done parallel live recordings with very good microphones and used a Nakamichi ZX9 and a professional DAT recorder. Guess what; when we listened to the tapes later EVERYBODY much preferred the cassette recording! It sounded nicer. Period. The digital has specs all over the cassette; the cassete sounded better.

There are quality tube amps with excellent performance and bandwidth; check out the Wavac amplifiers for one example.

I kind of apologize for starting this thread. Would not a hybrid amp with a tube input stage and a ss output stage capture the best of both worlds. A musical reference rm200 (which I believe is a hybrid amp), was suggested by someone early in this post. A used rm200 was offered on audiogon the other day but got snapped up immediately.

Anyway thanks for all of the comments.

C1...
The difference is .4% :-) though surely not as relevant as the difference between say 0.005% and 1 to 2% (or more). But the point is whether it is audible, or not. Or if you like the idea of the source material being affected by a component at all, or whether you want to attempt to 'improve' the music with some distortion quality or other in one or more components.

Once recorded, though, is that even possible?

Please define, 'sounded "nice"'.

I really do not care to argue with those who enjoy their various qualities of distortion, regardless of how seductive the poetic terms used to describe it. From my perspective, there is No point.

Two schools of audio can be differentiated by 'goal'. Note that those who argue surprisingly ferverently against me personally (whatever that is about), and much less the point I attempt to make, rarely mention the music. And obviously have no ambition to reproduce it as accurately as possible in their listening room.

I do not know to what degree they acknowledge it, but they seem to only be concerned about the 'sound' of the individual components, and of their system collectively. Any sound whatever of which has to be 'distortion'. 'A good system is a silent system.' One that gets out of the way, and lets the music through.

That is my position, and I am sticking to it.

I imagine that if a musician was found to be so invloved in the sound of their instrument they would be corrected by their teachers and instructed to focus primarily on the music. Perhaps even to the degree of faithfully depicting the intention of the composer.

Anyway, I notice the Wavac's have no distortion measurement in their specs at all. They are pretty, though.

I have yet to see, even after contacting mfgrs specifically, that a spec indicating low distoriton was ever unintentionally omitted from publication. The cutoff seems to be 1 to 2% (THD/IMD) Some, but not all, 'brand names' will show that much, but never more. Whereas a mfgr ALWAYS shows when it is less. Hmmm.

To all: nothing personal, and no offence. BTW I have never cut and pasted a post in my life; Nor is my relationship with Seigfried Linkwitz other than one of a buyer to a seller. Since my speaker system is his design, I am just grateful he is accessible (and didactic by nature :-)

Do you listen to test tones or music? I guarantee you that any moderately good sounding tube amp will slay your SS home theater amps.

Oz

Didactically. Goals Smoals.... will you give your head a shake! Have you ever heard a Wavac amplifier? No... I didn't think so.Have you ever heard the Cary 805'? Obviously not! Yes sir, your ATI amp is a very nice sounding solid state amplifier... along with a host of others solid state amplifiers. Personally speaking sir......My Bedini 25/25 pure class A amplifier simply stomps on all over it in my rig. Sorry partner,call it any way you wish too..... and to be a little more blunt and to the point here.... The ATI is not even in the same league as the Cary 805 or any of the wavac amplifiers when it boils down to reproducing a musical signal.For the life of me, I just do not understand how anyone can ascertain how amplifier A is better than amplifier B without listening to each of them. Hey Batman,if you haven't listened to them... perhaps you should do so before preaching the Gospel here about distortion specs. Hell... my teenage nephews 80 watt Radio Shack receiver specs out pretty damned close to your ATI amplifier, and it's guaranteed to give me a headache in the first few bars of whatever you wish to listen to.

Slay? in what way?
Define 'good sounding'.

FYI
It is actually more difficult to design a distortion free solid state amp than a tube design. It makes you wonder why it is more difficult to find tube amps with tolerable levels of distortion.

But then so many are more interested in how their system sounds than in listening to the actual music, which would lead one to aspire to hear it accurately: as played by the musicians in whichever environment.

