Tubes/SS Power Amps?

I will never forget one of my most enjoyable afternoons at a high end emporium. It was late October and a bit chilly in the small auditioning theater, when a customer came in requesting a big CJ tube amp. That amp put out as much heat as a small fireplace.

The customer was a fireman, and it just so happened that we liked the same music. While listening to the sounds of jazz, we discussed our preferences in amps. He liked the warm sound of CJ, and ARC was my favorite. This was at a time when those two amps were as different as night and day. While ARC is pretty much the same, CJ had what was called the "CJ glow"; it really did something special with jazz and horns, as he went on to explain.

There's no better way to spend an afternoon than discussing the merits of your favorite tube amp, while listening to jazz on high end equipment. Heat was a good thing on that day

I noticed that no one responded to my mention of Stereophile's ratings of equipment by Class "A", "B", and "C". First and foremost, I am not pushing the magazine; however, I subscribed for years, and during that time I went to high end emporiums to evaluate the magazines rating system, as well as the equipment.

For the years I was able to do this, I discovered their ratings to be quite accurate. Occasionally, a component would fluctuate from "B" to "C". This happened with the CJ PV10, and the Grado Sonata; however, I don't recall any component dropping out of Class "A". It was for certain that if any component fluctuated like that, it was a best buy.

Small manufactures complained about not getting their products reviewed, but if you think about it, the magazine also had a reputation to maintain in regard to volume, and consistency of product.

I no longer subscribe to the magazine because the equipment was completely out of my price range; however, I still use old magazines to make decisions. What was your experience in regard to the magazine and it's rating system.

Orpheus10, there are other threads out there for what people think of reviewers. Check out:

When a Reviewer "likes" something and What reviews do you trust if any?

Personally, I don't get much out of reviews or ratings. The rating system basically says the more expensive a component is the better it sounds. I always loved it when Stereophile would rate some gear that I liked poorly, because then it would become much more affordable. :)

Regarding Stereophile magazine... I dumped that magazine years ago when it went overly political and vulgar. Using curse words in reviews and making public policy/political commentary in an audio review magazine was crazy. The writing was pedantic, arrogant and smacked of young pseudo-intellectual drivel. So... unless it has changed (and perhaps it has)... that magazine is something I will stay away from. That said, their subjective rankings, while of course being incomplete (limited basically only to those products whose manufacturers advertise with them) were seemingly reasonably accurate as far as I was able to tell.

Orpheus10, there are inexpensive ways of dealing with heat. You don't need air conditioning for starters, if you do it right.

Now if you set up your system according to how much heat it makes, don't expect it to sound like music. If it does, great, a happy coincidence.

Hot transistor amps are hot because they employ a greater amount of A operation in their output- this is to improve linearity. The same is true of tubes, but they are inherently more linear in many cases.

One thing is certain- all the solid state embodiments known so far make more odd ordered harmonic distortion than their tube counterparts. Odd ordered harmonics in trace amounts are easily detected by the human ear, which recognizes them as brightness and harshness.

So you might look into the idea of creating ventilation in your room to get rid of heat without air conditioning. I have seen this done quite successfully, such that you could sit in the same room with 2 class A 500 watt triode monoblocks all day and all night without getting uncomfortable, and without air conditioning.