My current speakers are highly tube-friendly. I'd prefer a hybrid system with one component solid state and one tube. Since I'd like to add some thermionic bliss to the system, am I better off to consider a tube preamp or tube power amp? My speculations (which may or may not be correct) are below:
In favor of the tube power amp:
In favor of the tube preamp:
Also, has anyone experience with the Chinese "hybrid" integrated amps that use some tubes and some transistors? Jolida and others market these at practically give-away prices.
Thanks - Boomzilla
In favor of the tube power amp:
- The tube component is more directly connected to the loudspeakers and will probably have a higher sonic impact there.
- The solid-state preamp (used with the tube power amp) will be able to drive the subwoofer without loss of bass resolution that is typical of some tube preamps.
- The circuitry is simpler and cheaper to maintenance.
- The solid state power amp (used with the tube preamp) will have greater bass control on the main speakers.
- There is less heat generated (and power consumed) than with the tube power amp option.
Also, has anyone experience with the Chinese "hybrid" integrated amps that use some tubes and some transistors? Jolida and others market these at practically give-away prices.
Thanks - Boomzilla
Power amp.
You can get pretty much identical sound from a preamp of either construction as long as they are both high end. However, the magic of tubes lies in the way the power amp drives the speakers.
Remember, a speaker's impedance is not constant through its whole audio range. It is usually much higher at the woofer's resonance and tends to increase again in the treble region.
Tube amps are a current drive source. That means when a speaker's impedance changes the power applied by the amp actually increases when the impedance goes up.
This is the opposite of solid solid state, which works as a voltage drive. When the impedance of the speaker rises it develops less power, so bass and treble tends to be less pronounced or weak to the listener. The audio does not have the same dynamics you get from tubes when driving the same speaker.
Tubes produce a perceived richer bass and enhanced sparkle in the treble region and this is one of the main reasons why people like the sound of tubes because it tends to compensate for the loss of efficiency brought about by the speaker's non-flat impedance curve.
Preamps have no impact on any of this effect.
You can get pretty much identical sound from a preamp of either construction as long as they are both high end. However, the magic of tubes lies in the way the power amp drives the speakers.
Remember, a speaker's impedance is not constant through its whole audio range. It is usually much higher at the woofer's resonance and tends to increase again in the treble region.
Tube amps are a current drive source. That means when a speaker's impedance changes the power applied by the amp actually increases when the impedance goes up.
This is the opposite of solid solid state, which works as a voltage drive. When the impedance of the speaker rises it develops less power, so bass and treble tends to be less pronounced or weak to the listener. The audio does not have the same dynamics you get from tubes when driving the same speaker.
Tubes produce a perceived richer bass and enhanced sparkle in the treble region and this is one of the main reasons why people like the sound of tubes because it tends to compensate for the loss of efficiency brought about by the speaker's non-flat impedance curve.
Preamps have no impact on any of this effect.
makes me think the topic is hifi
No, it is not. If the author wants some kind of "added tube sound" that means some added distortions. That means a tube stage has to be cranked up on peaks of signals.
You really can not make a definitive statement like that without clarification from Boomzilla.
However, the "Jolida" website that Boomzilla mentioned appears to sell only HiFi components, so my initial response was for that domain.
I use a unity gain op amp pre and tube power amps with kt88 in pp biased to run at 30 watts and find this sounds great.
I have heard many, many systems, both active and passive, in studios, editing suites, clubs and living rooms.
I find my set up enjoyable and musical.
There are properties in other systems I like, but some I find too harsh for all music types, tiring to listen to for prolongued periods or just aneamic.
I think ss front end/valve power is a good balance, but also, cheaper to implement if phono is to be used as well.
Hum free valve phono can be difficult to implement.
@ Wavebourne haha, all amps sound the same hey?
I have heard many, many systems, both active and passive, in studios, editing suites, clubs and living rooms.
I find my set up enjoyable and musical.
There are properties in other systems I like, but some I find too harsh for all music types, tiring to listen to for prolongued periods or just aneamic.
