What is the "Tube Sound"?

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#601
fas42 said:
there are 2 sorts of audio people: those that can hear the remaining distortions . . .
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Two sorts, but not those two sorts. Two sorts:
1. those who can't hear the distortions;
2. those who can't hear the distortions, but believe they can because
a) someone told them they can hear them,
b) someone told them how little the amplifier cost,
c) someone showed them the ordinary commercial cables used,
d) they are missing the distortions they have become used to with more expensive but less competent electronics.
 
#604
fas42 said:
Hmmm ... there are 2 sorts of audio people: those that can hear ***... and those that can't [but love to make esoteric-sounding but ultimately dumb stuff up about what they imagine to hear.] ***
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With you properly corrected, we are in full agreement.

The fact that this thread as gone on so long, despite the fact that SY more or less fully and very succinctly answered the question presented in Post 18, is dispositive evidence for the truth of your above-corrected statement.
 
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#605
Thanks to SY

SY said:
Amplifiers coupled to speakers have sound.
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A wise man would continue from that statement. Anyone, who wants to really understand tube sound and other such oddities.

One may listen to the sound either with his own ears or with a microphone and analyzer. Or maybe using both methods. But measuring an electrical signal from the output of the amplifier is not sufficient substitute of listening the combination of an amplifier and a speaker.
 
#606
Pallas said:
With you properly corrected, we are in full agreement.

The fact that this thread as gone on so long, despite the fact that SY more or less fully and very succinctly answered the question presented in Post 18, is dispositive evidence for the truth of your above-corrected statement.
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This thread has gone on so long because a number of people continue to disagree on fundamentals. Considering that there are highly competent and educated people continuing to take different views I think it's a bit facile of you to pretend that there is only one truth, let alone that such a truth has been established beyond all argument.
 
#607
andyjevans said:
This thread has gone on so long because a number of people continue to disagree on fundamentals.
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That's your personal interpretation of what you've read.
Considering that there are highly competent and educated people continuing to take different views I think it's a bit facile of you to pretend that there is only one truth, let alone that such a truth has been established beyond all argument.
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The sound waves going from speaker drivers to listeners' ears don't change (in same room) per listener. What varies is what happens after that. What you need to distinguish is personal opinion from objective data.
 
#611
GoatGuy said:
As far as I can tell ... everything 'has a sound'. It is all but impossible for this not to be the case.

The microphones are composed of gossamer films that vibrate (one hopes) faithfully in accordance to the thousands of infinitesimal pressure changes that constitute sound. Yet, they have mass, and thus they are as much displaced as accelerated. This odd 2nd order behavior gives all microphones a remarkably different "sound", all other factors being equal.

Microphone signals - especially for quality ensemble recordings - are very low indeed. They need amplification of hundreds to thousands of times in amplitude. The nature of ALL amplifiers is that they're only modestly linear near that zero-amplitude point. Moreover, the 2nd order behavior of microphone diaphragm mass becomes greater (proportion of the signal) as the sound gets more quiet overall. Hence, what is being amplified changes dynamically per the coloration due to the microphone, and the coloration due to the zero-crossing characteristics of the mic preamps used. Its unavoidable;

Then you have all the work done by the recording engineers and artists to shape what is recorded in the raw, to what they want to represent on the final recording. For modern genre music, the modifications are so pervasive and massive, that whatever is on the track is literally only a harmonic approximation of whatever the performers played and were first recorded. Artificial echoes are added, pitch correction done, timing correction done (by repeating microslices of the recording), whole drum kits are substituted for the original drummer's kit. Things are compressed, companded, expanded, dynamics are squashed, harmonics are enhanced. Wow. But anyway, you get a recording. How on earth is one supposed to know it was INTENDED to sound?

For classical and "live" recorded music, its nearly as badly misrepresented. Its not like those overhead and surface-effect microphones are mixed together, and recorded straight to CD tracks, you know. No ... at best, they're very carefully preamplified, then transferred to a "multitrack" medium, whether in analog to tape, or digitally to a hard disk. From there - again - the recording engineers ply their trade, setting mix levels, adjusting compandors and compressors. They'll play up far-field mics with time-advances (making up for the distance, digitally), but with attack-gates and other things to make the enhanced sound natural. By the time its all mixed down ... does that recorded waveform really faithfully represent the sound of the original performance(s)? Nah... not by a long shot.

Then though, never mind the fact that it's all quite far-removed from the original "live" performance. It is made nice, and recorded, and I have a copy. Now, I play it ... and sure enough, the various nonlinearities of my system kick in, and further color the picture in their own (often irreducible) way. Devices such as digital-to-analog decoders might have "a sound", but really they tend not to. Or, when they do, it is because - again - they're introducing some kind(s) of signal transform functional "corrections" to fix something. Something perceived, something real, something mythical, something popular.

