I have been wondering if the break up distortion I hear with my 60 watt tube amps is because I have insufficient power for my 91db 6 ohm minimal speakers. I do question if that rating of my speakers is correct. When the music swells, I get break up sound. It is not on low notes or high volume. I do wonder how my speakers would perform with a lot more power. I have always thought that any speaker likes more power.
What speakers do you have? I have found that all of my speakers sound better with more powerful amplifiers, but I'm a SS amplifier guy. For me, tubes are for preamps. I know that some speakers are hard to drive with some tube amps. Tube amps generally don't like lower impedance speakers. By that I mean below 8 ohms nominal. As for sound of distortion, pretty much what you describe. Just starts to sound crappy, unclear and watch out for blowing tweeters. After I went to more that 500 W/channel, no more blown tweeters.
I have Tetra 606s. For a long time I pushed them with a 300B SET at 8 watts. Clearly, they wanted more power. Seems like I am pretty confirmed that the scratchy breaking up I hear on swells is clipping.
If you are hearing distortion when the "music swells" and you are not playing at high volume, it could be that you are over-driving some other part of your audio chain. For example, if you have a DAC with a high maximum output level that is feeding a preamp that has a low maximum input signal, this could cause the distortion you are getting.
Also, if you are doing any kind of equalization such as boosting bass or treble, or room correction, this may be causing clipping of the DAC or preamp (depending on where it is done).
Clipping happens only at max output. So if it is not high volume then it is not clipping. If it happens when the music swells, that is a high amplitude signal in the source regardless of the amount of amplification. So this could be as simple as a dirty stylus and mistracking. Or overloading an input somewhere. Could be a lot of things. Without knowing more, pure guesswork.
Seems like I am pretty confirmed that the scratchy breaking up I hear on swells is clipping.
If you don't hear this at high volume it isn't the amps clipping. Could you describe what is meant by 'when the music swells'? That *sounds* like when its louder, but clearly from your description it isn't.
+1 for preamp overload of low level signal input. It would be interesting to know if it occurs from a specific selected or all source inputs to the preamp.
Damaged / worn out speaker surrounds fit the bill....If you have push-pull tube amp, then a misalignment in the phase splitting can be the culprit of this phenomenon - either one tube / tube section got worn out, or a plate load resistor went off value due to too much heat stress.91dB speakers & 60W amp should not be an issue... have you tried both 4R and 8R output taps on the amp? Try it on the 4R tap if you've been running it on the 8R so far...
If you hear breakup or distortion it is a lack of power for your speakers and your room you would be surprised how much power mot speakers take to achieve an above normal listening level that is why there are high sensitivity high impedance large loudspeakers that achieve those above natural levels with 1 to 5 watts in most rooms.
+5 for TUBES. I'm certainly not a tube amplifier expert, but with all tube products I have dealt with, "if something is not right" Check or replace the tubes FIRST. I assume your tube preamp is older than the power amp? Start with that. See if you can swap out an entire component, preamp, then power amp to isolate problem.
I think it is mistracking. Miyajima Shalabi wt Triplanar arm. I don’t have this distortion on Netflix, etc. Waiting on a Lyra Atlas SL. Hope that is better. Also distortion on new LPs so not just old, worn record sound.
a 65 watt per channel amplifier was nowhere near enough oomph to drive a pair of small Thiel speakers, but 130/side is just enough to avoid the crackly sound in the low bass that i heard with the weaker amp, when playing organ music.
Ok, you didn't provide much information such as how old your components are, how many hours on the tubes, how old is the cartridge, was it set up properly, etc. If this is a new and unchanging occurrence, I agree that mis-tracking is the most probable cause and a great place to start looking. The easiest way is to simply try another source and see if you still get the noise. Once you rule that out, consider tube replacement. Good luck!
91 dB 6 ohm nominal load speaker, generally speaking, should not be that hard to drive unless the impedance has really low dips. Again generally speaking, tube amps tend to be able to provide more current than similarly priced SS amps. So, depending upon what tube amp you are using for these speakers, it doesn't sound, to me, like this is an amp problem, per se. However, as one commenter suggested, it might be a bad tube. Maybe it's time to roll out those tubes? If that doesn't do it, I would check and re-check all the basic stuff (e.g. connections). Maybe this is a speaker problem. If not, my next attack would be a good power line conditioner. Good luck!
All TT settings were done with the guidance of Tri. Believe them all to be correct. Think it must be a combination of mistracking and bad, old records.
Not sure if this correct, but I used to play a 1khz sine wave , not sure at what level - 3 dB I think. Turn the volume up until the sine wave breaks up, it starts to buzz. This on my system this correlates to where I think it's clipping when I play music. It will probably clip before this on music peaks. Try it, see what you think.
