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Tubes Do It -- Transistors Don't.

I never thought transistor amps could hold a candle to tube amps. They just never seem to get the "wholeness of the sound of an instrument" quite right. SS doesn't allow an instrument (brass, especially) to "bloom" out in the air, forming a real body of an instrument. Rather, it sounds like a facsimile; a somewhat truncated, stripped version of the real thing. Kind of like taking 3D down to 2-1/2D.

I also hear differences in the actual space the instruments are playing in. With tubes, the space appears continuous, with each instrument occupying a believable part in that space. With SS, the space seems segmented, darker, and less continuous, with instruments somewhat disconnected from each other, almost as if they were panned in with a mixer. I won't claim this to be an accurate description, but I find it hard to describe these phenomena.

There is also the issue of interest -- SS doesn't excite me or maintain my interest. It sounds boring. Something is missing.

Yet, a tube friend of mine recently heard a Pass X-350 amp and thought it sounded great, and better in many ways than his Mac MC-2000 on his Nautilus 800 Signatures. I was shocked to hear this from him. I wasn't present for this comparison, and the Pass is now back at the dealer.

Tubes vs. SS is an endless debate, as has been seen in these forums. I haven't had any of the top solid state choices in my system, so I can't say how they fare compared to tubes. The best SS amp I had was a McCormack DNA-1 Rev. A, but it still didn't sound like my tube amps, VT-100 Mk II & Cary V-12.

Have any of you have tried SS amps that provided these qualities I describe in tubes? Or, did you also find that you couldn't get these qualities from a SS amp?
kevziek

Showing 6 responses by tubegroover

tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
I feel that there are system synergies that also must be taken into consideration. I have heard a few great ss systems but I have never owned a great ss amp. The price for admission is probably too high for me but as Zaikesman notes with the ML 33H, they are out there.

It seems generally, in a given price range, tubes are easier to live with long term and less fatiguing. I recently heard a Pass X-350 amp in an unfamiliar system and it was terrible, not the amp but the system. Surely something was wrong. I have heard the Pass Aleph's, the 30 watters sound wonderful. Bottom line there is no clear cut winner and there are enough music lovers that listen through SS that are happy to not discount them.

Where ss in general comes up short is in the "release of the note", the inner harmonic realness and decay that one hears with live instruments. The wholeosity (thanks Gizmo for that term) of the sound. This lends itself a "presence", for lack of a better adjective, that in general escapes SS devices and systems, even expensive ones in my experience. On the other hand another discovery over years of listening is that I have less tolerance for slow ponderous tube gear that euphonizes the sound or adds a richness or syrupy quality that isn't real either. The balancing act is to get the best of both worlds without sacrificing the qualities that each offer.
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
To further expand on the Berning bass performance I will say that the Berning zh270 amp has bass performance comparable to the best ss amps I have personally heard. With a stable 8 ohm load this amp will deliver full power down to 2hz and listening is believing. I have never heard any tube amp deliver the clarity, pitch definition and sense of real acoustic space in the low bass like this amp. It is comparable to the best ss in these areas if not offering the ultimate slam of a large ss amp. Another example of the converging of the two technologies.
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
Karls-I haven't tried the zh270 into a load that dips low or in your case ruler flat at 3.5 ohms but have read and heard many conflicting comments on its performance at the frequency extremes into such loads that I don't know what to think. How about you Twl? Nah you're definitely the wrong guy to ask :)

I sure am curious myself and anyone in the Central Florida area that has such speakers I will gladly bring over this amp to find out first hand. Everyone I know has medium to high efficiency speakers and the amp sounds great on all of them. The high frequency impedance converter adjusts for impedance dips unlike traditional OTL amps which just run out of current unless there are enough output tubes to provide enough. Transformer coupled amps also do the brute force gig which is why they don't fare well into such loads, especially in the bass and why ss is a better choice for across the board performance.

Regardless, my guess is that the tonal balance especially at the frequency extremes may be affected with certain loads. With my speakers the amp is well balanced and extended across the frequency spectrum. The high frequency performance is also right up there with an absolute crystaline clarity with air and space to match. I really can't hear any problems anywhere but I'm still looking. You know something is on the ball when you start critically listening and find yourself just enjoying in spite of yourself, it happens all the time :)
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
Sorry Twl, I wrote my response prior to yours showing up and besides it was more tongue in cheek knowing your preference for high efficiency speakers. Your findings are what I suspect and seem consistent.
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
Damn Asa, you did it again! Great post.
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
Thank you Detlof for bringing some much needed compromise as well as wisdom to this debate. The overriding factor that I have found in that ever elusive term "musicality" has less to do with tube or ss devices so much as how components work together as a system in a given room.

Muralman's experience with Apogees mirror two separate experiences I had with both the Stages and Scintillas. Although I heard several of the other Apogees models in different systems, there are only two experiences that stand out and are included in those "musical moments" that one never forgets. What was very interesting to me and still baffles me to this day is how the Stage system synergized with a lowly Adcom amp. I didn't try to dissect why it sounded the way it did, like real music, but was just amazed that it did. Why? The room, the recording the set-up, all those things certainly contributed to the magic. I figured out a long while back, after that and a few similar experiences that sometimes a system comes together by luck, sometimes through skill but more often than not, through trial and error. With me the latter since I really don't have the technical skill to get it right the first time.

Things aren't black and white, music isn't tubes vs. ss. A great system is the sum of all its components, not least of all the room it is set-up in. It just is and when one experiences reproduced music as we hear it live, like Muralman did many years ago, nothing else matters other than the means and methods of recreating that magic in the home environment. We need to respect and encourage each other in our individual quest to attain that, this is what it's all about.
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