Dear Jh: +++++ " If you have, however, invented some new circuit topology that does what you claim, then I suggest you patent it immediately. " +++++
We are in this process.
+++++ " This is the difference between a 2A3 SET and your typical SS amplifier " +++++
Maybe the problem is that there is no more ( almost ) that " typical SS " topology. Today almost all preamps goes non-feedback, pure class A and discrete stages. Btw, we are using bipolars.
+++++ " Yes. So is feedback. " +++++
Like I told you almost the rule today are non-feedback designs. I think that you need some update about.
You certainly know every single tube technology limitations: very high output impedance, tubes are a noisy device " per nature ", tubes designs have higher distortions level than SS or hybrids one, tubes have heavy problems to reproduce accurately both frequency extremes specially the low bass where ( beteen other things ) does not have control over the woofers like the SS topology, tubes are untrusty: time to time ( very short time ) blow-up, tubes are not performance consistent: almost every single day sound different ( many people don't take in count because every day are in touch with their systems ). Jh you know that we can go on speaking about but this is not the subject: you and me know that there is nothing perfect in tubes or SS electronics.
Jh, the subject is that the " very old myths " about SS designs, fortunately, dissapear. Today we have very good SS designs as we can find good tube designs. The best of all is that today the customers have several choices that in the past don't.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul. |
In fact the odd-ordered harmonic generation that is a hallmark of transistors is a feature that runs counter to the rules of human hearing. We all hear the same way in this regard, and is not something that we can change.
The odd-ordered harmonic content we are talking about is used the human ear as loudness/harshness cues and occurs in vanishingly small amounts- hard to measure with conventional test equipment. But our ears are very sensitive to this type of distortion- finely tuned you might say.
Tubes do not make this type of distortion. So- in a phono stage, if you *add* this distortion, it will exist in the system right to the loudspeaker. So the phono section is the place where you really want to use tubes. |
Here are some claims/concerns about the "wonder" product they've been trying to sell in the threads but haven't addressed:
>>Claims to have an unprecedented flat frequency response from 0.01Hz to 1 mHz<<
Well thats crap as Spectral designs and others go beyond that.
>>Claim of 150 dB common mode rejection<<
More crap. The halves of a differential circuit must be matched within one - thirty millions (the deviation is one unit for thirty million units) - while even "dual" devices, made from a single crystal, are matched within one to a hundred. There is nothing in existence to measure such deviation. For the readership, in tube designs/ matching within one to thirty is common and OK.
>>Claim they match the discrete devices a million times as precisely as the others do.<<
Obviously, this is pure BS and more BS.
>>Claim distortion of 2/10000 (two - ten thousands of a percent - i.e.) the claimed distortion is minus 104 dB.<<
More crap. This is by far impossible to measure with any equipment on the phono level because they would have to have a device with the resolution to picovolts, and such instruments do not exist.
Additionally the claimed distortion figure is over 30 dB below (!) the theoretical noise floor for an MC cartridge, and 5 times as low as the lowest noise floor from any known solid state device in existence.
For any engineer, such ridiculous claims make the design and the designers look anything but real and serious. However, it makes for great promotion which is the issue now correct? |
>>we develop a totally new mathematics theorem to make the transistor full linear<<
What kind of fluff is that? I'm not familiar with any of your designs, but coming up with some new equations on paper does not change the laws of physics. Active devices follow certain behaviors and have been well established. On one end of the scale is the triode, the most inherently linear amplification device used in audio. At the other end is the bipolar transistor (ok, maybe an IGBT is worse). In the middle are JFETs, pentodes, MOSFETs.
The bipolar transistor has a nearly perfect logarithmic transconductance. Hard to beat in that respect. But exponential is not proportional (linear). No theorem is going to change that.
If you have, however, invented some new circuit topology that does what you claim, then I suggest you patent it immediately. Silicon Valley is going to pound your door down.
>>more SS designs come with NON feedback design<<
Well, I think this is a little exaggerated. Most SS designs on the market employ opamps. Only a handful use open loop discrete gain stages. Perhaps this number is growing, but I hardly think it is dominant.
>>It is untrue that there is a technical limitation topology<<
What I didn't make clear here was the basic difference between class A and class B stages. As far as I know virtually all opamps run class AB. The output signal is driven in one direction by one device (transistor), and in the other direction by a second device. They keep handing off the signal. Only during a small crossover window do they both conduct. Making this window larger can help. Making the window full scale turns the amplifier back into class A. No device ever turns off.
