Valves

[Professor smith]

Nelson, I have noticed that you are fond of using transistors as opposed to valves. I also heard a valve amp designer say that he used them purely for marketing and that there was no difference.

I do not know the truth of the matter. What is the bottom line?

I'm not asking whether they sound different but whether we can make an amp sound a given way using valves or transistors?

What are your views on this Nelson?

[MEGA-amp]

really?

[Professor smith]

really what

[analog_sa]

Originally posted by Professor smith
I also heard a valve amp designer say that he used them purely for marketing and that there was no difference.

Now this is a lot more amusing than most things one reads here. Is this "designer" real?

[Nelson Pass]

I suppose there is a designer who might use tubes purely for
marketing, but I'm not sure I would want to own his product.

[Zen Mod]

there is slight hint from darkest gangways of my memory ........ that designer is Tim de P.

[Professor smith]

Yes he is a real designer and surely one of the best.

Quote from http://www.ear-usa.com/timdeparavicini.htm

''I don't have to use tubes in my designs; I only do it for marketing reasons. I've got an exact equivalent in solid state. I can make either type do the same job, and I have no preference. People can't pick which is which. And electrons have no memory of where they've been! The end result is what counts.''

The trouble is there are many people who would disagree and refuse to use any amplifier containing transistors.

[audiojoy]

I use to think there was a big difference but having now built and used the F5 and PD's gainclone I am no longer that sure. Indeed the audionote 300b valve amps with all their big mumetal transformers were to my ears starting to sound less 'valve like'.

[Nelson Pass]

''I don't have to use tubes in my designs; I only do it for marketing reasons. I've got an exact equivalent in solid state. I can make either type do the same job, and I have no preference. People can't pick which is which. And electrons have no memory of where they've been! The end result is what counts.''

I can't make the same statement. I don't see them as exact
equivalents.

I do, however, understand that it is very difficult to overcome the
biases of many tube lovers. I don't usually direct my efforts at
people who have a lot of device prejudice.

[2quad]

Hello from Munich!

It's the annual AES Europe convention just now. And tomorrow there's a paper that looks quite interesting. I quote from http://www.aes.org/events/126/papers...n.cfm?code=P27

P27-8 Subjective and Objective Evaluation of the Audio Vacuum-Tube Amplifiers—Andrzej Dobrucki, Wroclaw University of Technology - Wroclaw, Poland; Stanislaw Maleczek, Military Institute of Engineering Technology - Wroclaw, Poland; Maurycy Kin, Wroclaw University of Technology - Wroclaw, Poland
The subjective and objective evaluation of 5 high-quality vacuum-tube audio amplifiers is presented in this paper. As the reference the professional transistor amplifier has been used. The subjective evaluation has been done by the team of judges as well as with the computer-based psychoacoustic model according with PAQM protocol. The amplifiers’ sound quality assessed by the listeners is consistent with the one evaluated with the use of the psychoacoustic model. It was found that the best sound quality is obtained by vacuum-tube amplifiers, the worst—by the reference amplifier. The results of subjective evaluation are inconsistent with quality assessed by measurement of objective parameters: all amplifiers have comparable quality, but the best is the transistor amplifier because of lowest level of THD+N level.
Convention Paper 7806

I'll report back tomorrow after the paper session!