Tubed Power Amplifiers. Are the disadvantages too great ?

dlb2 said:
Yes, if it sounds good to you then it is good. There's nothing wrong with having a curiosity towards the technical side. Like any hobby perhaps the more you know and understand, the more you appreciate it. At the end of the day it's all about whether or not you're happy with what you have. Who really gives a shit what other people think? Besides, I have a feeling that many of these know-it-alls are just armchair internet experts.
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Sales guys irritate me when they say I have to have such and such. Especially speakers. I like my open baffle and Magnepans. Plus tubes. One guy keeps telling me I don't know what I like and need a boxed speaker with a SS amp. I haven't bought anything from him in a long time.
 
dlb2 said:
Yes, if it sounds good to you then it is good. There's nothing wrong with having a curiosity towards the technical side. Like any hobby perhaps the more you know and understand, the more you appreciate it. At the end of the day it's all about whether or not you're happy with what you have. Who really gives a shit what other people think? Besides, I have a feeling that many of these know-it-alls are just armchair internet experts.
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Sales guys irritate me when they say I have to have such and such. Especially speakers. I like my open baffle and Magnepans. Plus tubes. One guy keeps telling me I don't know what I like and need a boxed speaker with a SS amp. I haven't bought anything from him in a long time.
 
You don't know what you like! LOL! He probably trying to sell you what makes him the most money. He doesn't care what it is. Maybe he's working on a plan to pay off the new car he has on order. :P
 
I have had some type of tube gear in my system since the early nineties. I have had several tube preamps and about a half dozen amps and they have been incredibly reliable. I owe this I believe to using quality tubes and not tube rolling. I have had a few bad tubes, a couple blown resistors but over all, the tube gear I have had has never really let me down.

My preamp, amps and DAC use tubes and they are as quiet or quieter than some of the SS gear I have had. Specifically my Zesto Leto preamp. The most silent, darkest , blackest background I have ever experienced. It's S/N, crosstalk , and FR are pretty impressive for a tube pre. My Quicksilvers have been super reliable and sound great.

My most recent toy is a Toolshed Amps 300b. I will receive it in a week or two. Check out Toolshed Amps website and Instagram and FB to see some amazing music machines.
 
I purchased a Pass XA25 last year as I sold two tube amps that I had. This XA25 does everything technically correct but it just doesn't have the "organic" sound of tubes. So as of now I am looking for a 20 - 30 wpc tube amp, possibly a Prima Luna. The only thing holding me back is it took me quite a bit of time to get the bass right in my small room. The Pass has a high damping factor and a tube amp will be quite low. Maybe even a Atma-Sphere S30? Speakers are Volti Razz.
 
Joseph R. said:
Had a thought yesterday about tubed power amps. I have many friends who will never consider a solid state power amplifier. I am not one of them. I certainly understand the fluidity and “beauty” of tube gear. Nevertheless, considering the great solid state amps out there, the question stands.
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For me the question is, Are the advantages of tuba amps to few?

Folks like tube amps because of the sort of distortion the produce -- not that there's anything wrong with that. OTOH other folks like high resolution, articulate bass, and crisp dynamics more than the softer, fuller tube sound.
 
You are stereotyping ( no pun intended ) tube amps in funny way. Folks like tube amps because, many times, they just sound more musical. A lot of folks don't break down highs, mids and lows when listening. We just sit back and close our eyes and it is either more musical or it's not.
 
I've run big tube amps (8 - 12 power tubes, and 6 - 8 small tubes each) for 12 years now. Tubes turned out to be much more reliable and low-maintenance than the impressions I got from reading about tube concerns / issues / fears online. My main main problem is the impulse to buy lots of different variants for rolling. The sonic debate tubes vs. SS is always going to be there. The stereotypes are true to a degree, but if your tube amp has egregiously tubby bass and HF rolloff then something is seriously wrong of mismatched. But I'd much rather have a tube die than a transistor, in any piece of high-end gear. Good luck finding some long-OOP silicon (especially high voltage audio transistors) if something goes wrong.
 
I only need about 15wpc so I called Mike the other day and was going to order a Luxman MQ-88uC. The trouble is they are many months away for delivery, I still might order one in the next week or so anyway. In the meantime I ordered a Carver Black Magic, it's an EL34 amp with 25wpc. I seriously don't have real high hopes for this amp but for $1995 and a full return policy I won't have much to lose. But then again I didn't high hopes for the little VTL EL34 amp I bought many years ago either and that thing was a very sweet little amp.
 
stereogeek said:
I only need about 15wpc so I called Mike the other day and was going to order a Luxman MQ-88uC. The trouble is they are many months away for delivery, I still might order one in the next week or so anyway. In the meantime I ordered a Carver Black Magic, it's an EL34 amp with 25wpc. I seriously don't have real high hopes for this amp but for $1995 and a full return policy I won't have much to lose. But then again I didn't high hopes for the little VTL EL34 amp I bought many years ago either and that thing was a very sweet little amp.
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Hope you find what you're looking for.

Gotta chuckle though: Luxman and Carver tube amps have both received atrocious reviews recently at ASR.

ASR review: Luxman SQ-N150

ASR review: Carver Crimson 275

ASR review: VTL
 
Mikado463 said:
are you saying there's no validity ? if so who's testing do you consider valid ?
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Amir/ASR's measurements have been discussed on the net including this forum. The best we have for taking measurements of audio gear in the U.S. is John Atkinson of Stereophile. JA is well respected/trusted in the audio industry.
 
I have been involved in hobby since about 1969 or so and I don't care how anything tests. If you can't tell a good piece of gear by listening save your money and purchase Bose. BTW, I do agree that Atkinson is the best tester because he explains his findings. BTW #2, My speakers ( Volti Razz ) test horrible but sound excellent and get rave reviews. How is this possible if they test so poorly?
 
stereogeek;351031[B said:
]I have been involved in hobby since about 1969 or so and I don't care how anything tests. If you can't tell a good piece of[/B] gear by listening save your money and purchase Bose. BTW, I do agree that Atkinson is the best tester because he explains his findings. BTW #2, My speakers ( Volti Razz ) test horrible but sound excellent and get rave reviews. How is this possible if they test so poorly?
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That sounds good to say, but the reality is you should care about speaker measurements to ensure you match them with an amp that can drive them correctly.

If you have a pair of speakers that are 87dB sensitive at 1w/1m and they are nominally a 4 ohm speaker with 2 ohm dips, you probably aren't going to try and drive them with a 7 watt SE tube amp.
 
I 100% agree with you on matching the amp and speaker. But choosing a component on measurements alone, no thanks.
 
mep said:
Amir/ASR's measurements have been discussed on the net including this forum. The best we have for taking measurements of audio gear in the U.S. is John Atkinson of Stereophile. JA is well respected/trusted in the audio industry.
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Agreed on JA, been a subscriber to JGH's rag since the seventies. While I have not read everything AMIR and ASR have tested/measured I've read enough to know there is a measure of validity in his work.

As for Stereogeek's thoughts on not caring about measurements and since this thread is about amplifiers , I tend to disagree
 
I'm sure the cheap tube amp I just bought tests nothing close to my XA25. But this EL34 amp is sounding very musical with a very deep sound stage. You can't measure musical, that's where listening comes in. To each his own, cheers!
 
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