I notice this distortion most with vocals. When there is a full tone frequently this break up happens. Hope that it is the compliance mismatch of the cartridge and arm.
Clipping occurs anywhere, as another poster or two commented. Even if it's all digital and all the processor 'boxes' are dsps, you can clip. If you turn things down one at a time and (besides making things quieter) you notice a huge improvement in sound quality, you were clipping someplace. One reason I use computers. Plenty of peak meter dsps to insert in the signal chain (rms meters are near useless for this). If it's the old classic power amp type clipping, a tube amp will go into clipping before you know it's there perhaps, since tubes soft-clip. They're not 'fast enough' to saw off a waveform like it had been cut with scissors. The edges round off. It may not be offensive enough to notice until you really overdrive it. Solid state amps clip very sharply, leaving you with a lot of odd harmonics like a square wave. It's very hard to listen to, which is why guitarists who want that pleasant fuzzy tone use tubes. Solid state sounds like a buzz saw. You'll know if your SS amp is clipping. And then there are speakers. Many of them have sensitive spots at different frequency bands where they simply buzz. It's a common defect, one you'll never pin down without a signal generator (which these days your laptop can become pretty easily). And then there are the 1000 other reasons besides 'clipping' that something sounds bad, especially if it's not on loud passages. A vinyl environment has quite the number of mechanical culprits to suspect, not of 'clipping' but of noises and distortion.
Music is not clear.... there’s a roughness to the highs and midrange which leads to blown resistors in speakers crossovers.
Alcohol costs more damage to tweeters and crossovers than normal.
Luckily Energy had such good service(Klipsch actually) sent me a brand new crossover, opened speaker, labeled wires to what drivers....replaced crossovers,.........as new! don’t turn volume up so much thee days.
Have old crossovers and may b sending to be fixed. Will b nice to have backup!
I can't believe the level of stupidity in some of these posts. Well... actually...yes I can.
The "clipping"...or distortion... can be narrowed down by the process of elimination. It's not happening with Netflix...therefore it's not an amp problem. It seems to happen only with vinyl records on the turntable. the most likely culprit is a worn out stylus. I had the same issue with a Philips turntable many years ago. Phono stylus does, in fact, wear out...and cause distortion on record playback.
I have less than 200 hours on my Miyajima Shalabi. Triplanar arm, Woodsong Garrard 301. I am actually hoping that it is a compliance mismatch cart and arm. Just playing 1812 Overture on the cannons the arm jumped off the record and the sound stopped for an instant! Sure seems like the cart is not tracking. At least I now have a torture test!
That’s one of the limitations of vinyl records...lol... A digital recording might have sent your woofers’ cones flying across the room.
I bought a JBL C37 cabinet loaded with a 175DLH and 130A from a gentleman that actually built it in 1957 when he worked there. He advertised the system for sale on Craigslist. Prospective buyer showed up to test it with his McIntosh and turntable with The 1812 Overture with Cannons. Cannons went off...something didn’t sound right...Guy packed up his amp and turntable and split...because he split the cone on the 130A. "yeah...well...ok...thanks..." and he left.
on some amps the clipping seems benign, just a squashing of dynamics. i've heard some tube amps that did that. on most transistorized amps i've heard, it is harsh hash, or loud crackling.
If it's the old classic power amp type clipping, a tube amp will go into
clipping before you know it's there perhaps, since tubes soft-clip.
They're not 'fast enough' to saw off a waveform like it had been cut
with scissors. The edges round off. It may not be offensive enough to
notice until you really overdrive it.
This explanation is incorrect. Tube amps can be just as fast as solid state- the risetime in the output section of our OTLs is about 600V/uS- there are very few solid state amps that fast. The correct explanation is tube amps make less odd ordered harmonics as they clip; this results in smoother sound as the amps overload.
That’s one of the limitations of vinyl records...lol... A digital
recording might have sent your woofers’ cones flying across the room.
This is nonsense. If the LP is properly mastered it may well be uncompressed while quite often the digital release is (since there is no expectation that the LP will be played in a car).
The reason the stylus jumped out of the groove is that its mismatched with the tonearm. If you want to talk about limitations in LP playback, this is one of them- you can set up an excellent cartridge with an excellent tonearm and it won't play properly if they are mismatched. The compliance of the cartridge in tandem with the mass of the cartridge in the arm must produce a mechanical resonance between 7-12Hz. If not in that window you can get mistracking and actually have the stylus jump out of the groove.
Thanks Ralph-good to get the confirmation that my cartridge is a mismatch with the Tri-planar arm. And this must be the reason for the distortion I get on full tones of a vocal. Currently waiting for a Lyra Atlas SL to replace my Miyajima Shalabi. Tri assures me that it is a great match.
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