I think ss front end/valve power is a good balance, but also, cheaper to implement if phono is to be used as well.
Hum free valve phono can be difficult to implement.
@ Wavebourne haha, all amps sound the same hey?
I really need to get the kevinkr update driver board for my stock dynaco ST70, with new e-caps plate caps, metal film grid resistor, and new JJ 6CA7 output tubes. The biggest effect I find of my tube amp vs my dynaco ST120 (solid state quasicomp with input and output e-caps) and CS800s (solid state complementary no caps in soundpath) is that the ST70 high frequencies are fuzzier - ie it has more (1%?) harmonic distortion from the 7199 drivers. This is hifi use at 2W levels, with top octave piano and ZZ Top bass drums as test sources.
My SP2-XT speakers have an impedance peak at crossover (1200 hz) I'd like to hear this effect. But it is lost in the noise, I suppose. Otherwise the speakers are well suited to tubes with 101 db @ 1W1m sensitivity.
I've got tube preamp (PAS2) op amp preamp (RA88a) SS and tube amps above. The hum elimination on the PAS2 with its 2 steel boxes and DC heaters is so good, I can only approach it with the RA88a. Otherwise they sound about the same on any of the 3 amps.
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For classic tube distortions.
Yeah,
You know, I'm beginning to doubt myself on all this tube vs. ss stuff. Maybe I'm getting old and losing my hearing (Maybe?? Ya think so??), but I'm finding that my former "tubes always sound better" opinions are giving way to a more ambivalent stance.
I've been playing around with an inductive attenuator from Intact Audio (it's not the full-blown product, just a sort of demo loaner) and it's rocked my world. It actually makes solid state amps sound loads better. I do not know why. It makes things sound better enough that my dowdy, completely unremarkable Hafler P1000 amp now sounds quite acceptable to me -- but ONLY if I crank its input pots up to 100% and use the inductive attenuator as the volume control. (No preamp involved, just an input selector switch and the attenuator.)
I've of course tried that attenuator with my tube amps, and it sounds fine to me. What has surprised me is how much more smooth and listenable the solid state amp sounds with the inductive attenuator instead of a variable resistor volume control.
Maybe solid state amps are just fine, unless you must have the subtle distortions of tubes and transformers coloring your audio.
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To the OP: Your speakers probably present a difficult impedance load for the amplifier. They were probably designed to be driven by an amp with close-to-zero output resistance. A single ended tube amp will have a higher output resistance, and will be less capable of driving your speakers well. A push pull class A triode amp will have a lower output resistance (better damping factor), so will be better in that regard. You lose that single-ended "sound" but you can keep the open loop sound that many seem to prefer (no global negative feedback loop). A class AB pentode amp with a decent amount of negative feedback can have lower output resistance than that, but now you're beginning to lose that "tubey" sound.
The price I pay for enjoying my weenie tube amps is the never ending hunt for tube friendly speakers -- meaning efficient, with a fairly flat impedance curve.
It's one of those "pick two" type of conundrums --
What I want in a tube-friendly speaker:
1) Has a reasonably flat and wide-band response (accurate),
2) Is easy to drive (high efficiency and a reasonably constant impedance), and
3) Doesn't cost as much as a decent used car.
Pick two.
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Back in 2009 I bought Denon HT amp, to use it's movie sound processor and Audyssey, with tube output stages. But almost 3 years after still use it as-is.
May be I am old and lazy now?
Back in 2009 I bought Denon HT amp, to use it's movie sound processor and Audyssey, with tube output stages. But almost 3 years after still use it as-is.
May be I am old and lazy now?
Maybe older and wiser?
A friend of mine lent me a Panasonic home theater receiver with class D output stages. (He wants to convert me to surround sound.) I hooked it up and found that it actually sounds pretty decent! It's clean sounding within its power limits. It sounds a slight bit bland and "flat" compared to my various tube amps w/ inductive attenuator, but it's way better than the "blunt" or "dead" sound I came to expect from mid-fi solid state receivers (Yamaha R-5, Marantz 2230B, etc.). This ugly Panasonic HT receiver sounds cleaner, more 'detailed' in the mids, smoother highs, etc. Man, was I surprised.
