It's not really about loudness, it just feels more powerful at the same volume.
But I would say that in my case it is an excellent amp/speakers electrical match, the amp drives them with effortless grace at any sane level.
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It’s the low-order harmonic distortion which makes tube amps sound "full" and satisfying at the same SPL levels. Never sterile, lean, or bright. It’s also probably the fact that their front-ends give a lot of gain (6SN7, 12AT7, 12AX7 etc), so often lower powered tube amps will actually give you more SPL output at the same preamp / control volume setting, versus solid state amps with even higher power ratings (@mikhailark pointed this out via senstitivity). In these cases, you have to raise the volume dial to tap into a SS amp’s power reserves - past the point that would be safe for the tube amp. Gain is NOT power - when it comes to the limits, power is power and you will hit clipping all the same, at the amps’ actual limits of power, whether SS or tube. Tubes might be polite and give you a "warning" first - compression and then a soft-crunchy garbled distortion before the hard, nasty clipping. |
I have always heard that tubes were more powerful. But until I got one I had no idea how night and day they can be. I went from 350 wpc solid state to 70 wpc tube and the difference was not at all in power, not even a little bit. If I had gone to a 70wpc solid state it would have been night and day. In many respects the tube watts were more powerful in the richness of the midrange and the bass was much more articulate. What it lacked was the artificial quick (very fast rise and very fast fall) in the bass. The bass sounded like what I heard at a real rock concert or symphony… not that quick wall of bass usually called slam. But the bass is much better, more real. It sounds like all the bass and midrange is sustained as opposed to cut short as solid state often sounds. This makes details stand out, but is often unnatural. Why… as in technically. I have no idea. |
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