Paralleling tubes or going push pull can increase power but also can muddy the sound. The word 'can' in the statement above prevents it from being false. Going PP can also **decrease** muddiness by decreasing distortion. The trick is to not combine PP circuits with single-ended. Otherwise you get some emphasis of the 5th harmonic (this is old news; Norman Crowhurst was writing about this 60 years ago...). A fully differential amp (with no dedicated phase splitter) will have dramatically less distortion than a single-ended amp. The harmonics generated will fall off at a faster rate as the order of the harmonic is increased as well. But it still falls off with an exponential decay, which is what you're looking for if you want the amp to sound right. The difference in overall distortion can be dramatic- as much as 3 orders of magnitude lower for a given power output; about 1 magnitude lower for a relative output (IOW if both amps are driven to clipping). That translates directly to increased detail and smoother presentation. |
More tubes more power....Tubes sell...
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Are you kidding? Have you not heard? Tubes, sound better! |
In 1979 I put together my first assault putting together a high end system by taking out my first loan for $5,000 (that is $18,871 in today’s dollars) for. Threshold s500 amp, my system was all solid state. Over the years of continuously investing and learning, and trading up… one by one each of my components were swapped out for tube equipment. Now, by far the best system I have ever had… all of my components are tubed. (Click on my user ID to see my systems). |
Why they have so many tubes and why their prices are (excessively) high?
One would think after 117 years of evolution (1904, invention of the vacuum tube) and with only 4 other components involved (R, C, L, transformer) engineers would have reached the optimal configuration for a tube amplifier by now.
But there’s another ’science’ involved. It’s called Marketing ... the art of tempting people to spend top dollar. |
Why they have so many tubes and why their prices are (excessively) high?
One would think after 117 years of evolution (1904, invention of the vacuum tube) and with only 4 other components involved (R, C, L, transformer) engineers would have reached the optimal configuration for a tube amplifier by now.
But there’s another ’science’ involved. It’s called Marketing ... the art of tempting people to spend top dollar. ^All good there^ There use to be horns and large woofers like 18” (or maybe more) at 16 ohms, and 10-15W tube amps. Then we got direct radiators, and the work of Theil-n-Small… and later a bunch of low impedance drivers. Like Texton says, “4 Ohm drivers are better”. But also listening levels have probably also jumped 5-10 dB. I do not recall hearing other peoples music in my youth, unless it was a Ghetto Blaster. Now you hop on most any tram, and every ear bid sounds clear enough to make out the song. |
Well the connection between the number of tubes and marketing is ridiculous. The number of tubes has a direct relationship with the output power of amplifiers and then the particular design philosophy of the engineer with preamps and similar. I always view an increased number of tubes as a negative and yet I own Atma-sphere OTLs because the efficacy of this design has been demonstrated through listening. It is a superior design and one of the factors that makes it better requires more tubes than the more traditional. |
One would think after 117 years of evolution (1904, invention of the vacuum tube) and with only 4 other components involved (R, C, L, transformer) engineers would have reached the optimal configuration for a tube amplifier by now. when did they invent the cow? would think they'd have figured out the optimal configuration for cooking a steak by now... |
One would think after 117 years of evolution (1904, invention of the
vacuum tube) and with only 4 other components involved (R, C, L,
transformer) engineers would have reached the optimal configuration for a
tube amplifier by now.
But there’s another ’science’ involved. It’s called Marketing ... the art of tempting people to spend top dollar. Ya- you'd think. They've been making automatic transmissions for a while too, and yet they still fail in the middle of nowhere. There are actually innovations still occurring with vacuum tube amplifier tech (I can call out a couple of patent numbers if you like). Electrolytic caps keep getting better- and the better they get, the more effectively you can bypass a power supply. Plus we have computer modelling now so you can simulate and optimize circuits (including tube circuits) better than you could back in the days of slide rules. |
Reminds me of a midnight trip with a buddy to visit the transmitter building at KCMO AM in Kansas City. That's a 50KW clear channel hair dryer. Those guys were using some tubes big enough to be landed aliens. Anyone here ever worked a site like that?
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clearthinker,
Why not having 1 or 2 cylinder high performance cars? |
“Why not having 1 or 2 cylinder high performance cars?”
😊😊👍😊😊
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Wish I had a jadis JA30 pair of monos with a quad vs my
Defy 's 12 tubes
Don't need 12 tubes.
For WBer speakers all you need is a SET or a PP with a quad.
Jadis went big power due to the popularity of gigantic dinasaur speakers with disgustingly low efficiency.
A=Z speakers brands past 40 years.
I learned early on in the 1970's that big never was better.
True then, true today, Oct 2021, and true in a 100 yrs from now.
Folks saying how great speaker xyz is, when i take just one glance, its nothing more than the 1970's speakers rebranded, repackaged and ,,last but not least,,,re priced..
hehe
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