I wonder if the thread name would be a clickbait. *Don't spam me* 😀
I have a pair of very nice F3/Lyds Audiovectors, three and a half way floorstanders.
So far I've been pushing them with a small naim combo (Dac V1/Nap 100 - 50w/8ohm) and they sound good. I see no lacking of amp power.
About a week ago, I bought a single ended triode. No negative feedback, 300b tubes, 7.5 watts of power. And guess what, they blew naims away. Same setup (even the same dac - I've been using dac V1 as a preamp). Although the bass doesn't seem as controlled (listening to the drums for example), it digs considerably deeper!
I need some help understanding stuff, how is it possible for a speaker to produce lower bass extension just by replacing the power amp (with tubes!)?
Question that follows, can it be achieved by a solid state amp?
My guess, either has to do with that negative feedback or with Naim speced low damping factor.
I have a pair of very nice F3/Lyds Audiovectors, three and a half way floorstanders.
So far I've been pushing them with a small naim combo (Dac V1/Nap 100 - 50w/8ohm) and they sound good. I see no lacking of amp power.
About a week ago, I bought a single ended triode. No negative feedback, 300b tubes, 7.5 watts of power. And guess what, they blew naims away. Same setup (even the same dac - I've been using dac V1 as a preamp). Although the bass doesn't seem as controlled (listening to the drums for example), it digs considerably deeper!
I need some help understanding stuff, how is it possible for a speaker to produce lower bass extension just by replacing the power amp (with tubes!)?
Question that follows, can it be achieved by a solid state amp?
My guess, either has to do with that negative feedback or with Naim speced low damping factor.
The usual hypotheses are that it's due to the reduced damping of the loudspeaker resonances when the loudspeakers are driven from a not very low impedance, or due to the distortion of the amplifier.
In the first case, you could check what it sounds like with a 4 ohm or 8 ohm power resistor in series with the loudspeaker to artificially increase the output impedance of your usual amplifier.
In the first case, you could check what it sounds like with a 4 ohm or 8 ohm power resistor in series with the loudspeaker to artificially increase the output impedance of your usual amplifier.
The output impedance looking bacwards from thr spk into the amp is usually much higher in tube amp than in ss units, as a result, the low frequency resonance of the mechanics in the spk plus cabinet aren't too good damped as in ss devices. So you impression is to have better bass but thos low freq notes are mostly syntetic.
Solid State can use a lot of negative feedback.
And its effect on bass has been noted.
Then again I tend to like designs with a lot more output transistors
than needed. Not a single pair.
Being a musician, trust me in the music world.
There is plenty of descriptions of tube magic.
Far as a more controlled bass. There is a certain magic
with sealed enclosures. The impedance curve is proposed
as being more friendly to a transformer coupled amplifier.
Far as personal experience. I prefer sealed enclosures.
Which technically can produce " less" bass.
But that is all in design. Or opinions generated
by " experts" sitting at home looking at speaker models.
In the real world, a tube amp into sealed enclosure
had a certain accuracy to the note attack and decay.
Coming from people that are creating the notes in real
time. from a instrument. not just playback of a recording.
And its effect on bass has been noted.
Then again I tend to like designs with a lot more output transistors
than needed. Not a single pair.
Being a musician, trust me in the music world.
There is plenty of descriptions of tube magic.
Far as a more controlled bass. There is a certain magic
with sealed enclosures. The impedance curve is proposed
as being more friendly to a transformer coupled amplifier.
Far as personal experience. I prefer sealed enclosures.
Which technically can produce " less" bass.
But that is all in design. Or opinions generated
by " experts" sitting at home looking at speaker models.
In the real world, a tube amp into sealed enclosure
had a certain accuracy to the note attack and decay.
Coming from people that are creating the notes in real
time. from a instrument. not just playback of a recording.
Tube amp, specially such a simple design, gives you both lowered damping and second harmon ic distortion.
Almost inaudible/hard to reproduce 30Hz becomes very audible 60Hz.
Almost inaudible/hard to reproduce 30Hz becomes very audible 60Hz.
