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Tubes & Digital - Is There A Link?

To what extent has the ongoing resurgence in tube components been fueled by audiophiles attempting to "correct" for some of the deficiencies in digital music reproduction? In the pro audio sector the causal relationship is quite clear. As soon as digital music production became prevalent there was an explosion in tube based products, particularly mics and mic preamps, but also equalizers and compressors. There was even line level devices that did nothing to the signal except run it thru a tube based circuit at unity gain. Engineers were upfront in stating that they were trying to add warmth, texture and depth to the digital signal. For audiophiles I'm not sure the link between tubes and digital is as clear cut, but I'm interested in what others think.
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onhwy61 OP
5,220 posts
 
GS5, what pro oriented equipment uses an OTL design?
gs5556
1,235 posts
 
Pendulum Audio and, I think, Mesa. I'm not in the recording biz - the Pendulum gear is something I read about in a guitar mag a while back.
pmi_guy
72 posts
 
Tubes seem to add "fullness" rather than warmth. They also add depth and soundstage.

My pet theory is that the second harmonics help activate the location reponse of human hearing. A thin sound, such as a high-pitched beep, is often hard to locate. A harmonically rich sound of the same pitch is much easier to locate.

Why a resurgence of tubes when SS is measurably more accurate? My feeling is that digital/SS is losing something that is not being measured. The measurement standard, harmonic distorion of a single sine wave, is missing something.

I know about Fourier Analysis and the Super-Position Theorem but who said these audio systems are guaranteed linear? We're missing something.

Just my 2 cents.
socrates
247 posts
 
In my experience, tubes can add depth, amazing layering, bloom, body and some add warmth (all of which good SS can also do), but I also think tubes with a digital source make the sound somehow artificial, synthetic, if you will, and am going back to all SS gear on an all digital front end.

On a side note, I recently heard an all McIntosh setup, with tube amp and preamp, McIntoshch cdp and speakers, that sounded so much like solid mid-fi solid state reproduction I had to make sure the speakers where in fact hooked up to the claimed components. It's just about tradeoffs, you pick your compromises. I have found SS gear to sound more real, more believable, less synthetic, but can see where the appeal of tubes come from with a digital setup, especially with a hot tweeter and limited range speaker, where only certain types of music is listened to.
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