My Oxford Dictionary says: "Closest possible approach to the original".
This basic theme has occasionally gone wide of this thread, and yet it is at the core of matters when one deals with a "sound" characteristic of this or that medium/device. Perceptions have (quite correctly) been dealt with - but to what degree does that play a determining role in the above definition? How do we determine this "closeness" - with hearing, measuring, other means? I think it is reasonable to have to exclude taste, refined as it may be, as too subjective, as has been abundantly illustrated by Andy and others - humans seem to be incapable of sufficiently divorcing taste from hearing (which in itself is subjective).
Measuring? Immediately I (as an EE) am labelled down in quicksand; some seem to think that there is some etherial element to hearing music (note I do not say appreciating) that cannot be measured, and after all the above posts I have little hope of convincing them otherwise at this stage. But to wave the (very truthful) flag: Modern technology is simply capable of measuring levels below what human hearing is capable of detecting.
So perhaps then it is reasonable to say that if there are no measurable differences between an incoming and outgoing signal of an amplifier, it has not changed said signal in any possible (certainly audible) way. (And before I am swamped with comments regarding how emotion, feeling and all that cannot be measured: Sure. But that is intrinsic in the original. It is not the job of an amplifier to be sensitive to that, nor can electrons speeding back and forth down conductors affect that. Several times during the preceeding posts the impression was created that this is not understood.)
For me the problem then simplifies down to determining whether an amplifier (in this case) has added or subtracted in any way from the original. A mundane conclusion for sure, which might well rub some up the wrong way - but if so, then kindly define what is lacking in that conclusion.
This can be labelled as the (limited) outlook of an engineer, but this is what makes the problem simple for me - particularly in these days of highly developed technology. As a designer I am not required to deal with emotions and tastes of music lovers (much though I am one myself). I am only required to ensure that my amplifier changes nothing (... audible in this case. We are not talking about instrumentation electronics.)
I was immensely interested in the comments by a.o. AndyJ, also because on the electronic side my > half-century practice as an EE hopefully enables me to judge and design as well as the next man in this field.
Having thus taken a circuitous route to the original subject, it is really truthful to state that there need not be any audible difference between ss and tube amplifiers. (I have designed both to the satifaction of clients, so presumably I did something right ....)
But in the same breath I must sadly admit that in either field there are poor examples-of-the-art. I thus thoroughtly expect that there are distinct audible differences; only (as said before) one cannot simply go lay that at the door of either technology. More repitition: Any amplifier's performance has at least as much to do with the design as with transistors or tubes; even more so.
Thus the debate can at best stop at:
Is there a reason for inherent differences between ss and tube sound: NO.
Are there practical examples where there is definitely such a difference: OH BOY!
I would probably be required to explain some misconceptions in this area and I can, but that would have to be a different thread.
Perhaps an interesting bit of history regarding hearing, bias and such: When in the 30s the frequency spectrum of recordings was increased from < 4kHz to >10kHz with the advent of electronics, and FM broadcasting was introduced at about the same time in the USA ..... the improvement was rejected by the public by about 4:1, and by musicians by a staggering 15:1! And all that, to boot, while the real thing was there all the time - music and simphony halls. (And no; the technology was not flawed. Not as 'pure' as today, but definitely an improvement over acoustical recordings and AM.)
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Well, hedonic data is related to pleasure as the word implies. You get it, for example, in data for cars related to driving pleasure. But it's not quite the same as user satisfaction, which also includes parameters like reliability. You have hard data on reliability - number of component failures, frequency of garage visits etc - and as always it's good to have hard data. But we need data on a variety of parameters besides pleasure and hard data of technical performance to include in "user satisfaction". If we turn to amplifiers, some of the data we are looking for is "perceived faithfulness to the acoustic source". Some of this may just be soft data from surveys, some may be qualitative data from users such as has been posted by a number of people on this thread. It may be possible to get better data by setting up experiments with live and reproduced music. However we derive the data and whatever quality the data has, the question of perceived fidelity to the source continues to be asked by many, so something has to fill this gap. It's not purely hedonic and it's not fulfilled by data showing that there is, according to current test results "nothing to distinguish a box of gain using tubes from a similarly performing box of gain using transistors." That data may be reliable, but it may be of limited use.
You are calling hard data on boxes of gain "auditory" but presumably in this case you aren't referring to the auditory system or the neurological structures and pathways of sound perception.
You are calling hard data on boxes of gain "auditory" but presumably in this case you aren't referring to the auditory system or the neurological structures and pathways of sound perception.
Johan, while it's true that we like what we are used to - if you'd ever heard a good acoustic recording you might understand why electric recordings were rejected, especially the early ones.
I thank you for your thorough response and understand your point. An EE should know how to design a circuit that does the least amount of harm - that should be the very basis of the art. But many people simply don't want that, they want enhanced reality. And while we may object to that on some philosophical grounds - are people who want that really wrong?