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I’ve found amp to speaker matching makes quite a difference too. Not all solid sate amps sound the same.
For ‘modern’ multi way speakers the best bass I’ve had is from a solid state feedback amplifier (in particular my TGM8 above all others).
For ‘modern’ multi way speakers the best bass I’ve had is from a solid state feedback amplifier (in particular my TGM8 above all others).
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you have interaction of the amp's output Z with the input Z of the loudspeaker.
imo say if 85dB speaker were used vs one with a sensitivity of 105dB, then results might be deemed differeent
I've had amps from $15 Knight and Layfayette to EAR 549, CJ1.
A "Gizmo" (transformer w. pot) like Decware will allow mucking with damping on the fly with no danger to amp nor speaker.
A full horn system can be fun. I can beat some smaller ones with Karlson tech.
imo say if 85dB speaker were used vs one with a sensitivity of 105dB, then results might be deemed differeent
I've had amps from $15 Knight and Layfayette to EAR 549, CJ1.
A "Gizmo" (transformer w. pot) like Decware will allow mucking with damping on the fly with no danger to amp nor speaker.
A full horn system can be fun. I can beat some smaller ones with Karlson tech.
Yes, the bass may be at a lower level with the tube amp / sealed cabinet combo, but it is perceived to be louder. Certain sounds like a drum stick hitting the rim of a snare drum just sound right with that combo.
I spent some considerable time in the mid 1990's recording musical instruments, primarily drums with the (then) new Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card. It was one of the first affordable 16 bit 44.1 KHz cards. My setup included a decent mixer, a couple amps, both tube and solid state, several DIY speaker systems, and my new pair of Yamaha NS-10M Studio monitors which use 7 inch woofers in a sealed box. Everything from those days is long gone.....except for the NS-10's. Why? Because they get the drum transients right.
Today I use Focusrite interfaces, Ableton Live or FL Studio, a pair of iLoud MTM powered monitors, a powered subwoofer which is usually set at a low level, and a DIY tube amp feeding the NS-10's. Why? Because after nearly 30 years of owning them, I know how things are supposed to sound through them.
The easiest thing to try is to connect small value resistor in series with naim amp output. 0.1 to 1 or 2 ohms, depends of the speaker impedance, you have to experiment, but iz won't have the tube "magic" 🙂
Low wattage tube amp tends to give spacial bass impression. I also find this when the tubes in my dynaco SCA-35 get end of life. I don't like the this coloring of the sound. The coloring went away after I replaced the old power tubes.
I guess the high output impedance plays a role in this coloring.
I guess the high output impedance plays a role in this coloring.
Have a listen to what Daft Punk did here, between 0:32 and 0:47.
Daft Punk - One More Time (Official Video) - YouTube
Although there is little beat in this part of the intro, the rest of the music is amplitude modulated to the beat, which amplifies its perceived presence. After the intro, the modulation continues, again with the effect of strengthening the perceived beat.
Your SE amp does the same (albeit less prominently), especially when bass notes are present at frequencies around the resonance frequenc👍(ies) of your loudspeaker. At those frequencies, not only the load impedance is higher than the nominal speaker's impedance (which increases the gain of the output stage by 1 or 2 dB), but also the speaker load is strongly reactive (inductive to the left of an impedance peak, capacitive to the right of a peak). As a result, the tube's characteristics are "tickled" in a way that a resistive load doesn't, leading to additional modulation of the rest of the music. If you think in terms of load lines, the load isn't a line anymore, but becomes an ellipse and leads to additional intermodulation.
This effect doesn't occur when you put a resistor in series with a low impedance amp's output, so you won't recreate the "tube magic" this way. It depends on taste if you like the effect. In general, I don't.
Daft Punk - One More Time (Official Video) - YouTube
Although there is little beat in this part of the intro, the rest of the music is amplitude modulated to the beat, which amplifies its perceived presence. After the intro, the modulation continues, again with the effect of strengthening the perceived beat.
