The "Tube Sound" is logarithmic compression which is pleasing to the human ear. SS tends to be too linear.
Once people start making claims like e.g. cable A is better than B, double blind tests are the only way to go.
(re. Evenharmonics) Where have I been all these years? Playing music professionally and then working with about 2,000 musicians as a psychologist. During that time I've contributed 6 books and about 80 TV and radio broadcasts on the subject.
What have you contributed to the study of music and sound during all these years? I'm a bit vague about what you're actually contributing apart from criticism.
What have you contributed to the study of music and sound during all these years? I'm a bit vague about what you're actually contributing apart from criticism.
A interesting discussion , I have friend who is a very talented electrical engineer after deciding to quite making toys for the NSA he went into the private sector and made enough money to retire early. His take is he could voice solid state or tube amps to sound any way he wanted. In the early days when there was less understanding, and tube circuit design was limited to a few topologies so they tended to have similar signatures. I think that started out to be the tube sound. As we have gained knowledge in circuit design and now are capable of voicing the circuit any way we desire the term tube sound is no longer relevant. The other interesting part of the puzzle is our brains are currently the most powerful dsp processor there is. If we are told a particular sound is the correct sound when our brain hears it again it attempts correct the second one to be identical to the first. Many times I have turned on the stereo in a car and for a millisecond it sounds horrid and all the sudden it snaps in to sounding like it should. I think the problem is there in no way to positively turn off your brain and listen subjectively.
Bill
Bill
Yes, this to me is the big "flaw" with DBT methodology, when something with "meaning" to it, like music, is used for comparisons. As you say, I have found that my brain automatically starts to "correct" the "poorer" version of the piece to match the "better" one and in no time at all they do sound identical.
So, how I have learnt to approach the business is to "detune" my mind to what I'm hearing - it no longer is music, but becomes a sequence, a pattern of acoustic noises - I'm deliberately, in my mind, "converting" the sound into a type of pink noise, which then has a signature "sound", or texture, to it. This makes it comparatively straightforward to distinguish one version from a just slightly different version ...
Take several years of private lessons on a musical instrument, then test into an elite band or orchestra. Play there for five years. Then tell me again how succeptable the brain is to suggestion.
After my stint in the high school band, I visited a showroom with a MacIntosh tube amp, a pair of Klipschhorns, and a room design specifically for Klipschhorns. It didn't matter what they told me, something was wrong. Maybe the recording engineer on the RtoR tape was on a tight budget; it certainly wasn't C. R. Fine. The same happened at Home Entertainment store, where they told me I wanted AR bookshelf speakers. Wrong, no bass, wallet stays in pocket. The band director told me to visit the Long Point Cinema which had recently been equipped with stereo Altec Lansing Voice of the Theater speakers. Right sound, I was impressed, although i could never afford that setup.
I know what real music from historical instruments sounds like. Pop, rock, country, techno, disco, internationsl can have arbitrary sounds and I'll let it slide and may enjoy the performance, but one of the 70 classic instruments, I am happier when the sound is right.
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I absolutely don't get the non sequitur; as far as I'm aware, musicians also have human brains (with the possible exception of Keith Richards). I also don't understand how that relates to so-called "tube sound."
Per Post #13, except for tube distortions created on purpose for guitar or Hammond organ purposes, tube sound is a vapor, a messianic movement. If accuracy is the standard, a middle market tube amp from 1961 (the ST70) has nothing on a professional amp like the 1998 CS800s. Note the "800s" means there will never be any vile SS clipping in a house setting.
As far as top end tube amps versus top end SS, I'll never know the difference unless I build one. This is a flyover state. The only opportunity I have to hear such things is at regional meets held either in a tent in a parking lot, or a cinder block senior center meeting room. The room is 1/2 of your sound system, more important than the amp IMHO, and mine is shaped like the Vienna Philharmonic hall. so why bother to go hear music on special speakers with a special amp in a tent.
😴 Anything on tube amplifier sound? You know, something that's relevant to this thread.
I was trying to help you out but it seems that there was a snag. Let me try again by linking the questions I asked you but you dodged.
And your answers are?
Unfortunately, that doesn't allow one to expect what the recording should sound like..
If there's bass slam on the final product either through recording equipment (which "hear" things differently to human ears) or through the recording chain, or engineer's choices, or expectations of the engineer's own monitoring equipment (that he/she should be hearing slam) or the choices of the mastering engineer and the expectations of their equipment etc etc etc - then it should be reproduced by your amplifier, whether it ruins the realism of what you get at your end, or not.
That is, of course, if you're trying to make a good amplifier rather than a special audio "correction machine" for your home.
"this" to you is the big "flaw" with DBT methodology? Seems like you missed the point of "this" posted by wirewiggler.
Have you shown this to the experts? If you have, what did they say?
