Tubes themselves have no sound quality. Unfortunately the sentiment-driven audiofiles find this FACT difficult to grasp and hence continue to spread their ignorance-based nonsense. Tubes actually have electrical characteristics, not sound quality.>>>>
I have this terrible thought in my head that this is like saying "the function of women is to make food and bring up children - any personality they have is irrelevant". After all, women are just a mechanical skeleton with an electrical circuit in their brains.
I have some sympathy for the problem that "you actually can't tell one from another - it's all in the listener's imagination". I mean, all women talk non-stop and spend your money on clothes.....
andy
I have this terrible thought in my head that this is like saying "the function of women is to make food and bring up children - any personality they have is irrelevant". After all, women are just a mechanical skeleton with an electrical circuit in their brains.
I have some sympathy for the problem that "you actually can't tell one from another - it's all in the listener's imagination". I mean, all women talk non-stop and spend your money on clothes.....
andy
Last edited:
Hello Sy,
It was a terrible thought that I guessed would offend just about everybody - may have overlooked one or two! The reply would no doubt be "but people have consciousness and tubes don't". But how do we KNOW that? How do we know that when they refuse to work they are not collectively taking industrial action?
andy
It was a terrible thought that I guessed would offend just about everybody - may have overlooked one or two! The reply would no doubt be "but people have consciousness and tubes don't". But how do we KNOW that? How do we know that when they refuse to work they are not collectively taking industrial action?
andy
Hey, this does deserve a serious answer. Tubes do have personality; they aren't BJTs. There are profound characteristic differences. But all tubes have flat frequency response from DC to RF. Only their internal impedances can alter the tone quality of a circuit. They also have a particular nonlinear transfer function over a particular op point. As with musical instruments, there may be some recognizable signature in the harmonic "overtone" series of the distortion of a particular tube or tube type (maybe...)
I wish it were as simple as my made-up list of wine-taster sound descriptions seems, but I think it's very rare to be able to assign something like "airy treble" or "grainy midrange" to any given tube or topology or even some combination thereof. I don't believe a particular tube is "better at sound stage" unless you can reduce it to a matter of low internal impedance and damping factor, which forces one to include a lot of system variables in the end result.
Different tubes aren't like varieties of grapes, which for the most part have certain broadly recognizable flavor traits. Not so with tubes and sound, at least not to the first order.
Also, it's pretty near impossible to make an apples-to-apples comparison of a KT88 with a 300B; there will need to be different circuits applied to achieve the same power, gain, damping factor, etc. which will sound different.
For me, that's the wonder of it all. You can't predict how something is going to sound by the tube type, or plate voltage, or style of getter or color of base... It's always a mystery and if it were somehow as simple as reading sound flavors off a chart, it wouldn't be as much fun.
I agree that you really need to experiment. The different "personalities" of tubes provides a lot of wonder but maybe in some more unexpected ways.
Personally, I often approach things from tube type. I'm currently on a binge of transmitting tubes, having played with 801A, 807, 3C24, and and 4-65A types lately and some 4CX250s staring at me this moment.
I "did"some DHTs last year, with 300B, 2A3, 01A, 71A types.
I also have played with SE vs PP, plus various tube/transistor hybrids, and they all have such different sonic characteristics that I can hardly blame the tube at all ;-)
Then again I never heard an EL84 amp I didn't like.
I guess those are the ones which have suffered the unfortunate fate of having all of their sound quality drip out. Naughty SY; you'll have to learn to stand them upright or be forever frustrated.
Actually you could send the devious ones to our good friend Mr. Andy J Evans, because I think that he might be able to put them to good use - making food and bringing up the children.
And to think; I threw out all of my failed tubes... those poor girls... I am so sorry...
(PS Andy, take your therapist a tube, and explain just how nice it sounds...)
Hi Gordy,
i can't take my therapist a tube - I am a therapist. Or more precisely a psychologist specialising in the arts and media. In that capacity, I suppose I should point out that psychology started in the 1850s with a study of human perception based on microscopic differences. So if we are talking about the amplification of music, rather than barometric pressure or whatever, then from the instant that we can perceive a difference, however microscopic, then we automatically involve human perception. And if what we are perceiving is the reproduction of music, then we automatically involve aesthetics. Now, while the study of what components or combination of components are actually causing such microscopic differences may well be the field of audio engineering, trying to pretend that human perception doesn't come into the picture from the instant that differences can be perceived, is just pure denial!
andy
i can't take my therapist a tube - I am a therapist. Or more precisely a psychologist specialising in the arts and media. In that capacity, I suppose I should point out that psychology started in the 1850s with a study of human perception based on microscopic differences. So if we are talking about the amplification of music, rather than barometric pressure or whatever, then from the instant that we can perceive a difference, however microscopic, then we automatically involve human perception. And if what we are perceiving is the reproduction of music, then we automatically involve aesthetics. Now, while the study of what components or combination of components are actually causing such microscopic differences may well be the field of audio engineering, trying to pretend that human perception doesn't come into the picture from the instant that differences can be perceived, is just pure denial!
andy
Yes, I know, because I checked your profile before posting.