In contrast, a class A stage is driven by a single device. It is always on. There is no cross over or handoff. This is the difference between a 2A3 SET and your typical SS amplifier. Why is it people will live with a flea-powered 2A3 when they can have 50 watts out of an LM3875 power opamp? Because of the micro detail. The SET is running full bore at idle. It excels at small signals and the distortion becomes vanishingly small. By comparison, the class AB amplifier excels at large signals. But it's distortion rises as the signal gets smaller. Exactly the opposite of the 2A3. That is an example of topology.
There are a lot of other topologies I can get into, but that example illustrates the point well.
>>tubes are harmonic generators<<
Yes. So is feedback. And the harmonics generated by feedback are far more insidious. They might be quite small in relative amplitude, but multiply with each pass through the amplifier, generating a lot of non-integer harmonics. That leads to the cold, sterile, and sometimes fatiguing sound of many high feedback amplifier stages.
SS stages that do not use feedback are also harmonic generators. Heck, every amplifier is to some degree. The question is, what sort of harmonics do you want to live with? I'll take a triode any day.
jh |
Dear Hagtech: First my apology to Csmithbarc for this post but IMHO it is extremely important to speak about:
+++++ " The big advantage tubes have over solid state is that they are *far* more linear. " +++++
Yes, I agree with that in normal designs: in our design we develop a totally new mathematics theorem to make the transistor full linear, so that advantage dissapear.
+++++ " They also overload in a much more sonically benign fashion, tending towards compression rather than clipping. " +++++
I agree too in normal designs and in the past SS ones ( even on those times M.Levinson and Mcinthos introduce in their electronics designs a " soft clipping " stage. ). Today almost all SS designs take care about designing with very high overload levels so the clipping subject it is not an issue.
+++++ " Most solid state amplification employs feedback ... " +++++
No, more and more SS designs come with NON feedback design, as a fact the non-feedback design is the SS rule today.
+++++ " But as Atmasphere points out, the micro details and very small signal information is better recovered via tubes. This is not just opinion, but a technical limitation of topology. The exception would be an open-loop class A gain stage " +++++
It is untrue that there is a technical limitation topology, it is not: what could exist is a not so good design but there are a lot of right SS designs out there.
As a fact you state that there is an exeption: " The exception would be an open-loop class A gain stage ... " well this is one of the exeptions.
As you can see there is no single advantage from the tubes against SS, what exist is different designs ( good and bad ) in both technology sides.
You already know all the tube technology limitations, like you say almost all work with coupling caps or coupled transformers, the tubes are harmonic generators and the problem is that that harmonics does not exist in the original signal, the impedance problems are bigger too when a tube amp try to handle the " electrical speaker impedance ": almost all the tube electronics are high output impedance that when is connected to cables, audio devices or speakers change the frequency response: I can go on speaking about the tube limitations but this is not the subject. I believe that exist very good designs ( within its own technology limitations ) on both sides and we the customers have the choice.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul. |
Hi Opus111, of course I do have a 'vested' interest, but I also stand behind what I say, IOW I try to practice what I preach FWIW. I hope that's OK :)
Rauliruegas, thanks for your explanation! No worries :)
I think Hagtech stated the matter better than I could. And I agree with him that if you are going to make a solid state phono section that does detail retrieval correctly, it will have to be some sort of zero feedback topology using FET style transistors. They are the only devices (I know of) that have linearity like that of triodes.
I for one would love to not have to work with tubes. High voltages, filament circuits, the production of tubes and the like all make transistors desirable. But so far I have yet in the 45 some odd years since they really started to appear to see them actually bring home the bacon. If they did, there would not be more tube equipment manufacturers here in the US then there was 50 years ago! The market has spoken very clearly to that. |
Csmithbarc, nothing is off topic, its your thread!! I will say this, there is no definate answer to your recording consistency problem.. However I will give you this, I have had worse sounding recordings on LP back with less serious Phono stage and Cartridge just not compete well with better recordings.. In all honesty Yes once I made a move to a good MC cart and Tube phono stage many of the differences dissapeared and became shockingly excellent sounding original recordings..