Enhanced product was something that I learned quickly in the fine art printing business. The vast majority of artists (and buyers) do not want a faithful reproduction of their art - the want better. They want more color, more contrast, more pop. Given two proofs right beside their original the artists almost always pick the enhanced version as preferable, even while admitting it isn't the best match. Why? They usually explained it as being nervous about their own work, always wanted to improve and enhance it - make it better. But I suspect it was more than that.
Even a very good print that is so near a copy of the original that you can't tell which is which at first or second glance, is still missing something. It's missing a feeling of depth and detail, a feeling of life. As good as the reproduction might be, it's still made with limited means. Only 3 colors + black are used, whereas the painter has a huge gamut of painstakingly engineered colors to choose from. Oil paints are particularly difficult to get the fell and glow of. The print may capture some of the texture of the paint by careful lighting in the recording process, but it isn't real texture that changes with the light and viewing angle. And resolution may be high, but never as high as the original. Music and musical instruments are similar.
I go on about art printing to make a point. The point being that the most measurably accurate reproduction may not be the version that "feels" right. The enhancements need to be subtle, but they are often necessary to make up for other losses. Same for the reproduction of music as for painting.
I thank you for your thorough response and understand your point. An EE should know how to design a circuit that does the least amount of harm - that should be the very basis of the art. But many people simply don't want that, they want enhanced reality. And while we may object to that on some philosophical grounds - are people who want that really wrong?
Enhanced product was something that I learned quickly in the fine art printing business. The vast majority of artists (and buyers) do not want a faithful reproduction of their art - the want better. They want more color, more contrast, more pop. Given two proofs right beside their original the artists almost always pick the enhanced version as preferable, even while admitting it isn't the best match. Why? They usually explained it as being nervous about their own work, always wanted to improve and enhance it - make it better. But I suspect it was more than that.
Even a very good print that is so near a copy of the original that you can't tell which is which at first or second glance, is still missing something. It's missing a feeling of depth and detail, a feeling of life. As good as the reproduction might be, it's still made with limited means. Only 3 colors + black are used, whereas the painter has a huge gamut of painstakingly engineered colors to choose from. Oil paints are particularly difficult to get the fell and glow of. The print may capture some of the texture of the paint by careful lighting in the recording process, but it isn't real texture that changes with the light and viewing angle. And resolution may be high, but never as high as the original. Music and musical instruments are similar.
I go on about art printing to make a point. The point being that the most measurably accurate reproduction may not be the version that "feels" right. The enhancements need to be subtle, but they are often necessary to make up for other losses. Same for the reproduction of music as for painting.
I think Chris detailed it well, a better presumption is that listeners in ears-only tests, being humans, use their auditory system and their neurological structures and pathways of sound perception. Just not their eyes and preconceptions.
None of which speaks to the point of this thread- is there any sound which is intrinsic to tubes? And I'm still waiting for some evidence that shows any audible differences if basic engineering factors are equal or similar.
I believe that this is pretty close to the comments I made about a cartoon of a person being considered as a more real "representation" of essential features than a photo. The whole philosophy of representation in art is fascinating as you know and may offer useful analogies. Right now I'm imagining a picture of Nipper listening to an acoustic gramophone and wondering "is this my master's voice?", as Margitte would debate the statement "Ceci n'est pas une pipe".
As Mitchell states (Mitchell, W. 1995, "Representation"), man is a creature who is very comfortable with simulation and the creation and manipulation of things that "stand for" or "take the place of" something else - "representation is an extremely elastic notion, which extends all the way from a stone representing a man to a novel representing the day in the life of several Dubliners".
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Then it's the same for me. And I think that the moniker "Tube Sound" comes from experience with less than stellar tube designs, as compared to less than stellar transistor designs. That's what most people have experience with.
What you are describing is called "preference". There's also a term called "reference" in hi-fi audio world. You can't fault people for preferring something. It's just not in the direction of hi-fi audio. Perhaps you can call that "no-fi".
Thought this article on comparison testing of tube and ss amps interesting:
http://audioamateur.com/amps/honeycutt-amp-sound-axnov12/
Though the amp comparison testing has been faulted because "the EQ device whether it digitizes, phases, or has feedback will override & mask the "sound" of most decent amplifiers. Couple that with some inadequate amplifiers requiring an EQ to actually cover the audio bandwidth, & the conditions of the test make it a completely worthless waste of time....digital EQs introduce ADC errors, DAC errors, and switching-errors, analog EQs introduce signal smear, feedback, phasing, parametric EQs add more phasing & resonances, all kill imagining, all extremely audible..."
http://audioamateur.com/amps/honeycutt-amp-sound-axnov12/
Though the amp comparison testing has been faulted because "the EQ device whether it digitizes, phases, or has feedback will override & mask the "sound" of most decent amplifiers. Couple that with some inadequate amplifiers requiring an EQ to actually cover the audio bandwidth, & the conditions of the test make it a completely worthless waste of time....digital EQs introduce ADC errors, DAC errors, and switching-errors, analog EQs introduce signal smear, feedback, phasing, parametric EQs add more phasing & resonances, all kill imagining, all extremely audible..."