Your SE amp does the same (albeit less prominently), especially when bass notes are present at frequencies around the resonance frequenc👍(ies) of your loudspeaker. At those frequencies, not only the load impedance is higher than the nominal speaker's impedance (which increases the gain of the output stage by 1 or 2 dB), but also the speaker load is strongly reactive (inductive to the left of an impedance peak, capacitive to the right of a peak). As a result, the tube's characteristics are "tickled" in a way that a resistive load doesn't, leading to additional modulation of the rest of the music. If you think in terms of load lines, the load isn't a line anymore, but becomes an ellipse and leads to additional intermodulation.
This effect doesn't occur when you put a resistor in series with a low impedance amp's output, so you won't recreate the "tube magic" this way. It depends on taste if you like the effect. In general, I don't.
Most people here on diyAudio know that an "8 ohm" speaker isn't 8 ohms.
There is usually an "impedance VS frequency" chart supplied by the manufacturer giving some more information.
That chart is still made with a single frequency sine wave swept over the audio range at a low amplitude, often unspecified, or 1 watt. We don't listen to single frequency sine waves, we listen to complex music made of many simultaneous tones of constantly varying frequency and amplitude.
What is the instantaneous input impedance of a woofer when a big drum hit tries to instantly reverse it's cone travel. I spent far too much time trying to measure this, and eventually realized that there are far too many variables to quantify since a speaker is NOT a one direction device. It will also turn cone motion into a voltage which it feeds back into the amplifier.
What happens here depends a lot on both the speaker and the amp. The interaction is minimal on a solid state amp with a near zero output impedance. This is not the case on most tube amps, so the amp / speaker interaction is quite complex, and can be quite different with just a change in music, or volume level.
There is usually an "impedance VS frequency" chart supplied by the manufacturer giving some more information.
That chart is still made with a single frequency sine wave swept over the audio range at a low amplitude, often unspecified, or 1 watt. We don't listen to single frequency sine waves, we listen to complex music made of many simultaneous tones of constantly varying frequency and amplitude.
What is the instantaneous input impedance of a woofer when a big drum hit tries to instantly reverse it's cone travel. I spent far too much time trying to measure this, and eventually realized that there are far too many variables to quantify since a speaker is NOT a one direction device. It will also turn cone motion into a voltage which it feeds back into the amplifier.
What happens here depends a lot on both the speaker and the amp. The interaction is minimal on a solid state amp with a near zero output impedance. This is not the case on most tube amps, so the amp / speaker interaction is quite complex, and can be quite different with just a change in music, or volume level.
Distortion has nothing yo do with it. It is almost soley due to the higher Rout of the amplifier.
As the impedance of the amplifier rises part of the impedance of the loudspeaker is convolved with the FR. Given the typical large rise of impedance at resonance, and that most consumer loudspeakers are specifically designed to be driven by low Rout amplifiers.
This often leads to less controlled/damped bass response.
One has to add mechanical damping to the loudspeaker. This is often done by adding volume damping to the box and sometimes the vent.
dae
It might be simple grounding problem...., multiple grounds "topology s" can be quiet but they will always sound different to each other.
What cables are you using for DAC TO amp ?
Simple DAC intput to NAIM output problem..
I belive, that NAP100 should sound cool, they use ztx series VAS, and MJE drivers, these have best DRUM BASS combo in the world!
Try putting maybe 0.5 to 1 or more ohm resistor in series with the S. S. amp's output and the speaker. This will reduce the amplifier's damping factor and give it less control over the speaker, much as a tube amp does. Be sure the resistor can handle the power you use. The resistor will also waste amplifier power.
In summary, as far as I understood, the perceived bass is supposed to be artificial (not as in the recording), due to lower damping of tubes and lower control of the tube amp to the speaker cones? I am not into welding/adding resistors to this particular equipment, so I will just take your word for it.
It reminds me of something I read a while ago, about the behavior of a low qts woofer. Such a woofer would produce higher low frequency output towards its Fs (at least in open baffle aplications), possibly because of small magnets unable to control the cone movement.