BTW, how did you connect the Denon surround thingie to your tube power amps? Is it a receiver with analog, line level, surround channel outputs?
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The point is, I did not. I like it as is. However, I am going to add the socket on the rear panel, with all outs on it.
Hi Ladies - The OP here...
Apparently I didn't give sufficient info in my initial post.
Yes, this post concerns home audio. My loudspeakers are Klipsch LaScalas with a DefTech Trinity subwoofer. The amps that sound good with this rig are the EL-34 tube-based VTL Compact 100 monoblocks. The amp that sounds dynamically flat with this rig is a 300 wpc Emotiva XPA-2.
This is NOT to belittle the XPA-2 (that sounds like a multi-thousand-dollar super amp with any other speakers). It is, I think, an artifact of the high efficiency of the La Scalas.
Regarding the VTL power amps: In spite of the additional second-order harmonic distortion, and in spite of the higher speaker transformer impedance (lower damping factor), the VTLs provide greater dynamics at low volumes.
My initial question was whether I could get similar dynamics by using a tube-based preamplifier with the Emotiva amplifier. The consensus seems to be "no - the effect that I'm hearing is an artifact of the power amplifier to speaker interface, not just the presence of vacuum tubes in the signal chain."
I plan to test this theory: I have a tube/solid-state hybrid amp on the way (tube preamp, solid state output). If the dynamic benefits of the VTL amps are also evident with the Qiunpu A-6000 Mk. II integrated, then it is fair to say that the consensus is wrong. If the Qinpu sounds as flat as the Emotiva, then the consensus is right and I need a tube power amplifier.
I'll refresh the thread once the Qinpu arrives.
Thanks - Boomzilla
Apparently I didn't give sufficient info in my initial post.
Yes, this post concerns home audio. My loudspeakers are Klipsch LaScalas with a DefTech Trinity subwoofer. The amps that sound good with this rig are the EL-34 tube-based VTL Compact 100 monoblocks. The amp that sounds dynamically flat with this rig is a 300 wpc Emotiva XPA-2.
This is NOT to belittle the XPA-2 (that sounds like a multi-thousand-dollar super amp with any other speakers). It is, I think, an artifact of the high efficiency of the La Scalas.
Regarding the VTL power amps: In spite of the additional second-order harmonic distortion, and in spite of the higher speaker transformer impedance (lower damping factor), the VTLs provide greater dynamics at low volumes.
My initial question was whether I could get similar dynamics by using a tube-based preamplifier with the Emotiva amplifier. The consensus seems to be "no - the effect that I'm hearing is an artifact of the power amplifier to speaker interface, not just the presence of vacuum tubes in the signal chain."
I plan to test this theory: I have a tube/solid-state hybrid amp on the way (tube preamp, solid state output). If the dynamic benefits of the VTL amps are also evident with the Qiunpu A-6000 Mk. II integrated, then it is fair to say that the consensus is wrong. If the Qinpu sounds as flat as the Emotiva, then the consensus is right and I need a tube power amplifier.
I'll refresh the thread once the Qinpu arrives.
Thanks - Boomzilla
There is no "theory" about comparing tubes and solid state that can be tested. All amps and preamps sound different. Good solid state can sound better - or work better with other components - than bad tubes and visa versa.
If you believe you've tested a theory and then come up with conclusions like "all tube amps sound warm" than you're just adding to the misinformation that already exists. It's great to experiment, but there aren't many "conclusions" in audio - just different ways of doing things which please different ears!!
If you believe you've tested a theory and then come up with conclusions like "all tube amps sound warm" than you're just adding to the misinformation that already exists. It's great to experiment, but there aren't many "conclusions" in audio - just different ways of doing things which please different ears!!
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