Can some one please explain me why Tubes Amp ?

[HeadLover]

Hi
I read a lot of stuff here, and many times I come to see that people prefer tubes vs SS

Now
I read many tech and so on, but can some one please explain me the all stuff to the very fine detail?

Why should I buy or prefer a tube vs SS ?

It has many troubles like the tubes burn, the sound isn't always "sharp" and so on
So
Why do u prefer tube and what is all the hype about them ?
(and I mean amps for headphones, not speakers)

 

[Skylab]

I offer the following:

1. Tubes definitely have a magic to their sound. Not everyone gets this, for some reason, and some who do still do not think they are worth it. But, in general, tubes do provide a flavor to sound reproduction that, no matter how subtle, for me is the difference between "I can't listen enough" (tubes) and "I'm tired of listening" (solid state).

2. Tubes, and tube amps, are just cool, and fun. It's a hobby, after all.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeadLover /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi I read a lot of stuff here, and many times I come to see that people prefer tubes vs SS Now I read many tech and so on, but can some one please explain me the all stuff to the very fine detail? Why should I buy or prefer a tube vs SS ? It has many troubles like the tubes burn, the sound isn't always "sharp" and so on So Why do u prefer tube and what is all the hype about them ? (and I mean amps for headphones, not speakers)

They're your ears. You are the best judge of what appeals to you. Buy what sounds good to you!

 

[Agnostic]

One big advantage of tubes besides the fact that they have a particular sound that you may or may not like, is that it's usually easy to roll tubes and get quite different sound signatures from the same equipment.

 

[Happy Camper]

There is a sticky at the top of the amp page "New and improved tubes FAQ"

Here is an excerpt:

1.5 Why tubes?

There are many people out there who would lead you to believe that tubes are the greatest. Then there are people who think the same of solid-state equipment. Both sides have valid points to bolster their arguments. In the author's experience, the difference between high-end solid-state and tube equipment is typically imperceptibly small.

Tubes are fragile, bulky, produce excess heat, have more noise, objectively give more measured distortion when compared to solid-state, and are more susceptible to stray capacitances. They are also subject to the vagaries of production by hand, are more expensive to make and are also dwindling in supply. Taking all these into account, why even consider tubes? In short - their superior clipping characteristics and different distortion characteristics.

Clipping occurs whenever the amplification device literally runs out of juice to amplify a given signal with an initial amplitude that is too large. This occurs often during musical instances known as transients - examples include the crack of a snare on a drum or a full-out symphonic crescendo.

Imagine a sine wave:



Now we shall amplify it till it clips. For solid-state devices in general, the output would look like the sine wave A: the top section is lopped off completely, forming a plateau that is parallel to the horizontal axis. Not only does this sound terrible, the plateau is in effect DC applied to your headphone drivers (very bad).


sine wave A

Compare this now to sine wave B: the top of the sine wave, while not like the original signal, is now a curve with a slightly different rise/fall gradient.


sine wave B

This sounds a lot less offensive and is certainly easier on your headphone drivers than the `hard' clipping offered by the above solid-state example. It is also far less audible than the audibly obvious solid-state clipping. This has led to the popular myth that a`tube watt' is twice as powerful as a 'solid-state watt'. Clipping still occurs - you're just less likely to hear it.

As mentioned earlier, tubes have more measured distortion. However this distortion is primarily 2"d order, lessening greatly as we go through the higher harmonics. Distortion characteristics for solid-state however, tend towards higher odd order harmonics (5"' 7`n etc), albeit in smaller amounts.

Scientific studies have shown that humans perceive even order distortion as being musically consonant while odd order distortion is perceived as musically dissonant. Anecdotal evidence shows that while up to -5% of 2°d order distortion is audibly tolerable, only -0.5% of 5`h order distortion is audibly tolerable.


Tubes win!

What that means in plain English is that a tiny bit of odd order distortion is going to sound a lot worse than large amounts of even order distortion to the average human ear. Compare this to the distortion characteristics of tubes and solid-state.

