[bigshot]

There is a place for euphonic distortion. Hearing an Elvis single on an old tube phonograph is a great experience. I remember going to a bar in a little town in Arizona that had an old Seeberg jukebox, and I pumped quarters into it one after another because it had such an interesting and beautiful sound. It made C&W songs I was familiar with sound totally new and different. There's nothing wrong with using distortion. It just doesn't make sense to always have distortion hard wired into your amp. That's why I say adding it with a DSP to a clean solid state amp is the way to do it. Switch it on when you want it and off when you don't.

 

[old tech]

Distortions sounds a bit negative like the sound gets awful... for me coloring sound fits better description. Tube amps keeps harmonics even when overdriven, that’s one of the reasons why guitar players mainly stick with tubes.

Yeah, but that is music production rather than music reproduction. Whatever sound a musician likes as art, surely the point is that a transparent reproduction is closer to that sound the musician hears. Would you playback your music through a guitar amp while pressing the fuzz pedal?

Anyway, as has been said previously in this long thread, a tube amp can be made to sound as transparent as a good SS amp but the virtue equation works against it - ie it will be more costly to manufacture and purchase, inefficient to run and higher maintenance. But transparency is not the reason why some prefer tube amps, it is because the distortions can sound pleasant. Likewise, a SS amp can be made to sound like a coloured tube amp but again that is usually not the reason why others prefer SS amps.

 

[hakunamakaka]

The bad ones change the sound, the good ones are also transparent.

Here I disagree, what's bad for high fidelity folk can be an amazing shift in sound for a person who enjoys that distortion. I have SS chain with my digital music and I use it quite a lot as well, but there are so many good album releases that fits tubes well. Gold Lionex as an example are known to distort sound a lot towards the warm side, though demand for them is high. I've never stated that tubes are superior to SS, for me these both serve different purpose for different genre of music. I would always chose to play Norah Jones album via tube setup than my digital source, but there are music that works other way around, through years I've learned what would fit my LP collection and what I can keep in digital.

I believe that DSP could emulate tube sound, but if I'm happy with my current equipment I don't feel a need to change

 

[sander99]

Would you playback your music through a guitar amp while pressing the fuzz pedal?

Actually that may be a great idea to get more (inter-)actively involved with the music!
(Just for fun once in a while).

 

[bigshot]

The problem with tube distortion is that it is hard wired in. You can't decide to listen clean. You have to get two completely different amps. And say you want somewhere in the middle? A light amount of distortion... That is a third amp to buy. You can distort a clean amp using digital processing, but you can't clean up a distorted one. There's a thread here on DSPs designed to emulate different kinds of tube distortion and response coloration. It's possible to make a solid state amp sound exactly like any tube amp you want. The advantage is that all of the parameters are on slider pots, so you can craft *exactly* the amount you want. You aren't locked into a sound chosen by the designer of the tube amp. You also don't have the sound shift as it warms up or the tube ages. It's much more precise to do it with DSPs.

 

[old tech]

The problem with tube distortion is that it is hard wired in. You can't decide to listen clean. You have to get two completely different amps. And say you want somewhere in the middle? A light amount of distortion... That is a third amp to buy. You can distort a clean amp using digital processing, but you can't clean up a distorted one. There's a thread here on DSPs designed to emulate different kinds of tube distortion and response coloration. It's possible to make a solid state amp sound exactly like any tube amp you want. The advantage is that all of the parameters are on slider pots, so you can craft *exactly* the amount you want. You aren't locked into a sound chosen by the designer of the tube amp. You also don't have the sound shift as it warms up or the tube ages. It's much more precise to do it with DSPs.

Yes that is the issue. I have two main stereo systems in my home. One is transparent within the constraints of my speakers and room acoustics and the other has more of its own (pleasant) sound signature. The former sounds much better with well recorded/produced/mastered material and it clearly delineates different masterings of the same recordings. The other system sounds better on poorly recorded/produced/mastered material as you don't hear the flaws so much because the sound signature dominates playback. So one is high fidelity and the other is high euphony. The problem with the high euphony is that much of the high quality work and different sound character that went into the well produced material is not as clearly defined. Pick your poison but for most times I choose high fidelity.

 

[reginalb]

I'd like to add one more advantage to tube amps: they can really be beautiful. I had one on my desk for a long time because I just loved how it looked. It ran in to some issues, some connection is loose in it. I should probably send it in for repair, but we'll see.

 

[bigshot]

I have Christmas lights over my stereo for the same reason.