But as with everthing, other issues changed along with this, such as putting an expensive cart on the table needed much more attention to setup, and loading with the Phono amp etc.. Which were just more flexable than using a Straight MM cart
Also the excellent recordings are Still just as good and actually far better as well, but all the lesser recordings with a sweet stylus digging deeper are much more detailed and smooth.. So you could be very happy, but it costs more money and more time to get familure with setting up and tweaking your system to your sound, you just need the tools to do it
And really just ask yourself is all this worth it to me? Or am I pretty happy with CD and not ready to worry about it in the long run? Also for these recordings your not finding too stellar, if you have not invested in a serious LP cleaner and solutions that would be a huge start to find more out of your collection.. Again I am not an expert, but an enthusiast and I have just found in my experience these levels do exist and can be obtained, even without spending a Ton of money but it will cost some cash with no doubt. |
Dear Atmasphere: I apologize for my earlier comment which an American friend explained to me was worded incorrectly. When I said, I know very well your units but I would not exhibit any of your products
what I really meant was that I know your units very well, and are not mentioning them (or any other products) as an example to debate. My view is that we cant generalize that ALL tubes or ALL ss sound a certain way, and that the individual design of the component makes all the differences.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul. |
The big advantage tubes have over solid state is that they are *far* more linear. Their gain characteristic is many times better than a transistor or integrated circuit. They also overload in a much more sonically benign fashion, tending towards compression rather than clipping.
Most solid state amplification employs feedback (and lots of it) to cure the nonlinear gain ills. The closest you can get to a tube is by using JFETs open loop. They're pretty good, but still not in the same league as tubes.
On the other hand, most tube circuits require coupling caps. There is, as several of you have pointed out, no perfect design, and they all exhibit artful compromise.
But as Atmasphere points out, the micro details and very small signal information is better recovered via tubes. This is not just opinion, but a technical limitation of topology. The exception would be an open-loop class A gain stage using a reasonably linear active device such as a JFET.
jh |
Dear Atmasphere: I apologize for my earlier comment which an American friend explained to me was worded incorrectly. When I said, I know very well your units but I would not exhibit any of your products
what I really meant was that I know your units very well, and are not mentioning them (or any other products) as an example to debate. My view is that we cant generalize that ALL tubes or ALL ss sound a certain way, and that the individual design of the component makes all the differences.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul. |
Kind of off topic but....one other "problem" with my analog rig is that recordings either sound stunning or not so good. where my Digital all sounds "great". Is this again a problem with my cart and phono pre. |
I have listened to Raul's SS preamp/phono and it generated more detail and bass retrieval than my tubed CAT. I think the differences are more in the area of tonality. Whether right or wrong, by distortion or not, tubes can sometimes provide a more pleasureable tone. |
>>but it is totally unfair to make the kind of statements<<
The truth isn't always fair.
Regards and enjoy the tubes. |
I have owned literally hundreds of tubes and solidstate amps and preamps (and phonostages) over the years, everything from MFA Lumi C/MC Reference, Lamm L1/L2, Airtight ATE-2/ATM-2, Counterpoint SA4/SA9/SA11, Atma-Sphere M60s, Futterman OTL3/H3A, Vendetta SCP-2B, JRDG Cadence/Coherence II, Threshold SA1/SA4e, Spectral DMC-20 NKII, Levinson ML-2/6B/7A/N0.26s/25s/20.6/380S, Marantz 2/5/7C/8B, etc, and currently have 5 turtables (EMT 930ST, Garrard 301 w/EMT 997 and SME3012R, Thorens TD124 II with Ortofon RMG212, Linn LP12 Valhalla w/ Naim Aro, and Win SDC-1) hooked up to various tube and solidstage equipments and I have owned many other turntables in the past.
I believe I am qualified to speak my opinion based on my experience, so please don't tell me I have not heard a properly set up system with the state-of-the-art analog and tube electronics.
While I prefer tube over solidstate and agree with your opinion that tube gears sound smoother than SS in general, I don't think tubes inherently retrieve more details than transistors. It all depends on the design and how competent a designer is.
You obviously have a vested interest in tubes, being a manufacturer of OTL amps and preamps (I like/admire your design a lot), and I can certainly appreciate your enthusiasm and strong belief in the superiority of tube over transistor, but stating your opnion as if it is the only truth does not earn my respect (not that you need it!).
I have heard many lousy sounding/unreliable tube equipments and the same can be said of the SS gears too. I have also heard and owned some very nice sounding tube gears and the same can be said of the SS gears. |
I am plenty calm Raul, despite your attempts otherwise. And FWIW, my statements are plenty 'fair'... (whatever *that* means :)
I have yet to see any of the solid state that you refer to, having been doing CES and the like since 1989 I've been exposed to a lot of it, and a lot of it has been quite expensive. I also do not have to rely on opinion.
