tubes and analog

tubes are a noisy device " per nature ", tubes designs have higher distortions level than SS or hybrids one, tubes have heavy problems to reproduce accurately both frequency extremes specially the low bass where ( beteen other things ) does not have control over the woofers like the SS topology, tubes are untrusty: time to time ( very short time ) blow-up, tubes are not performance consistent: almost every single day sound different ( many people don't take in count because every day are in touch with their systems )

Rauliruegas, I gotta call you on this one. *None* of the above is true. Tubes are *lower* distortion than transistors, noise is a red herring (either are noisy *or* quiet- you know that), the 'woofer control' comment is right out (mythological) and frankly, dealing with the reliability of transistors in the studio the last few days: give me tubes- at least they can be serviced! If a transistor bites you you're down for the count. And finally your comment about tubes being inconsistent is just wrong. I've had the same tubes in my Neumann U67s for the last 20 years and the mics get a lot of use, often on for days at a time. In the same 20 years the transistors in my Mellotron are toast.

OTOH I find that power tubes have variation- but not day to day. Triodes will have very consistent operation right up the end of their service life, which is often 10,000 hours. Pentodes are more variable, but even they will not be different from one day to the next!

I understand that you may think that you are the exception to all this. That's great! Now put yourself on the other side of that *same* coin and realize that there are the same exceptions in the tube world.

Dear Atmasphere: A well SS design has lower distortion that a well tube design.

In my last trips to USA in three different audio systems: three tube audio devices blow up, one of them was Atmasphere.

Ralph this is not a tournament, you and me like every single music lover are looking for the same: the best quality sound reproduction, you choose to do it through tubes and that's fine other people like me choose doing through SS technology.
Ralph, I'm not against the tube technology: the subject is that till today the SS technology help me in a best way to achieve my music sound priorities, if in the future I find that the tubes ( I owned for many years tube electronics ) could help me you can be sure that I will use it, but today they can't in any way. Btw, by design we dissapear those odd harmonics.

Fortunately for all of us the tube and SS designs are " suffering " improvements over " past " designs and that fact has to be a motive of great enthusiasm for all the audio community.

Instead that we use our time speaking about the advantages/disadvantages of either technology IMHO we could use that time trying to improve our designs or better yet try to work " together " for a better future on the quality music sound reproduction.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Back to the original question:

should i consider a further upgrade to a better tube phono pre or is it simply that a change from SS to Tube amp is more "pronounced" in digital playback?

I strongly suggest to get/build a proper rack and address power filtration in its entirety. Me don't trust PS Audio...me trust Sean & Deano. Search the Jedi archives, young Padwan.

Vibrations will transform into digital jitter. This could be a major cause of digital listening fatigue. Although I'm not against tubes I am against using them to mask system anomalies. Poor room acoustics will exacerbate the jitter issue, especially around 3-4 KHz. It will sound very fatiguing. The rear wall desperately needs treatment and so the first reflection points. Bet you don't have slap echo treatments either.

Last but not least: get the sub out of the equation while you fix this. You might find out it's not necessary at all.

Look Mom, what Ralph Atma, Hagtech, Audiofeil & Raoul didn't come up with!

With psychic power and primal intensity,

Mab33, based upon a view of your system you appear to be one of his customers. You have a fiduciary interest in the product so your remarks are tainted.

Can you say "shill" with me?

Glad to see some people standing up to what are gross misleading anti-SS amp blanket statements. I am ashamed to think that some readers (with less scientific backgrounds perusing audiogon) might take some of these blanket statements at face value and go away and sell a perfectly adequate SS amp and buy a very expensive tube amp and some very expensive interconnects and speaker cables (ending up with 20K of gear & cables) to connect to their $2 K speakers with $50 mass produced drivers (all the while they might be better served by room acoustic treatment, the addition of a sub or upgrading the speakers). The hyperbole of some statements make it seem that SS amps will all sound absolutely terrible by their very nature - I strongly disagree with this belief. (BTW - I agree that tube amps, correctly implemented in a synergistic system, can sound absolutely fantastic....but this does not mean that every SS amp designs is bad - there is good SS sound too)

IMHO, blanket statements and hyperbole is what detracts somewhat from other useful and instructive discussions on these forums. I know everyone is probably guilty of these statements from time to time (including myself) but some persist in pressing their philosophies more than others....