A tubes vs. Solid State question.

You have a great rig and nice ride....this hobby is very subjective as to what floats your boat...and you know that...glad you have something that satisfies you.

Simply put, you've got to go with whatever it is that makes you happy, until self-doubt returns, at which point you begin the search anew. SS can sound fine, as can tubes, and sound can be different but not necessarily better. 40 years of SS and now one year with tubes ... I really like what I'm hearing, as I find it to be a more comfortable fit ... for me. I prefer to integrate music into the environment rather than struggle to redefine the environment in substantial ways. A simple system set up for ease and enjoyment, and I'm very pleased. I spent a lot fewer dollars getting here, too.

Alright- the reason I prefer tubes is that they lack coloration- and by that I mean they lack odd-odered harmonics that are signature of every transistorized amplifier I have heard.

I don't like the fact that tubes are less reliable, generate more heat and I agree that there are many tube amps and preamps out there that have too much in the way of coloration, which is why I started making my own.

But for the extra hassle, there is also extra performance, and if properly realized, it is State of the Art. Transistors fall well short of the mark in every department that matters once compared to a State of the Art tube amplifier.

The caveat that one must always issue is that tube amplifiers and transistor amplifiers behave fundimentally different in a number of ways, in particular in how they relate to the speaker. IOW, you had better take some care with the choice of speaker to demonstrate the extra performance that tubes offer. If this care is not taken its apples to oranges!

One other thing that seems to come up in these debates is taste in listeners. For example, I like an easy going presentation that I can listen to 24 hours a day without fatigue. I want the last detail in stage width and depth, and complete delineation of tone colors and timbre. The presentation must complete bandwidth too and I am not satisfied if the bass falls short. I can't stand hardness in the highs!

Others may have an issue with the heat (to get what I want I use triodes operating class A) and I can't fault them for that. Once you stray away from class A, it is no longer capable of state of the art, so when you are comparing tubes to transistors, you have to keep in mind that you are dealing with a *ton* of variables that may not allow the truely objective listener to make a proper comparison!

Atmasphere "the reason I prefer tubes is that they lack coloration- and by that I mean they lack odd-odered harmonics" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What about the even order harmonics that tube amps have!! Some with a massive second harmonic, giving the extra fat of tube sound. That's not coloration?

If the amplifier is push-pull, then such harmonics can be cancelled in the output. This is how transistors do it too. Single-ended triode amplifiers thus have much more even-ordered harmonic coloration, which is the source of their (IMO) overly-rich (fat) sound.

It has been shown that humans object more strenuously to odd-orders than they do even-orders- this has to do with the way the human ear has evolved over millions of years and I for one have decided that it is not worth it to fight this reality :)

So if a tube amplifier is properly built its even-ordered harmonic generation can be quite low (and how low depends on feedback or other design characteristics, which is how transistor amps get their low distortion numbers too, BTW). It is a simple fact that tube amplifiers make less distortion (open loop) than transistors to begin with and so need less or even zero feedback. This means that a tube amplifier can be built in such a way that it lacks coloration wheras this is nearly impossible with the current state of the art in transistors.

Unfortunately there are many tube amplifier products that are actually designed to produce even-ordered harmonic colorations, but again IMO these amplifiers have more in common with musical instruments than they do with musical reproducers.

Just because I prefer tubes does not mean that I am not aware of their weaknesses :)