Many transistor units have higher distortion at lower output levels where low level detail exists. Tubes OTOH make vanishingly low distortion at lower levels- so low level detail is not obscured by distortion. This is so easy to demonstrate at almost any cost level that your statement would seem to strain credulity. |
Dear Atmasphere: Absolutely wrong: I heard it in three different audio systems.
Please don't go a head with: +++++ " there is nothing misleading about my statement at all and it is very easy to demonstrate at any level of cost ... " +++++.
I'm not against the tube technology but it is totally unfair to make the kind of statements that you do, that kind of opinion does not help to the people only confuse them because today there are many examples of SS technology that in several ways and overall are better than the best tube technology : and like you say " is very easy to demonstrate ".
Please stay calm about.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul. |
Rauliruegas and Opus111, there is nothing misleading about my statement at all and it is very easy to demonstrate at any level of cost. Raul in particular, your statement does not make a lot of sense. I have to assume that you do not know our equipment at all and certainly have not heard it. |
I agree 100% with Rauliruegas. One may prefer tube over SS, but stating that tubes retrieve more detail than transistors is simply misleading. |
Adjustabilty is useful, but in practice, a gain of 60 to 65 with most phono stages will cover most MC cartridges, except the very low .2mv of a few cartridges. That is'nt to say greater adjustabilty is'nt useful, but it is costly and may compromise performance. I too like tubes in phono stages, but you have to accept they are slightly noisier and a gain of 60 is about what you can achieve with tubes. One way round this is a tube/SS hybrid, such as the Art Vinyl reference a J Fet/tube hybrid with Lundahl transformers for MC gain. It is a lovely phono stage giving the best of both worlds IMHO |
Dear Atmasphere: +++++ " Tubes are able to retrieve greater detail than transistors and they sound more relaxed. " +++++
IMHO this statement is a little out of reality/true. The design in the audio device is critical for the sound reproduction and from that design ( it does not matters tube or SS ) we can achieve more or less " to retrieve greater detail....relaxed " sound.
I know very well your units but I would not exhibit any of your products.
Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul. |
Adjustable for MC only.. MM I believe you will have one option, 47kohms
So yes if you decide to go with a better MC cart over the Rega you have which I assume is MM then it would be important. For MC you have several loading options to optimize the sound. I am guessing the stage you have now is MM only, if it is MC too I would assume it has some loading options for you already. I am not familure with the equipment you have, other Analog guys could help you out further. I think the AES is MM only? |
is an adjustable loading phono stage only important for future flexibilty in cart changes? |
Tubes are able to retrieve greater detail than transistors and they sound more relaxed. Once detail is lost it cannot be retrieved downstream. So consider a tube phono section. |
IMHO it matters less if its tube or SS and more about how the component sounds and fits with the rest of the system. I use tubes for all but my components to not have the "lush" sound, more detailed like SS. My amp is matched very well to my speakers. I built a tube phono pre with passive stepped atenuators for a linestage. My goal is transparency so I picked my components for this. Also I made sure that they play well together as far as impedance matching. Cost per component was not a deciding factor just sound and system matching. As an example I do not care for the sound of CJ linestages but don't mind their amps sound. I very much like what is not added by using a passive pre but care needs to be taken in this approach. My requirements are tone, dynamics then imaging and less so for freq. extremes. |
Hmm, well I have found that using a Tube phono stage is superior to the built in, or outboard solid state phono's I have used
Tubes with a cartridge just seems like a match that makes a lot of sense.. However if your using a Moving Magnet cartridge that would be possibly where I would start to upgrade and get it all back to tube plus some.. Maybe going to a MC cart will change your views on this, they seem to be much more detailed as well as weighty with more solid foundation in my experience. Again I only used MM with solid state Phono stage, but when I went to MC and Tubes With fully adjustable Loading which is very important all things changed for the Far better. So if you want to spend money maybe switch to a super sensitive MC setup. Its just a suggestion in a direction to take without screwing with you new found match between the Zu and the Tubes you have, and excelling your Phono performance, I don't see any reason to put money anywhere else for your system right now, Cd is far tougher to live with and if you found the match for that you have 80% of the battle won! I find sometimes we just look at the wrong things to upgrade, now you need to come to a higher level of analog to compete it sounds. |
