Do you prefer SS or tube? Why?

Mr Peabody said:
Why is it at 8 ohms only? I recently read a discussion on whether the Class A increase power into 4 ohms like A/B. Meaning if an amp was onl Class A up to 10 watts would it pproduce more than 10 watts into 4 ohms in Class A. Although I admit after reading I still don't know the answer, I got a bit lost, however, no mention of what you said that would have made their discussion moot.
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Unless the amp was made with some sort of auto increase on the Bias class A bias is fixed and will half on every halving of load ..

10w @ 8
5 watt @ 4
2.5 w @ 2

now increasing via auto Bias scheme will be complex and large , as the heatload and PSU draw would be extensive and would require serious over design and cost ..

SS amps do require the same effort to match amp to load as toobs , well even more so as there’s No output transformers to match load, speaker sensitivity will determine the SPL your amp slides out of A to Class B ..


IMO , its best to match to 33% of rated output vs speaker sensitivity and desired SPL when looking at SS amps , if you listen mostly classical a little higher class A bias for low level resolution and body is a good thing ..


Regards
 
jadedavid said:
Mostly tubes, but always some tubes.
They add a dimension of depth and ambiance that I don't hear in SS gear.
Although some SS comes closer than others, they all fall short of the mark until a tube (or more) is added to the system.
I find that a mix of the two can provide superb results.
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SS amplification with a tooby pre-amp can be magical for sure ....
 
Mike Lavigne said:
a room can be a factor in tube or solid state choice. not saying it's an absolute. no different than a tube or solid state phono stage or dac output stage. in all these situations tubes can allow greater listenability.

we don't have to agree.....as I said YMMV, just my 2 cents, and all that stuff.
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Agree totally Mike , as your system gets closer to Fullrange response and dynamic room issues , electrical and signal supply issues not noticed before, will be exposed. this grundge not noticed before on lesser setups, usually gets blamed on the SS amp..

The effort now required to sort is massive , especially when one can just plug in “something “ else and go. massive underpowered systems , tend to get away as clipping dominates , this changes the soundscspe entirely ...


With your current massive reserves of power , this unlimited freedom is easily heard and unacceptable with less...

Regards
 
Tubes.

Good tube amps sound more natural to me and bring real 3D sound from a stereo setup.

But i heard bad setups with tube amps too. It's always the perfect match of the components.

regards
 
a.wayne said:
Unless the amp was made with some sort of auto increase on the Bias class A bias is fixed and will half on every halving of load ..

10w @ 8
5 watt @ 4
2.5 w @ 2

now increasing via auto Bias scheme will be complex and large , as the heatload and PSU draw would be extensive and would require serious over design and cost ..

SS amps do require the same effort to match amp to load as toobs , well even more so as there’s No output transformers to match load, speaker sensitivity will determine the SPL your amp slides out of A to Class B ..


IMO , its best to match to 33% of rated output vs speaker sensitivity and desired SPL when looking at SS amps , if you listen mostly classical a little higher class A bias for low level resolution and body is a good thing ..


Regards
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I do not claim to understand much if any about the technical whys and how. However I know that some Class A amps are rated to produce more into 4 ohm then 8 ohm. An example was the First Watt F6 that I owned. Wonderful amplifier. It was hand built by Nelson and he rated it at 25 WPC into 8 ohm and 50 WPC into 4 ohm.
 
I think, "They add a dimension of depth and ambiance that I don't hear in SS gear." states the tube side well. I refer to the presentation as "presence" but it's something that just gives a more flesh and life feel.


jadedavid said:
Mostly tubes, but always some tubes.
They add a dimension of depth and ambiance that I don't hear in SS gear.
Although some SS comes closer than others, they all fall short of the mark until a tube (or more) is added to the system.
I find that a mix of the two can provide superb results.
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Mike Lavigne said:
a room can be a factor in tube or solid state choice. not saying it's an absolute. no different than a tube or solid state phono stage or dac output stage. in all these situations tubes can allow greater listenability.

we don't have to agree.....as I said YMMV, just my 2 cents, and all that stuff.
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Yes, when my system became high resolution, and more extended in the high frequencies, I realized that I had to work on my room acoustics even more than before. I started to hear all kinds of remaining room nasties that were previously masked. With a more forgiving tube amp things would have been listenable much easier. Not with my current, very HF extended tube amp (Octave) that has been characterized pejoratively by some as 'transistory' sounding. But then, with this amp (soon to be mated with Octave preamp) I reach a much higher sound quality than with a more 'forgiving' amp, especially now that my room has further improved.
 