Oh, well. To each his or her own, I suppose.

A wise man once said, ' most error is the result of a false premise, carelessly assumed, then building on that premise'.

You do not know what I have listened to. Yet you proceed as though you did, then presume to have made a convincing argument.

At any rate, my view is based on levels of distortion produced by a component, which is measurable. Not how it 'sounds'. I prefer it have no sound of its own since it is distortion that you hear even though many have very definate tastes for various specific characteristics of distortion, often described in affectionate and poetic terms.

I have no argument with these 'connoisserus of coloration', and certainly no interest in debating their subjective tastes for the 'sound' they like. I want to hear the music. As accurately, and live like, as possible.

Have I not been clear about that?

At any rate, my view is based on levels of distortion produced by a component, which is measurable. Not how it 'sounds'.

That's enough for me to doubt your credibility and seriously wonder who moved the rock and set you free. I trust my ears, I have/do listen to a lot of live music and have since I was 7 years old and do the best job at selecting components that get me as close to "live" sound as possible- and quite frankly the specs. mean very little to me.

BTW you can have a low distortion amp that is very colored, I don't see how you could infer that the two are directly related.

Didactically, how willing are you to learn something new? The link below is to a fellow's Masters thesis which seeks to correlate measurement data to what we hear.

http://w3.mit.edu/cheever/www/cheever_thesis.pdf

I am not interested in learning something 'new'. 'THere is nothing new under the sun.' I am interested in learning someing 'true'.

BTW you do not think that because it is a 'Masters thesis' that it is true, do you? The President went to Harvard.

How did you get a 'link' to show up as a link on a Reply anyway. I have typed, and cut/paste many but they show up as text only...not a functioning link.

As I thought.

I have sent the paper to Siegfried Linkwitz for his opinion.

Scanning the Conclusion it appears that he does not necessarily take the postion specs are not useful for evaluation.

But he does infer the premise that listening is subjective so 'whatever 'sounds' good to you is good'. As opposed to the more scientific approach that much can be done to more accurately replicate the live performance in all its accoustical subtelty and nuance in recording and playback.

I will let you know if I get an opinion from SL.

How about the link issue?

So you have no opinions of your own? You must follow Linkwitz like a lemming????

And as for your remark about the president, your way of thinking.....or not thinking, made me know right away you were a liberal. You would rather someone else made up your mind for you. Makes sense now...... Go back to your home theater amp, you deserve it.

Oz

Ozzy62, I have no doubt that with the cultist mentality that Didactically displays, he would have been the first one in line to gulp down a cup of Kool-Aid at Jonestown!

An interesting thread indeed and I'm sure the original poster ,Sgunther, really appreciates the squabble ;-) but I feel I MUST put in my two cents.
I can appreciate the opinions of Didactically as I have a friend who feels the same way. He is an engineer who is an audiophile and looks a lot at the figures represented by manuf. specs and does not feel that tubes can possibly portray a sonic duplicate of the actual event.I can agree with this as I'm sure many can.
However neither can solid state. The whole industry is flawed from source(studio) to final destination (our ears!). I'm sure that if all recordings were made the same there would not be the audio industry we have today. Certainly not the variety of equipment. It's obvious that nobody hears exactly the same and what we do hear is some form of generalization of the sonic event. The only thing we can do is tailor the sound to be pleasing to ourselves whether through the use of tubes or SS. If accuracy was the true goal there really would only be a handfull of recordings we could listen to as most of the sonic garbage starts at the studio.
I recently went from SS (Ayre) to tube (ARC) and the difference in sound is vastly different. My wife and I both enjoyed the ARC in more ways than we did the Ayre. Not that the Ayre is bad, I'm sure that many people would enjoy it more BUT to OUR ears the ARC simply sounded more pleasing. I won't use the word accurate on either amp as I never attended the original studio event for anything in my CD or vinyl collection so I have no point of refrence to grade playback against. The ARC was just more satisfying and friendly. The tubes may be colored and introduce thier own signature to the sound but it is more pleasing than the nature of solid state, but hey, it keeps me listening to the music.
I hope one day soon to hear the Linkwitz speakers as I think it represents new steps towards music reproduction. I also hope it colors the music in a way that is pleasing to the ear!