Its interesting that, even if you consider it as a coloration, it does not produce any fatigue in prolonged listenings, at least to my ears. Maybe this speaker combo really goes well with this kind of the amplification. Certain sounds do sound just "right", but I can't tell if that's how they are really meant to sound.
Since solid state and tube amplification obviously do sound different in bass department, they should (in theory at least, I guess) also measure different on the same pair of speakers. Someone mentioned tube second harmonic distortion and the barely heard 30Hz turning into 60Hz. Would that show on frequency response measurement?
If you would add something like a digital crossover with its parametric functions, equalize one amp's response close to the other's, would you get the relatively similar sound perception??
Thanks for your input.
It reminds me of something I read a while ago, about the behavior of a low qts woofer. Such a woofer would produce higher low frequency output towards its Fs (at least in open baffle aplications), possibly because of small magnets unable to control the cone movement.
Its interesting that, even if you consider it as a coloration, it does not produce any fatigue in prolonged listenings, at least to my ears. Maybe this speaker combo really goes well with this kind of the amplification. Certain sounds do sound just "right", but I can't tell if that's how they are really meant to sound.
Since solid state and tube amplification obviously do sound different in bass department, they should (in theory at least, I guess) also measure different on the same pair of speakers. Someone mentioned tube second harmonic distortion and the barely heard 30Hz turning into 60Hz. Would that show on frequency response measurement?
If you would add something like a digital crossover with its parametric functions, equalize one amp's response close to the other's, would you get the relatively similar sound perception??
Thanks for your input.
Speakers behave measurably and audibly different as Ri of the driving amp varies. It is pretty easy to take the damping of a given tube amp into account when designing speakers. For an SE 300B, the internal resistance is in the range of 2.6 to 1.6 Ohms. For amps employing some kind of feedback, Ri is all over the place, but generally a bit lower. Problem is, the exact value of Ri matters. So a speaker that is designed to be a really good match for one amp is not necessarily a good match for another. But this is all linear stuff, it can be perfectly replicated in the frequency response in any way that suits you (including DSP).
And then there is the linearity and modulation issue that comes on top of it. Both Tubelab and myself have indicated that the tube sound is also caused by two non-linear systems interacting in a certain way. Although not impossible, that is much more difficult to nail down without using tubes.
Low Qts woofers are woofers with a high drive strength (BL/R) per unit of moving mass, and are thus strongly damped. Driving them from a significant Ri reduces that damping, increasing Q. But this goes for any woofer. In open baffles, high Qts woofers are often used, because low-Q woofers rely on some sort of resonator (bass reflex or transmission line) to generate low bass output. A good example is the SB34NRX75-16 with a Qts of 0.71, aimed at giving a Butterworth response with no help from a box. But this woofer too will have a higher Qts when driven from a nonzero impedance. Of course, with (digital) response correction, many more woofers can be used in an OB, as long as the woofer is physically capable of moving enough air.
And then there is the linearity and modulation issue that comes on top of it. Both Tubelab and myself have indicated that the tube sound is also caused by two non-linear systems interacting in a certain way. Although not impossible, that is much more difficult to nail down without using tubes.
Low Qts woofers are woofers with a high drive strength (BL/R) per unit of moving mass, and are thus strongly damped. Driving them from a significant Ri reduces that damping, increasing Q. But this goes for any woofer. In open baffles, high Qts woofers are often used, because low-Q woofers rely on some sort of resonator (bass reflex or transmission line) to generate low bass output. A good example is the SB34NRX75-16 with a Qts of 0.71, aimed at giving a Butterworth response with no help from a box. But this woofer too will have a higher Qts when driven from a nonzero impedance. Of course, with (digital) response correction, many more woofers can be used in an OB, as long as the woofer is physically capable of moving enough air.
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Yes. I have found that you can get some of the same results with a series restore, but that resistor can be heard so i am not a fan of that method.
Qt is a function of Qe and Qt. With a low Rout amplifier you need lower Qt which means you have a smaller impedance peak at resonance to damp (ie the speaker itself has the damping, not relying on the amplifier to provide it).
As to OB, that is a different thing, and you are describing the nature of a high Qt woofer.
dave