I'm going back to tubes... a question for y'all

Sean, you hit the nail squarely on the head. Not all material is as cleanly recorded as Levinsons Red Rose sacd. The breathy sax, the airy voices, the strings...masterful and engaging. The orchestral tracks in The Little Mermaid show off dynamics and soundstage to a fare-thee-well.

When I put on Mark OConnors 'Heroes' (and other cd and/or vinyl) and all I can think about is 'how poorly recorded' some of these tracks are, it really can get in the way of enjoying the musical intention these folks laid down.

My thought in stepping up to the 'tube plate' was based on sweetening up the system a bit, and getting back to enjoying the music. If a touch of accuracy and dynamics are lost, so be it. If it 'distorts' the recording in a positive way, that could be just peachy. If it's 'real music' and I get sucked into the performance, it will be worth it.

I guess it's feeble attempt (or a copout?) on the path of upgradeitis. I am trying to avoid replacing every cable and component in this digital system two or three times in the chase for the sweet sound of tubes. Basically just skipping the middleman and heading straight for the glow of valves. If it doesn't work out, well, back to the drawing board.

I'ts funny, I don't remember having any trouble at all with my old tube stuff, tho the S.C. did cook a capacitor once that I easily replaced. Memory is a funny thing, and maybe I'm not remembering the sweet sound of tubes at all... but the smell of Grandma's pot roast! ;-)

Rwbadley,
I'm with you. After college I lost track of my great tube system and had modest solid state systems for many years. Also discovered "perfect sound forever" and lost interest in listening for lack of time and money.

In the last couple of years I have acquired another system...this time it's pretty high end with tubes and vinyl all over the place. I spent a lot of time auditioning systems and my experience--clearly not as exhaustive as many on this site--is that tube amps are just more musical (at least at the price I can afford).

My system is well-behaved. Sure, I have to mess with biases and replace tubes occasionally but nothing catastrophic.

Best wishes,

Yes... Not only I switched to tube gear.. I'm even going back to vintage gear. If you find the right one that matches your speakers, they actually better than most of the modern tube gear.

I'm going to give the hot rod ta-30 a try. I initially was reluctant to go for the Chinese made unit. But then I figured that Paul put his stamp on it with the mods, and it felt like I was in fact supporting our local business. All indications were this modded amp was a great way to dip back into tubes, and that it had the werewithal to keep up with some of the higher end equipment.

That, and I know who to call if there's a problem!

RW,

Good call! Paul is the man! BTW, I just got my mod'd unit on Thursday and it is very good after only about 5 hours of burn-in. Can't wait to reach the 30 hour mark as Paul suggested. Man, this thing sounds BIG and WIDE. It fills my room like no other amp I've ever had in my system.

I think you are in for a treat!

BTW, where Y'all from?

Enjoy,

TIC