Why do you care what I think, or even whether I think, and why are you so angry? I know it does not have anything to do with me.

You also sound like the President. If you challenge what he thinks you are not patriotic. To critique a Republican does not make you a Liberal, or anything else.

Lets discuss 'audio'. That is why we are here, is it not? Otherwise call Dr Phil. He can help you with your personal problems.

You guys are relentless. And angry. Like that has anything to do with me.

Spoken like a true 'connoisseur of coloration'. An eloquent justification.

'The power of suggestion works exceedingly well, when listeners cannot trust their own hearing. I recommend to re-calibrate yourself frequently. Listen closely to all sorts of un-amplified sounds in order to recognize and remember natural aural patterns. It becomes an endless and futile pursuit to listen for and try to evaluate differences between speakers, equipment and accessories without a reality based mental reference.' (SL)

You gotta feel sorry for Siegfried Linkwitz about now. I bet he never knew he'd have a groupie.

Nighthawk, the chuckle within the depths of my soul is priceless.

Your insults (which say more about you than me) notwithstanding, hear is SL's reply as I promised:

'I am not sure that I had seen Cheever's thesis, but glancing at it I see that I have been familiar with his observations. I sometimes say that "the first Watt" is most telling about an amplifier's audible performance. It brings out problems due to crossover distortion with its high harmonics and poor feedback designs. This is where tube equipment shines and has its strength, so that it takes very little knowledge to design a decent low power tube amp. It is the area that has given solid-state amps a bad name and makes the design of good ss-amps exceedingly difficult. But it can be done.'

Nighthawk, I must correct you. Didactically IS NOT a groupie. He is a cultist!

How far into name calling will you go before coming up for air and emulate some semblence of maturity, dignity, respect and sanity, anyway.

What you call others says more about you than them. It does not change anyone in any way. Even if they retaliate: push your face in, or worse (which you obviously have no fear of here in the safety of cyberspace) they just demonstrate they are like you already, or worse. You do not make them that way. No one can.

What do you get out of it anyway. What do you 'like' about it, to do it so persistently. Is it anything you can share? In the light of day.

What ever happened to 'audio'? Thankfully youall are a minority here.

Dida
You talk about insults,you wrote the book on them.Read your answers you are rude and loudmouth and full of insults towards the others.Check your comments above about"who can be a man or a boy"and about "picking noses" and "wives" and so on.What's that got to do with AUDIO?

Sgunther,

So...uh...what amp did you decide on?

Yea. I agree. Lets talk audio. How you doing?

ATI,
...though I continue the search for low distortion (<0.1% THD/IMD over a respectable frequency range, somewhat greater than 20hz-20khz) tube amp with say at least 40w of power.

I would use it for the main panels of my active eq/xo 2-way open baffle system. Contiuing to use SS for the also open baffle woofers (2-12" dynamic drivers in push-pull configuration each woofer) which reqire only 50w of power themselves.

A 40w tube amp is roughly equivenent to say a 100w solid state (the min reqmt for the 2-8" mid + tweeter panels).

There are several distortion free ss amps available for as little as $200, I just believe the ATI is the better bargain.

If I had money to burn, which I would be doing, I would indugle myself in the exquisite beauty of the Jeff Rowland Design Gourp line (which actually come with an optional clear plastic to reveal the interior, which is a work of art...but $8k) though not because I expected it to perform any better than say even the $200 vintage Hafler DH-200/220.

Do you know of a tube amp that will meet the criteria (above)?

Didactically,

Can you possibly just answer HIS question? Your answer is all about you and your preferences, which don't answer the question posed by sgunther. If you can't bring yourself to recommend a tube amp, why not just search for a thread where your philosophy applies?

And if you're asking me how I am doing, just fine thank you.

Evita
Thanks for asking, I have decided to abandon the hobby.