Plenty of words go into describing the exquisite engineering and exacting manufacture of wickedly cool little pieces of the chain - needles, D/A digitization techniques, aligned cryogenically treated copper crystals in cables, massive power supply isolation filtering, and more. The hand-made discrete op-amps, or the purely "Class A" (sounds good) amplification. Whatever. Truth is, like DF96 often says, "if there IS a noticeable sound difference, that means the device is acting as an effects box, too". Yep, it is true. Maybe some of the stuff is worthwhile, maybe not. Maybe some of the "Tube Sound" is undoing the compressive effect of real-world microphones and preamplifier compression. Maybe not.

Yet, I'm not done! Because following analog waveform reconstruction, the signal now passes through perhaps more preamplification (exerting its inevitable slightly non-linear first and second order transfer functions onto the signal), then the amplifier; Except for the physics of the microphone, and the correspondingly first, second and third order behavior of speaker cones in resonant boxes, the amplifier has its own effect, and the effect is very, very real.

A lot of "effect" of that amplifier can't be measured as "faithfulness to the incoming signal", because, well, that's what both linearity and feedback conspire to make so. Instead, it is the case that the very last output stage can have its own remarkable interaction with both the forward and reactance-caused reverse EMF of the speakers and speaker cables themselves.

On the one extreme, an amplifier with no "damping factor" just presents voltages to the output pins, and makes no adjustment for counter-force EMF coming back from the speaker. On the other, the amplifier is tightly trying to CONTROL that voltage to very tight coherence to the amplified input signal. Between, amplifiers do a bit of both. And "damping factor" is just one factor. Another is "stored energy", which is the effect that tube-amplifiers have that solid state simply do not (at least they don't without an output transformer!) ... The inductor stores substantial energy, which the output tubes are constantly modulating as a function of the voltage of the signal.

However, the actual amperage or current flow is quite removed (waveform wise) from the original signal! There are the speaker's dynamics, the stored energy of the inductor, the tightness of its magnetic couplings to the output, and the step-up or reverse-emf of the linear-motor aspect of practical loudspeakers. Oh... then there are those pesky crossovers, in the speaker cabinets.

What I'm trying to say here - is that it is REALLY straight forward to spec the steady-state behavior of each element, and say that it is 0.013% varying from linear (as an example). But by the time the real-world, first-, second-, and third-order differential response of the whole system is taken into play, the signal can be quite different - at the speaker cone - than envisioned by the data encoded in that primary recording.

And then, to add insult to injury ... the damned speaker cones also have masses, and thus have all sorts of resonances, eigenvalues and nodes which they compress and rarefact the air, every moment during the recording. In essence, what we actually hear is a "reasonable approximation" of the spectral dynamics of the recording, which is itself a "reasonable artistic interpretation" of the spectral dynamics of the original performances.

Luckily, we're all really soooo poor at quantitatively figuring these nuances out, that we instead invent entire treatises that devote themselves to describing how using hemp fibers and liquified insect glue ... create the best sound ever.

GoatGuy
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Goatguy are you trying to say reproducing sound is more an art than a science?
Nice reply BTW.
 
#614
I'm not sure that discussing the engineering of the WHY's is actually relevant, to the intent of the question, by the original poster. "What is the Tube Sound"

There are general/typical sound properties of tube amps or there aren't. If you accept that there is...

if you believe there ISN'T - is this a relevant thread?

If amp achieves the 'wire with gain' ideal, then theoretically all amps would sound the same, all amps should be fundamentally THE SAME. We'd have evolved one singular formula for amp design and the only differentiator would be cost. Or cost, tyres and aerodynamics.

IMO The "Tube Sound" is subjective.

'High fidelity' is subjective – the goal posts move every time you change whatever 'musical production' you are listening to.

One man's technically brilliant amp is another's man's 'mechanical, dry, rigid sounding 'robot amp' or another man's 'nice effects box'.

To 'euler 357':

For me, tube sound in context of stereo, home audio - is 'generally' categorised by being a slightly more 'saturated' sound: more vivid, dense, with often a more spacious soundstage and SOMETIMES depending on the recording, a more pleasing sense of musical flow.

This is my subjective listening impression and it's worth every bit as much (to me) as any specification sheet. 🙂
 
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#616
TiMBoZ said:
I'm not sure that discussing the engineering of the WHY's is actually relevant, to the intent of the question, by the original poster. "What is the Tube Sound"
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to which i say simply, tube sound is the sound of an amp connected to speakers, the amp being made of vacuum tubes.....

i love the glow of tubes....😉
and that i can build my own valve amps to my liking.....😉😎
 
#617
Pano said:
This really is going in circles. So is there such a thing as Tube Sound, or not? 🙂
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Yes (note, fully quoted ... 🙂). Get 2 lists of all the amps available, one SS, one tube , pick a selection of say 10 of each, using the ol' blindfold and pin technique. Acquire them, hook 'em to a 'standard' speaker and settle back for a decent listen ...

I don't think many people would dispute an affirmative to the question ...
 
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