Do tubes sound better than solid state at low volumes

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Anyone have a clue?
Not really a fair comparison between the AR and the Lepai. At that price the Lepai normally doesn't come with a power supply. :D It's also not going to do 750 WPC.

FWIW, I have owned a few Lepai and compared a little Tripath amp against very large very $$$$ Psvane tube amps in a system in Vegas. My little Tripath did not embarrass itself at all. Not as much power or dynamics and a narrower soundstage than the big tube amp, but overall not bad.

Also big :up: to the Hiraga Class-A mentioned earlier. It can be much more detailed and cleaner than many tubes amps at low levels. High levels, too.
 
It is true. I've 2 amps a 100 watt SS & a 70 watt tube driving a pair of ML Odyssey. This is the first thing that I notice 1 nite when playing music at the low volume. Everything in the music is still there & clear wherelse with SS some details are muffled at low volume.
Still, after living for a couple of years with SS amps, thanks to a new pair of remarkable interstage transformers, my old valve amp left the closet again. Despite its modest 12W my very first surprise was the much wider range of volume outputs which sounded good compared to my SS amps. Yes, there is also the loudness effect: about 3db of lift @35Hz thanks to a highish output impedance, but clearly there is more to it.

With SS amps there seems to be a trend too: the ones with huge power supplies and multiple output devices sound the most "dead" at very low power. Harmonic spectra do not show anything.
What kind of comparison method did you use?
 
frugal-phile™
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I think you may be conflating SS vrs tubes vrs how a Class AB/B amplifier works near the zero-crossong (notch distortion). This is largely due to the GM halving as the amp goes from Class A operation to Class B operation.

There are likely way more single-ended tube amps than SE SS amps, which by being Class A with a single output device these amps have NO crossover distortion (they have other properties that need consideration thou). A PP Class A amp will also have no notch distortion.

The Schitt Continuity™ circuit (Broskie has covered this topic) eliminates the GM halving in an AB amp so it qualifires too.

dave

Anyone have a clue?

The lepai is cheap and great value, no doubt, but not all that good sounding.

dave

Tap water and bottled water would be a more accurate analogy I feel.:cheers:

The well water here is better than 99% of bottled water.

:^)

dave

I would invite anybody reading this who has actually performed double-blind ABX testing to come forward and publish the results, since they are as rare as hen's teeth!

Publishable results take a whole lot more work, time, and money than most of us have. I have participated in many blind (and unblind) listening tests and amps do not sound the same (some of that due to amp/speaker matching).

Execution is very important.

dave
 
It depends on what you are looking for. If you want an amp that precisely follows the source then lots of test equipment is needed. If you prefer something that isn't so clinical then you have to hunt around for different amps to see what you like the sound of. Some guitarists love the sound of over driven valve amps but they are full of warm harmonics and far from clinical.
 
Some guitarists love the sound of over driven valve amps but they are full of warm harmonics and far from clinical.
This has nothing to do with the topic. And you seem to abuse of the terms such clinical, accurate Someone might be tempted to ask: in what system? Could you describe? I mean, you can find those terms in a review of a power chord the one that goes to the mains
 
My 2 cents. ...

A SS amp is like pushing / pulling something with a metal rod, Rigid and Strong. A Tube amp is like pushing /pulling something with a rubber rod, softer with a little give.

I use two amplifiers for my main system SS for the low end where I want it stiff crisp and strong. Tube for the rest where I prefer it a little smoother.

I would be hard pressed to choose one over the other, since both have their strengths. If it was just for low volume I might pick tubes over SS since at that point the base would typically not be turned up.
 
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