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Differences between tube amps and solid-state amps - How do I know which one to get? - Page 2

post #16 of 20
12/2/12 at 3:19pm

Personally, I think tube amps are just a fetish object. Those who really care about sound quality use solid state amps. If I want to look at glowing tubes, I'll string up some Christmas lights.

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post #17 of 20
12/2/12 at 4:13pm

C9 bulbs sound a bit warmer than standard C7, and the new LED units have a very cold icy sound. 

 

Seriously, the placebo and nocebo effects are real and well documented. When present, there's simply no escaping their influence.  And those effects are completely valid reasons for choosing a particular amp type.  

 

My high school economics teach taught me one thing: economy is 'maximizing enjoyment'.   Reality has very little to do with it, unless you enjoy reality.  For some of us, truth in audio has been a life-long pursuit, for others, mythology remains more fascinating.  Who's to argue? Both end results are enjoyable to their respective pursuers. 

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post #18 of 20
12/3/12 at 5:45pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post

Personally, I think tube amps are just a fetish object. Those who really care about sound quality use solid state amps. If I want to look at glowing tubes, I'll string up some Christmas lights.

I'll probably end up buying a tube amp out of novelty (Woo Audio, Schiit Audio, and Bottlehead all make cool-looking tube amps in my opinion). I haven't had the chance to listen to tube amps in great detail, but my brief impressions with them is that they do indeed produce a "warm" sound, in comparison to most solid state amps I've tried anyway.

 

Right now I own a JDS Labs Objective2, which is arguably one of the better solid state amps you can get for $144, and it sounds really good. There's nothing "special" about its sound though...it's just "transparent" and clean. I ordered an AKG K 701 as my home reference headphone and I do plan to go to a local Head-Fi meet in the near future.

 

It'll be interesting to compare the K 701 on a solid state amp and a tube amp. I believe there is going to be Woo Audio, Schiit Audio, and Bottlehead amps at the meet, conveniently enough.

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post #19 of 20
12/3/12 at 6:17pm

Right now actually after hearing quite a few amps, including the tube ones. With low impedance phones I still say they still sound like utter crap due to noise and stuff but with high impedance cans they can actually help with produce a more desirable sound while retaining fidelity(due to weakness to actual fidelity being the can itself). 

 

Other then that, tubes are probably the only real way to high voltage fidelity like in electrostatics as of now. Till then though, my next amp and headphone purchase will probably a normal dynamic(or modded T50RP) with a SS amp.

 

On another note, I spelled discrete wrongly, do help me correct it LOL


Edited by firev1 - 12/3/12 at 6:25pm
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post #20 of 20
12/4/12 at 9:41pm
It's all "valid" so long as everyone recognizes the presence of subjective opinion.
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