 

[hakunamakaka]

Maybe I'm lucky, but longevity is not compromised with tubes so far, 3 years without any issues and that's still one of the better audio purchases for me. Thus I can not say the same for cables and IEM's. Cables changed only in visual aesthetics for me, IEMs the worst performance/price ratio in all stereo equipment, In many cases I could mistakenly put cheap IEM in the same bucket with the flagship that costs few thousands. There is no such as out of head experience as said in reviews, if we disregard bass, sound is small wrapped in a tiny square around your head at best. I somehow have large interest for horn speakers and they will come one day

 

[dazzerfong]

Maybe I'm lucky, but longevity is not compromised with tubes so far, 3 years without any issues and that's still one of the better audio purchases for me. Thus I can not say the same for cables and IEM's. Cables changed only in visual aesthetics for me, IEMs the worst performance/price ratio in all stereo equipment, In many cases I could mistakenly put cheap IEM in the same bucket with the flagship that costs few thousands. There is no such as out of head experience as said in reviews, if we disregard bass, sound is small wrapped in a tiny square around your head at best. I somehow have large interest for horn speakers and they will come one day

Interestingly I have kind of the opposite experience with IEMs: plenty of cheap junk which are carbon copies of each other, and only once you push out a bit more do designs get a bit more interesting for me. Out of head experience is impossible with IEMs and headphones anyway*, so I treat that as exaggeration.

* with normal recordings: binaural and HRTF-manipulated sounds are different.

 

[hakunamakaka]

Interestingly I have kind of the opposite experience with IEMs: plenty of cheap junk which are carbon copies of each other, and only once you push out a bit more do designs get a bit more interesting for me. Out of head experience is impossible with IEMs and headphones anyway, so I treat that as exaggeration.

There is a difference in higher tiers between IEMs, but it's not so obvious as it is with headphones or speakers. I've tried many expensive IEMs when needed sound on the go, was not so impressed, but still ended with flagship IEM as it was most musical for me, but when I had a chance to listen to higher end headphones(arya,HD800,LCD-x..) . I Was blown away, especially with LCD-X even though they lacked in technical abilities against others, but musically they were above of what I have heard.Warm/meaty sound with lush vocals and amazing bass... It was very similar to my speaker+tube setup. None of the IEMs could even come close while being 2-3x more expensive
Peoples perception is different and when they turn their imagination on it can go to ridiculous extents. You can easily find statements/reviews in forum where people say that this IEM is more expansive than HD800s, cables for 500-1000$ will completely upgrade the sound of your headphones or an almighty EQ can do wonders and bring planar bass to HD650 headphone. I disregarded all of these statements with the cost of my wallet. Now I read with large grain of salt on peoples opinions and impressions(especially raved/hyped reviews), best way is to test for free if possible and trust your own ears

 

[SoundAndMotion]

Out of head experience is impossible with IEMs and headphones anyway, so I treat that as exaggeration.

Nonsense.
The spatial cues for out-of-head sound with HPs/IEMs can occur 3 ways:
1- It can be recorded with a binaural setup. Of course, your HRTF must be close enough to the binaural mic setup (e.g. Kemar) and you either have to hold your head relatively still or be less sensitive to head motion.
2- It can be added with DSP using your own HRTF with, for example, the Smyth Realiser, Redscape 3D, Waves NX or similar. Each of those include head tracking. There's also HeSuVi, but I don't think it has head tracking.
3- Coincidence. Your brain is always trying to localize sound based on your own HRTF. If a particular recording is mixed such that your brain interprets spatial cues, you can perceive out-of-head sound. But it may never work for you, depending on your HRTF and how your brain uses head motion. But your not perceiving it does not mean that others can't, without imagination or exaggeration. This does seems somewhat rare though.

 

[dazzerfong]

Nonsense.
The spatial cues for out-of-head sound with HPs/IEMs can occur 3 ways:
1- It can be recorded with a binaural setup. Of course, your HRTF must be close enough to the binaural mic setup (e.g. Kemar) and you either have to hold your head relatively still or be less sensitive to head motion.
2- It can be added with DSP using your own HRTF with, for example, the Smyth Realiser, Redscape 3D, Waves NX or similar. Each of those include head tracking. There's also HeSuVi, but I don't think it has head tracking.
3- Coincidence. Your brain is always trying to localize sound based on your own HRTF. If a particular recording is mixed such that your brain interprets spatial cues, you can perceive out-of-head sound. But it may never work for you, depending on your HRTF and how your brain uses head motion. But your not perceiving it does not mean that others can't, without imagination or exaggeration. This does seems somewhat rare though.

I should attach an exclaimer there - in the spirit that the IEM themselves contribute to it without using HRTF/binaural. Thank you for pointing that out.

I can localise sounds and point out where the sound's coming from with my IEMs, but it's not an out-of-head feeling to me. This is especially apparent in classical music.

I'm more than familiar with binaural recordings, and am more than convinced of its effect. But that's less to do as a function of the IEM, but rather the recording technique.

 

[bigshot]

The original point was that reviews said that a particular model of IEMs provided "outside the head sound". That is just purple prose and hyperbole.

I've never been able to hear anything beyond secondary depth cues and phasey stuff myself. I'm open to the possibility, but binaural and head tracked dimensional sound doesn't do much for me. The only way I've perceived surround is with a multichannel speaker setup.

 

[dazzerfong]

Binaural sealed the deal for me with the virtual barber shop demo.



In it, it really felt as though the shaver went over my head.