Why don’t tube amps sound like tubes anymore?


When I hear the latest tube amps I’m more reminded of what a solid state amp sounds like than what I remember a tube amp once sounded like. I say that, with most tube amps I hear today, but not all. Gone seems to be the lush tones, warm glow and natural harmonics I used to hear. What I hear is more of a thoroughbred, faster, sharper sound when I listen to a modern tube design today. Then why use tubes?
hiendmmoe

Showing 1 response by kqvkq9

Oh what a bunch of utter hogwash.

What is tube sound exactly? I've built hundreds of tube amps from scratch and I couldn't tell you what "Tube sound" is. You can make tube amps that sound great or terrible. You can make them hard and brittle or lush and boring.

If you care to and know how, you can make them sound like music.

Make them sound like tubes though, how do you do that? Why would you want to? The idea long has been to make the bits and pieces between the start and end disappear so that the music can get through. 

Let's face it, most attempts at that, tube and transistor, fail miserably.
That's why there is so much turnover in equipment on this website.

It's not the bits and pieces. Really, it's not. It's what you do with them.

Remember in the 60's, the great analytic vs romantic debate?
Which one was right? This bad sound or that bad sound?

Oh, just forget that I brought it up..