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Tube Equipment: Gimmick?

I recently had a mechanical engineer (who has no interest in audio equipment or the industry) express amazement when I told him about the high prices of tube gear. His amazement, he said, stemmed from the fact that tubes are antiquated gear, incapable of separating signals the way (what we call "solid state") equipment can.

In essence, he said tubes could never be as accurate as SS gear, even at the height of the technology's maturity. This seems substantiated by the high-dollar tube gear I've heard - many of the things that many here love so much about the "tube sound" are wonderful - but to my ears, not true to the recording, being either too "bloomy" in the vocal range or too "saturated" throughout, if that makes any sense.

I have limited experience with tubes, so my questions are: what is the attraction of tubes, and when we talk about SS gear, do we hit a point where the equipment is so resolving that it makes listening to music no fun? Hmmm..or maybe being *too* accurate is the reason folks turn from SS to tubes?

Thanks in advance for the thoughts!
aggielaw
twl
3,251 posts
 
I agree alot with what Jim2 is saying. I think that much of what people perceive as "tube sound" is really "output transformer sound", since it is the output transformers that are generally creating the rolloff and bloat that some people mistake for "tube sound".

Regarding tube equipment being a "gimmick", it was the original form of audio amplification and was around long before the transistor was invented, so I don't think it can be called a "gimmick". I am of the opinion that properly made tube gear can be the very best sounding equipment possible. There are drastic differences in the sound quality of various tube amplifiers, just as there are drastic differences in the sound quality of various transistor amplifiers. The best of either technology can be very good indeed. At this time, and including all of the many pieces of gear that I've heard so far, I prefer the sound quality of the best tube gear.
nrenter's avatar
nrenter
766 posts
 
Maybe someone can correct me here...

The vast majority of SS amps obtain those low distrotion measurements (note my careful choice of words) by using a significant amount of negative feedback. Sure, this negative feedback makes an amp measure well with a pure 1KHz sine wave, but how does that negative feedback make music sound? I have my opinion...what's yours?

Isn't the negative feedback that makes SS amps measure well actaully "distorting" the music? My AES Sixpacs are configured for 0 db of negative feedback - but I can apply 10 db of negative feedback if I choose to make my amps measure better. However, I choose not to.

There are some SS amps that use zero global negative feedback in their designs (Ayre comes to mind). I have not had an opportunity to audition any of Charles' SS designs, but they do intrigue me.
sorlowski
236 posts
 
I always had SS equipment, always was SS guy (did not know any better).
But bad thing happened to me, I heard good tube equipment on audio show (Lamm, Hovland, others), and behold the best ML or mbl gear just sounded like canned music. Spectral was different, powerful but very unmusical.
Now I know how inferior SS equipment is, and do not like it. It is not a good filling. SS guy should not listen to good tubes it can ruin their world view.
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Holy shee-ott, look at all these new posts! This is getting far too intellectual for my dumb ass. I'm going back to fixing tits.
bin
119 posts
 
So much partial or misinformation.
ALL amps start to distort immediately. There is always some sonic degradation all you can do is keep it to a minimum.
Tube amps tend to produce even order harmonic distortion which is more musical sounding. It is more musical because it is an even multiple of the note or an octave difference. That always sounds better to the ear. That being said they tend to get canceled in the output transformer anyway on push pull designs.
SS amps tend to produce odd order harmonics which do not sound as musical as it isn’t a perfect multiple, it is considered a 1/3 or an integral of a third.
Personally I like tubes for everything above 250hz and use solid state for everything 250 and below.
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