IMO all tubes is the way to go. Originally, of course, it was all all-tubes. My own experience with very inexpensive tube equipment, from phono preamp, to preamp, to amp, is that it sounds great. Replacing any one of those components with (inexpensive) ss gear makes things worse. Im sure it all depends on WHAT gear and how 'inexpensive' is 'inexpensive', but that's been my experience. Good luck!
tube into tube into mo'tubes
I just picked up a fairly clean Cary sla70A sig amp and a pair of Proac D15s and am looking for suggestions on a preamp and cd player to finish off the system.
After combing through articles on tube/ss preamps i came across an interesting post about shying away from a tube pre with the tube amp. The jist of the commentary was getting at the over softening principle that might exist in mid to lower range tube gear which compromises the sound in comparison to ultra-high end tube gear which may be "shaping" the sound versus denegrating it like my entry level tube stuff is more likely to do. Is this likely to occur if i stack a budget tube cd/ tube pre-and my older Cary tubes? And would it make sense to look into SS pre or passive to attempt to preserve the signal as much as possible prior to getting into the Amp? ( the proacs my guess could really handle the softer side of the tube Yin/yang, but i wonder about this tube into tube into mo'tube principle especially with lower budget stuff.(considering similar vintage Cary Slp50 vs similar SS minimalist passive linestage)
On a side note- I popped open the Cary 70Asig when i got it home to check out the guts and it was super clean with Mit Multicaps and rtx caps. Does anyone know if these are the NOS caps for this Vintage Cary?
After combing through articles on tube/ss preamps i came across an interesting post about shying away from a tube pre with the tube amp. The jist of the commentary was getting at the over softening principle that might exist in mid to lower range tube gear which compromises the sound in comparison to ultra-high end tube gear which may be "shaping" the sound versus denegrating it like my entry level tube stuff is more likely to do. Is this likely to occur if i stack a budget tube cd/ tube pre-and my older Cary tubes? And would it make sense to look into SS pre or passive to attempt to preserve the signal as much as possible prior to getting into the Amp? ( the proacs my guess could really handle the softer side of the tube Yin/yang, but i wonder about this tube into tube into mo'tube principle especially with lower budget stuff.(considering similar vintage Cary Slp50 vs similar SS minimalist passive linestage)
On a side note- I popped open the Cary 70Asig when i got it home to check out the guts and it was super clean with Mit Multicaps and rtx caps. Does anyone know if these are the NOS caps for this Vintage Cary?
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- 5 posts total
- 5 posts total