Have you ever done a level matched DBT with quick switching capability?
LOL... so funny how many times you read this kind of argument on forums and comment sections and the person never lets up, refuses to engage until a list of specific studies along with times and dates and the names of all present in the room at the time.
I never understand why people expect others to run around to gather all that data just to try to please someone who'll no doubt simply discard it and come up with some other reason why it's not relevent instead.
Of course, they don't expect it at all and only use it to make very boring posts about "not having answered my question" "I refer you back to my post #xx because you fail to answer.." blah blah.
Evenharmonics, if you REALLY want that data because it is of some interest to you then I suggest you put some effort in and see if you can find it yourself.
A lesson in how to ruin a forum thread in just two posts..
Oh, no, you misinterpreted my post. It's not to please me. It's for the support of his own argument.
Is there someone forcing you at gun point to participate on threads you don't like?Of course, they don't expect it at all and only use it to make very boring posts about "not having answered my question" "I refer you back to my post #xx because you fail to answer.." blah blah.
Evenharmonics, if you REALLY want that data because it is of some interest to you then I suggest you put some effort in and see if you can find it yourself.
A lesson in how to ruin a forum thread in just two posts..
I certainly don't judge my amps on their ability to convey 'music', I judge them on their ability to convey sound. Of course, I quite often use those amps to listen to music but it's a subset of what the amps (and system) should be able to do and what I want them to do.
Judging amps by music is a continuation of a human-cultural positive feedback loop:
First humans create instruments which sound pleasing to the human ear (lots of harmonics of pleasing orders and levels),
Next, humans create music which is pleasing with further pleasing harmonies and cominations of instrument's harmonics working nicely together,
Then the performers hone that pleasing-ness in (sometimes even if the composer wanted it to sound horrid - they can't help themselves),
Recording engineers then do the same, via decisions in the studio and via the equipment they've chosen for sounding nice and musical etc,
The Mastering engineer tweeks here and there to make it nice to their human taste as well as deliberately skewing it to an audience they think will want it to sound even more musical and glorious.
Finally, at home, we have the listener who is pretty much a subjective type who only voices their choice of equipment based on how musical a sound it can make compared to their expectation of what music should sound like with all the added glory and richness that makes their hair stand on end.
It's all one big human-culture positive feedback process which strays from reality and instead re-enforces human bias.
For me, the moments that mark out good amplifiers are when sound is re-produced realistically, sound recordings which jump out as being instinctively real. I trust my more basic survival instincts of judging environmental sounds over the more recent - by evolutional standards - judgement of musicality. I guess that also includes the judgement/analysis of the sound of a double bass as like the real thing or not, provided one doesnt have an over-romantic notion of that sound.
I remember comparing the sounds of various grand pianos in a restoration / secondhand shop after hours and the difference between say the £12k piano and the £60k was quite marked with the £60k sounding so much more sweet and rich and musical, the cheaper having harder sounds in the detail... Now, if I'm judging an amplifier by a piano solo recording, I'm going to voice it to the £60k sweet sound and ignore the fact that it was recorded on the £12k (if the studio engineers haven't tried already!) - I will be actively making the amp deviate from reality and instead introducing my own listener bias.
My enjoyment though overall of SOUND will have been irrevocably diminished by that voicing - part of listening that I love IS to hear the crunchy clashes in the harmonics of cheap instruments or recorded sounds, I like to feel I can relate to exactly what cheap **** the musicians played on - it adds character to the whole thing.
Back to the OP:
My thoughts are that the traditional expectation of 'Tube Sound' is one that re-inforces human musical preference of nice sounding harmonics, even if very subtle. Also though, as a general rule, I personally find a kind of dithered quality to detail with valves compared to solid state especially in the treble but only when it comes to the average amp - as things are better designed it all equals out and other features become more important (like how well it can drive different speakers). That dithered quality, IMO, smooths out sounds which are glaringly un-natural. I guess that's what people call "grain" in all that audiophile talk.
My favourite and current amps are Nestorovic NA-1 valve monoblocks: fully balanced with balanced local feedback - designed to reduce harmonic distortions too, cancel out any "valve" sounds and attempt to just amplify.
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I'm sure he can make that decision for himself. Personally, I would see as being bogged down to those specifics compared to going with the flow of the general thread as being detremental to my argument, if I were him. Much better to expand and make further points than list some dates etc
Err.... no! no, tHere is definatELy no-one Putting a magnuMto my hEad! !!
Besides, we like the thread, but the guy here (who definately definately doesn't have a gun but seems to have a cold face so is keeping it warm?! ) didn't like a couple of your posts so made me type something about it.
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I guess it's a bit late now.. but would you like me to proof read it for you?
"BIBLIOPGRAPHY ........... 64 " 😀
Hehe.. Sorry.
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