Even more significant, however, is the "transistor sound" at low output levels. Even the feeblest transistor amplifiers we have heard (a 3-watter, for instance) sound like high-powered amplifiers when operating at low levels. They are transparent, crisp,and have the same kind of bass solidity that high- power advocates have always attributed to the monster amplifier's reserve of speaker-controlling watts. So the superiority of the high-powered tube amplifier is not just a matter of reserve power.
Just what it is a matter of is still open to question, but we may be in a better position to answer this when we get the opportunity of comparing high-powered transistor amplifiers with their betubed competitors. Tube amplifiers have fouled up the power question for years, because the low-powered ones so often suffered from shortcomings that had nothing to do with the simple fact that they were 10- or 12- or 15-watt amplifiers. Transistors may change the picture.
Just what it is a matter of is still open to question, but we may be in a better position to answer this when we get the opportunity of comparing high-powered transistor amplifiers with their betubed competitors. Tube amplifiers have fouled up the power question for years, because the low-powered ones so often suffered from shortcomings that had nothing to do with the simple fact that they were 10- or 12- or 15-watt amplifiers. Transistors may change the picture.