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One speculation after another. Perhaps you need to read up on electronic sound reproduction technology.
Better yet, try this video. Audio Myths Workshop - YouTube
For you, maybe. But you have yet to define to what you are being Highly Faithful (Fidel). Without that, there is no goal, no reference.
Exactly.
I have to wonder how all our engineering gurus would fair in comparing real world amps. I suspect not that well.
Shoog
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This is a question I asked previously. I go to some lengths to eliminate coupling and cathode bypass capacitors, for instance. If the test setup requires a number of extra components this does not have zero effect.
"Rants"? "you are playing semantic games" ? Seems like you've read my post from a position of conflict..
In the context of this very thread which started asking about the "Sound of Tubes" the word "Sound" is used not in the context of air pressure variationor an engineering term but in a context of human perception.
It's quite clear... to me anyway.
That people want to bring their own contexts into every discussion they enter into only confuses things. Stick to the context of discussion I say, be flexible.
I find it a somewhat odd notion that before you would compare a valve amp to a SS amp you would seek to take away many of the qualities which are fundamental to valve amps. Is not lower damping factors a quality of almost all valve amps. Isn't a tailed off frequency response almost universal to valve amp implementations using real world OT?
Aren't these part of the package when someone goes looking for the valve sound, shouldn't these qualities be considered on their own terms ??
Why would we equalize the amps (with all the associated effects) before we would allow a comparison ?
All very weird logic at play here. It seems the engineering fundamentalists want to impose their biases on the consumer.
Shoog
Aren't these part of the package when someone goes looking for the valve sound, shouldn't these qualities be considered on their own terms ??
Why would we equalize the amps (with all the associated effects) before we would allow a comparison ?
All very weird logic at play here. It seems the engineering fundamentalists want to impose their biases on the consumer.
Shoog
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That's what open-mindedness looks like - it's vitally important for any good scientist.
Engineers obviously need to make decisions to make things in the here and now, need to feel they're acting on facts to make those decisions.
Dogma and openmindedness have their places and it reads as if you have a problem relating to the latter.
I would put it the other way around: The claim that has been made in at least some of the DBT literature is that by using about $5 worth of resistors and capacitors, it is possible to "downgrade" the performance of a solid-state amplifier so that it can successfully masquerade as a tube amplifier. If true, that would be a rather simple way of getting the "tube sound" in a very cheap and simple way.
I'm not an engineering guru, but I am one of those who maintains that the existence or not of the "tube sound" is an objectively decidable question, that can be settled by means of double-blind testing. In fact, I really don't understand what it would mean to assert that there existed a distinctive tube sound that could not be verified by means of double-blind testing. It would be like claiming that there are fairies living at the bottom of the garden that always disappear whenever an observation to try to look for them is attempted. Since the assertion is then by definition unfalsifiable, it ceases to have content.
It seems to me that the most satisfying and "economical" interpretation, which does not operationally conflict with most of what has actually been said by many of those contributing on this thread, is that as a purely aural phenomenon, differences of "sound" between amplifiers are purely those which are determinable by means of double-blind testing. Any additional perceptions of tonal quality, "gestalt," or whatever, that go beyond this are consequences of factors over and above that which can be discerned by the ears alone. For example, some of the factors that SY mentioned, like the glow of the tubes, memories of another time and place, or whatever.
By the way, I think Johan elegantly emphasised a very important point. To paraphrase, one should not confuse the artistry of a musical performance with the amplifier's purely mechanical job of magnifying the input signal to produce an output that drives the loudspeaker. There is no artistry in that stage of the process; it exists already in the signal at the input of the amplifier, and all the amplifier has to do is mindlessly convey it, in magnified form, to the output.
I am not in any way wanting to denigrate tube amplifiers. I love them, and I keep building more and more that I really don't actually "need." But my reasons for liking them are of the kind SY mentioned; the glow of the tubes, the nostalgia, the feeling of being transported back to a different time and place, and so on. But I would never kid myself into believing that a tube amp is actually instrinsically "better" as a magnifier of an audio signal than a good solid-state amp.
Chris
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Yet the question from the OP was about a "tube sound" which could be modelled mathematically, with a desire to model what people perceive as a "tube sound" whether based on bad designs on not.
Essentially, all this talk of there not being a tube sound or ss sound if the amps are designed properly is quite frankly off-topic! Shame we're 21 pages into being off topic LoL..
But people on forums prefer making statements about what they think rather than open-mindedly applying themselves to a new question.
Problem with his idea is that he'd have to have a completely perfect amp to play through to ensure that no bad design ss or tube amp characteristics wheren't coming through.. Much easier to just get a typical tube-y sounding amp and be done with it.
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