Inna, I believe you to be quite sincere in your threads and posts which is why I'm responding now. Whether it's class AB or A, or tubes or SS; the purpose of the equipment is to reproduce "music". As I previously stated, utilizing high quality parts, one would need the hearing of an "Irish Wolfhound" to tell the difference between A and AB. If you have it, fine, maybe it's worth the additional expense; I don't. The reason for this post is to separate equipment lovers from music lovers. First, in order to qualify for that distinction, (The ability to separate the two) one must be an Audiophile with at least 30 years of experience, and I'll explain why that's necessary. In the beginning, we started with our favorite music on the radio. And then we advanced to our own fundamental rigs. They were SS rigs because tubes were too expensive. Those who are still into SS are there because they simply followed along that path to better SS without comparing that to tubes. Or, they decided tubes create distortion. If you compare the reproduction of a 1K hertz tone, using SS and tubes; SS would win, but that's not music. Music has a certain "Essence" that can only be reproduced by tubes. People who are exclusively into SS are not even aware of that "Essence"; that's because they're not true music lovers. They buy music to hear their equipment, while music lovers buy equipment to hear their music. |
The most difficult thing to discern is who listens to equipment, and who listens to music? Ages ago when there were stereo stores all over the place, I fell in love with new speakers everyday. It's for certain I was an equipment lover then, but that's before I got into "The high end". My favorite tuner was "Sansui", it had a most beguiling sound that was quite soothing, and many people still prefer them to more accurate tuners. My favorite speaker was first JBL, and next it was the Amazing Carver Speakers; https://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/290carver/index.html The music had an other worldly quality; "ephemeral", I guess would be the one word description, but at one time I liked "reverb" in my car, that made your automobile sound like you were in a cave. When I got into the high end, I finally discovered how good the music sounded unadorned without any tricks. Since most speakers have some kind of "sound", I had mine custom built to have no sound of their own, but to deliver the music, the same as a Class A amplifier delivers it to them; without anything added or subtracted from the music, only what the artist wanted you to hear, his music, with each and every individual nuance. While I mentioned Class A because it is "Theoretically perfect", I can not audibly distinguish it from AB. One of the problems of differentiating music lovers from equipment lovers, is that equipment lovers will almost never come clean and admit it (maybe they don't know themselves) consequently, right or wrong, I discern who is an equipment lover, and who is a music lover. This is very important when reading Posts. |
Inna, some people can hear better than others in regard to Class A. In regard to SS versus tubes, some people are music lovers, and some people are equipment lovers. When I had an audiophile music loving friend, we swore by our "0 distortion" SS gear. I requested a CJ preamp to audition at my home, and invited my friend over for his evaluation. The CJ was a loaner and produced apparent distortion, but even through this distortion, we both agreed that the music sounded better. Neither one of us has ever considered SS preamps, since. However, an SS power amp simply reproduces the signal of the preamp; consequently, a high quality SS power amp is acceptable. |
As someone who earned a living as an electronics technician, I am qualified to state what is "theoretically" better. While Class A is theoretically better, you need the hearing of a good hound dog to tell the difference between AB and A; maybe some young people got it, but I'm very doubtful about old folks. What some old folks got is "deep pockets": deep enough to entertain their fantasies. If I was rich, I would still have high quality AB, because I'm certain I can not hear the difference, so why pay so much just to heat the house. |
We talk, but are we communicating; some people have equipment to hear music, while others have music to hear equipment. Which camp do you fall in? If one is an obsessive music lover SS preamps never sound quite right, however, obsessive equipment lovers claim tubes give distortion. I think tubes versus SS is more profound than Class A, AB. Personally, I would not want SS preamp no matter what class or how expensive, SS power amps are OK when necessary. Could not stand ARC preamps that were SS, I don't know if they still make any SS preamps? While theoretically class A is better, given same quality of parts and craftsmanship, I'm sure there are few people who could pass a blindfold test to distinguish which was which. |