A bit off topic but needs to be asked.
Has anyone tried new tubes at the rated half life of a tube ?
I have and it's sad but tubes die out or have unpleasant changes long before we may change them. This is with recti , drivers or output.
So while I love my tube dacs I prefer all SS after.
Tube rolling one component is mad enough and having a complete line up knowing this and how each brand be it nos or new is way more trouble then I would deal with.
At my age growing up in tube days makes love there glow. It's magic to see them. But once I play new tubes and hear what has already started to change makes me feel good about my steely SS stuff.
My two cents.
 
a.wayne said:
At those power levels you are really comparing Clipping characteristics of the amplifiers ...
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a.wayne said:
All SS amps are a/ab very rare to have full class A and that ability is at 8 ohms only, if your speakers see 4 ohm and below your amp will transition to class B ..



Regards
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Mike Lavigne said:
I'm a guy with a preference for tubes, but insist on the low noise and linearity of solid state. my reference from years past was the sound of Tenor 75 watt OTL mono blocks. which were a very linear tube amplifier. alas; the Tenor's tended to explode and were generally not reliable. then I happened on the darTZeel solid state amp which got close to tubes, but had the attributes of solid state I liked. I'd call them a very minimalist and natural sounding amplifier.

so for the last 15 years I've used solid state amps, but I would generally call myself a 'tube' guy.

a year ago I revisited some 'uber' tube amps to see once and for all where my direction should be. I just had to scratch this long term itch for tubes. so I purchased a set of Lamm ML3 mono blocks, and borrowed a set of VAC Statement 450's and spent 3 months comparing them to my dart 458 solid state mono blocks.

I found out that while I loved many great things about tubes, and these were 2 fantastic sets of tube amps for sure, for me the solid state darts get me closest to the music. they get out of the way. the big darts can excel on all the music. with those tube amps I'm always reminded that I'm listening to tubes......as beautiful as they can sound.

if I listed my 5 or 10 favorite amps most of them would be tube amps, but at the top would be the darTZeel solid state.

lastly; I think system context has it's place in this question. it's easier to add tubes to a system than to sort out all the nasty's of a room or gear. tubes can beautify and satisfy. going the solid state way can make more demands on the degree of refinement everywhere else in a system......to find that natural listen ability. horses for courses and all that. but when everything is really dialed in then solid state has the most upside to my ears.

YMMV, just my 2 cents, and all that stuff.
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Mike Lavigne said:
a room can be a factor in tube or solid state choice. not saying it's an absolute. no different than a tube or solid state phono stage or dac output stage. in all these situations tubes can allow greater listenability.

we don't have to agree.....as I said YMMV, just my 2 cents, and all that stuff.
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mep said:
The room is always a determining factor in the ultimate sound quality you can achieve regardless of whether the system is SS or tube based. If your room sucks, it doesn't matter how much money you spend on gear or whether you buy SS or tube gear. I think we can agree on that.
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mep I agree with mike L a ss amp may need more attention due to it being more powerful
more Linear over all. Where tubes vary and in most cases not attack a room like Ss does.
Tubes have magic but in part it's clipping and various distortions we may like.
 
Gene said:
I think its important to make the distinction between Class A and Class A/B (or any other class) when thinking about SS.
Class A SS can sound very tube like and still give one the qualities SS is well know for.
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A friend recently brought over his amp to hear in my system. My class A Pass Labs monoblocks sounded more like what people are describing here from tube amps and his pentode tube amp sounded more like how people typically describe SS amps, at least that is how I heard the difference in my system. I was surprised by the result. They both sounded good, but different in unexpected ways.

I then heard his amp compared to a third friend's CAT triode monoblocks. Again his pentode tube amp sounded a bit more like a SS amp in that system, a bit cooler and dryer than the CAT monos. There was slightly greater emphasis on the leading edge. Perhaps they sounded more "detailed" but slightly less warm and natural.