It does not matter what crud people spurt, nothing changes the fact that a tube does not and will never have a specific sound quality. That is an absolute hard fact. If you don't understand that's fine by me. Good luck.
addendum: I should be more precise about the word "sound". Gordon is quite correct in saying that components have no "sound" of their own, any more than a violin has a sound unless it's played by a violinist. However, from the moment that they are part of the reproduction chain the have an EFFECT on the sound coming out at the end of the chain. Here is where attribution comes in. Being humans we attribute things, so we attribute sound to componants - "a good sounding violin" or a "good sounding loudspeaker". And being human we choose and rank our perceptions according to our concepts of pleasure.
So a fuller description of the phenomenon would be "any difference in the components making up the chain of reproduction resulting in sound differences, however microscopic, will involve human perception and all that that entails, including the attribution of sound quality to such components". Phew!
andy
So a fuller description of the phenomenon would be "any difference in the components making up the chain of reproduction resulting in sound differences, however microscopic, will involve human perception and all that that entails, including the attribution of sound quality to such components". Phew!
andy
and by so stating andy, you identify that the issue is largely a psycho-acoustic one - attribution of qualities being significantly different from recognition of qualities.
Lets face it - we are in a realm where people argue to the death over the sonic qualities of resistors and capacitors, and the relative merits of stranded, solid, plated, coaxed, tefloned, PTFE'd (and a million other variations) of cable. Throw in connectors and the absurd extents people go to on terminations, the sometimes religious differences between the p2p and the pcb approaches and we are in a place where you could argue that the active componentry has almost no bearing on the sound you hear....
I do have to wonder what the explanation could be for the "sonic quality" of sweep tubes, designed as they are to manage light, not sound. Or computer tubes - perhaps ok in a digital application but given to monophonic tonal qualities?
I'm reminded of the truth of the lines from Mel Oliver and James Young "tain't what you do, its the way that you do it... and thats what get results" In other words, its not the tube (or any other component) that you employ - its how you go about designing around and employing its parameters that sets any "sonic signature"...
Lets face it - we are in a realm where people argue to the death over the sonic qualities of resistors and capacitors, and the relative merits of stranded, solid, plated, coaxed, tefloned, PTFE'd (and a million other variations) of cable. Throw in connectors and the absurd extents people go to on terminations, the sometimes religious differences between the p2p and the pcb approaches and we are in a place where you could argue that the active componentry has almost no bearing on the sound you hear....
I do have to wonder what the explanation could be for the "sonic quality" of sweep tubes, designed as they are to manage light, not sound. Or computer tubes - perhaps ok in a digital application but given to monophonic tonal qualities?
I'm reminded of the truth of the lines from Mel Oliver and James Young "tain't what you do, its the way that you do it... and thats what get results" In other words, its not the tube (or any other component) that you employ - its how you go about designing around and employing its parameters that sets any "sonic signature"...
Wow, that's pretty draconian!
I am ok with people saying that certain components (types or whatever) have a particular sound. I generally know what they are saying to me. It has meaning to me. It doesn't have to be a scientifically correct claim to be useful in conversation. Generalizations can be useful. They can be annoying as well...
I have been an electrical engineer for 30 years. I even design electronic components for a living. In test and measurement gear no less. I know that the components individually do not create sound (unless dropped, I liked that one). But over the course of years I do know what to expect from certain components used in certain ways. Though sometimes I am surprised, they can effect the sound consistently enough that I can say they impart a sound of their own, a coloration of their own. Sometimes it is consistent enough to seem to apply to a large domain of conditions.
Mostly all comparisons need to be given a set of conditions. The original question is indeed too vague to be really answered. But reasonable advice has come forth.
It's all a conversation. For fun. I don't see the point in imposing big limitations. But I don't think I'll sway you
I have created audio gear that I could probably describe as honked like a goose! I just don't advertise it! I have yet to use an EL34 amp I liked for home audio. But I like the way they sound in Marshals, so I can't say that I don't like the tube... bla bla bla
Last edited:
Hi - for sure it's how you design around a tube - I've been playing around with a 26 for a week - choke load, IXYs active load, LED bias, metal film on the cathode, wirewound on the cathode etc etc. I seem to hear differences and they do seem to correspond to what others have stated, searching the archives. But I wouldn't rule out the contribution of the tube itself - it is an active amplifying device. Substitute other kinds of tubes and you get a subtly different result again. Differences can be microscopic, and I'm well aware that you can't reliably hear a lot of them at all in blind tests!!
andy
Andy, the point is that in one circuit, that 26 might sound cleaner than a 6SN7. In another circuit, the 6SN7 might sound cleaner than the 26. In one circuit, the 26 might sound duller than an ECC88, in another the reverse might be true. So... how do you ascribe a "sound" to that component?
One qualifier: if a tube is inherently nonlinear, it is unlikely to sound good in any circuit.
One qualifier: if a tube is inherently nonlinear, it is unlikely to sound good in any circuit.
I refer you back to the comments on sonic signatures from my MIL vis-a-vis industrial sludge and elephants....
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.