 

[White Mike]

Of course it should be mentioned the the example posted above is an extreme scenario; a good SS amp (including transients) shouldn't need to be driven to clipping levels.

Tubes do have the potential to sound lovely but you do have to be a bit of a 'tweaker' I think (obviously suits a lot of people here!

) and prepared to accept that the sound of your amp will change over time.

 

[Leny]

Your question was: " Why should I buy or prefer a tube vs SS ?"

My answer is: "I give up, why should you buy or prefer one over the other?".

In other words, do not put the onus on the members of a faceless and mainly anonymous internet forum to educate you, and instead take responsibility for your own life and get out and find out in person. Go listen. If you can't hear the difference, or if you prefer one over the other, then common sense will guide you.

On the other hand, if your question had been: "Are their significant diferences between tube and SS?" ... then my answer would have been... 'It depends'...

It depends on the amplifier that you listen through, because there are good and bad in each camp. Also, it depends on your hearing, your subconscious and your intellect. Some people prefer accuracy, while some prefer colour. Some prefer smoothness, while some prefer 'edgy'.


From a technical perspective (...and talking as an electrical engineer, which is my profession) I think all of the amps on the market are heavily compromised. I think that the technical qualities that very important are: galvanic isolation of the inputs, a linear transfer characteristic, no cross-over distortion (i.e. Class-A amplifier operation), and a good power supply. The closest I have found to 'very good' is the EAR HP4, which is a transformer-coupled tube amplifier.

However you may hate it!

 

[ciphercomplete]

Although it is true that tubes offer less offensive distortion than SS amps I like to think of this more along the lines of what type of music you listen to.

I tend to prefer classical, metal, and some forms of hard rock on SS amps. The bigger the band the more I like SS. While I tend to prefer acoustic, jazz, anything with female vocals, and just about everything else on tubes. So you will have to listen to your favorite music on both ss and tubes and determine what dynamics you like best.

Also the more important the midrange is to the music you listen to the more likely you will like tubes. I wouldn't listen to acoustic or non-classical female vocals on anything but tubes.

Its real easy to get hooked on tube sound once you live with them for a while and you will quickly overlook all the "negatives" such as heat, upkeep etc.

 

[Infoseeker]

Oh nice more info, I wish there was a dictionary sticky of all the special word descriptions people use.

 

[yoginasser]

Tubes look way cooler and can get you laid.

 

[Spareribs]

The treble range of tubes is stunning. So far, I have not heard a solid state with a glorious and sophisticated treble like a fine tube. Solid states are good though but the sounds of tubes are intoxicating. Even a budget tube amp can be dazzling.

Many of us realize that for a modest working man's wage, we can afford a good tube amp without breaking the bank. We become amazed with disbelief of how beautiful the sound is. We become converts and become tube lovers. We are lovers of the beautiful sound.

Beautiful music. Beautiful sound.

 

[ciphercomplete]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spareribs /img/forum/go_quote.gif The treble range of tubes is stunning. So far, I have not heard a solid state with a glorious and sophisticated treble like a fine tube. Solid states are good though but the sounds of tubes are intoxicating. Even a budget tube amp can be dazzling. Many of us realize that for a modest working man's wage, we can afford a good tube amp without breaking the bank. We become amazed with disbelief of how beautiful the sound is. We become converts and become tube lovers. We are lovers of the beautiful sound. Beautiful music. Beautiful sound.

Thats what happened to me and even though I appreciate SS amps I am happily never going back.

 

[vcoheda]

tubes FTW!

they look cool, sound great, and you can change the sound by rolling them.

 

[omegaman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infoseeker /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh nice more info, I wish there was a dictionary sticky of all the special word descriptions people use.

There is :- http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/des...ossary-220770/

 

[HeadLover]

Nice! so many good comments! So Isn't the all tubes thing is much more expensive? when you want something with a good quality and good tubes and so on? And isn't it more "antique" and like hard to find tubes and so on?