Tubes are liquid. Some people like their liquids.
Why is solid state more popular when tubes are better?
Yes tubes are more involved and require periodic maintenance. Hybrid tube components need not apply, these are really solid state.
Tubes are better for multiple reasons and yet the world and the trade prefers solid state. Those rare audio shops that are geared toward stereo listening and serious connoisseurs tend to Focus more on tubes. Those in business who like to improve volumes tend to offer solid state. All the YouTube channels looking to improve their business tend to be solid state. Maybe because tubes require much more expertise to sell, and there's lesser and lesser to go around. Solid state is more of a fast food commodity.
Tubes are difficult for businesses due to all the maintenance and complexity so you see it less often. Much much easier to sell hybrids or solid state.
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@emergingsoul Speakers that need a lot of power have a lot stacked against them! There's something called 'thermal compression' which is a reduction of dynamic contrast caused by heating in the voice coils. The more efficient the speaker is the less you have this problem. In addition its not good to make any amplifier work hard for a living. The harder they have to work, the more distortion they make so less detail and likely harsher sound is the result, both due to increased distortion. Speaker cables also become more critical. This is especially true if the speaker is harder to drive due to a low impedance; all other things being equal an 8 Ohm speaker will always sound better than a 4 Ohm speaker on this account (but of course all other things are never equal). So you might consider getting speakers that are easier to drive. In the old days when tubes were the only game in town, speakers were a lot easier to drive because the simple fact is that tube power is expensive. A 300 Watt tube amp will not have hifi bandwidth. The limitation is the output transformer- its very difficult to make one that is capable of full power and 20Hz to 20KHz response (and it really should have 10Hz to 50KHz response to minimize phase shift) at that power level. |
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