I am not so sure it is as easy to generalize about tube vs. SS sound today as it once was. If we make the distinction between Class A and AB solid state, perhaps we should also be more specific about triode or pentode mode with tube amps. IMO, the distinctions of the past are being blurred somewhat with the few current designs that I have heard.
 
To the OP:

Generally I prefer tubes. Its easier to get them to sound like real music. With any amplifier its all about the distortion the amp makes and often more importantly what distortion the amp doesn't make. Tubes generally make less higher ordered harmonic distortion and this is why tubes are still around decades on after being declared obsolete.

Transistors tend to be overall lower distortion but the distortion they do make is mostly higher ordered. The problem here is that the ear uses higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure (IOW the fundamental is not used). This is probably because pure sine waves don't exist in nature. In addition, the ear converts all forms of distortion into some sort of tonality. So when the higher orders are present the ear hears it as brightness and hardness, even though the actual measured levels can be quite low (0.005%). This is simply because the ear has to function over a 120db range and has to be able to ascertain the loudness of sounds over that entire range.

Add on to that the Fletcher-Muson curve and you have a problem. That curve exists because our ears are tuned to be the most sensitive at birdsong frequencies. Birds are the first warning indication of a predator in the vicinity; if you can't hear them you could be dead very soon! So the ear is more sensitive at 5-7KHz which also happens to be an area rich in instrument harmonics. Its easy to see why tubes are still around- they mess with and generate less of these harmonics (5th and above).

To be clear, brightness is a coloration every bit much as the coloration of the 2nd harmonic that many (but not all) tube amps exhibit.

So the way I see it is its fine if a very good hifi is what you want your system to sound like, but I want it to sound real. To cross that line, you can't have the equipment making things brighter and harsher than real life. So I stay away from transistors since their introduction in the system means it will never sound real, although it might sound very good.

IMO/IME if the spec sheets had a weighting system where the lower orders were weighted less and the higher orders more (say a 1 for the 2nd harmonic, the 7th might get a 1000) then they might be useful. If we had such a weighting system it would be easier to tell how an amplifier sounds just be looking at the spec sheet. Its obvious that such is the last thing the industry wants, so don't expect any changes in that regard in the next half century or so. FWIW, we've known that the ear has these peculiar sensitivities to harmonics and also converts these distortions to tonality for a very long time- since the 1930s at least (see the Radiotron Designer's Handbook, volume 3). Despite that, we continue to design stuff to look good on paper rather than design to meet human hearing-perceptual rules.

But people have figured it out and you don't have to know anything at all about the technical side. All that you need to know is that tubes are still here! They were declared obsolete in the early 1960s which means that they have been 'obsolete' longer than when they were the only game in town. But some how they persist. Usually when a superior technology comes along, the prior art disappears and becomes a thing of collectors and junk shops like buggy whips. That hasn't happened with tubes which says that they aren't actually 'obsolete' at all- the reality is that if you want to make the best sounding music, tubes are your number 1 goto.
 
The science tells us how to match the load to the amplifier and this also determines what we will hear. Unfortunately all of it is wrong vs “real” , to some degree, hence why there’s Tubes and SS ..

There’s no clear cut winner ...!
 
a.wayne said:
Ralph ,

You left out no output transformers and the necessity for high impedance speakers :)
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8 ohms just doesn't seem that high to me.

With regards to 4 ohm speakers, no matter what kind of amp you have, its distortion is higher driving 4 ohms. If sound quality is your goal, your amplifier investment dollar will be best served by a speaker that is greater than 4 ohms as the decreased distortion will be audible as smoother and more detailed sound.

OTOH if sound pressure is your goal you might have a 3dB argument for a 4 ohm speaker. Speaker cables are also more critical on 4 ohm loads.
 
So distortion matters ...?


What about lower distortion in speakers..? Every doubling of drivers from 8-4ohm reduce thd by 50% ..


How is that for sum .. :)
 
There is no panacea in Audio, just preferences, myself prefer the lower speaker distortion over the slight increase in amp Thd ...


Regards
 
Vitus brought me back to SS.

Was as fed up with the heat, tube quality, bias adjustments and reliability issues.

Just switch on now and an hour later everything is ready every time.
 
cyclopse said:
Vitus brought me back to SS.

Was as fed up with the heat, tube quality, bias adjustments and reliability issues.

Just switch on now and an hour later everything is ready every time.
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Everything works until it breaks.
 
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