Tube Amp soundstage

MC - you were asserting that tube amps sound better than SS due to their even/2nd harmonics and that SS amps are "not at all like this".  Your words, not mine.  While I agree that tube designs naturally lend themselves to producing 2nd harmonics, so do SS amps if designed that way.  This is not a matter of tube amps categorically producing more even harmonics over SS - it's all about design and implementation.

I'm sure you will enjoy wringing your hands to respond in your usual condescending obtuse way to me so I'm done responding to this thread.  I've made my point.  

Classic MC closing, 

"Holy crap. See how easy that was?  Next question."

Okay so here we go again, only mercifully for the last time. You are now down to admitting, "if designed that way."

Reminding me once again what a good idea it was to create the Hateful 18 list to keep track of which people are worth engaging with and which are not. It doesn't literally mean you are hateful. Although some of them surely are. (And not alone in saying this, I get PM's)
Its easy to pick one of my deliberately provocative comments and get your poor tender feelings all hurt. What a meanie. Boo hoo. What you miss in all this three_easy_payments is you took something I said that was perfectly correct and which you yourself proved you even agree with and then distorted it all to hell in order to call it rubbish.

I do not suffer fools gladly. So sue me. But neither do I deliberately make stuff up (also called LIE) just to insult. That is what you do, and all the time. That is why you made the list. And that is why I promise to do a better job in checking that list and avoiding having anything to do with your distasteful self ever again.  

IMO, Pass has done it right with their SS amps.  As well, Balanced Audio Technology has done it right with their SS amps.  I chose BAT SS amp, a BAT tube preamp, and a Manley tube phono stage and am perfectly pleased with them and that combination.

We buy what we like.  It's all good.  Just enjoy.  Make changes if you wish, there is nothing wrong with that.  No need to argue about it.

Personally, I like it all and enjoy it all.

There are solid state amps that can make a sound stage as good as a tube amp, but most of them are class D.

The differences you hear between tubes and traditional solid state has been about distortion for the last 60 years. Solid state amps have higher ordered harmonic distortion that is more audible than that of tubes, and so tend to be bright. They also can have more distortion at lower power levels, and that can mess with low level detail. But on paper, they appear to have less distortion. But 'less' should be taken with a grain of salt, since the ear reacts differently depending on the kind of distortion being produced.


This stuff is pretty audible; its measurable too but understanding what the measurements mean, and more importantly getting the right measurements is a bit of a trick. One trick that is used commonly in audio is to measure the distortion of the amplifier at 100 Hz. Any solid state amp will measure well at this frequency. But the problem is that such amps have feedback to control distortion, which goes down as frequency increases, because the Gain Bandwidth Product on which the feedback relies is insufficient. So distortion rises with frequency. That is why its measured at 100 Hz, to cover up this problem.

The has been going on for so long that many people, including people that test amplifiers, don't think of it as a problem. But if you measure that amplifier at 3KHz things start to look different- you can see how its distortion is increasing.

So you have two ways to avoid this- either no feedback at all, or so much feedback that the amp is able to compensate for the distortion added due to the operation of the feedback. Feedback does this, if in **insufficient** amounts, through a process called 'bifurcation'. When there's **enough** feedback, this process is suppressed. But that takes north of 35dB, and traditionally to do that at 8-15KHz hasn't really been possible with most of the semiconductors available to designers in past decades. So we still have tubes, which are fairly linear even with no feedback, although they will make more 2nd and/or 3rd harmonic.

The lower ordered harmonics, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, get treated by the ear the same way- they add a little 'bloom' or 'warmth' (audiophile terms for this) which is relatively innocuous compared to the higher orders, to which the ear is keenly sensitive. If the 2nd or 3rd is present in enough quantity, it will mask the presence of the higher orders and the amp will sound smooth. They also allow you to hear a greater perception of the sound stage- this is the part that most people don't get. The better class D amps have a similar distortion signature (although at a much lower level than tubes, but nevertheless mostly lower orders) and so they can sound quite tube-like (i.e. musical), including the wider deeper soundstage.

The thing is, you might think this to be an error of amps like this, but if you've had the opportunity to hear what the actual musical performance sounded like, you find out that its helpful, because in this way despite the distortion, the sound stage is presented much closer to the original than amps that don't have this property!

tablejockey1,815 posts12-20-2020 8:16am"Sweet EL34s, plump KT88, and the all time best 6L6 (I think)"

oldhvymec-That’s what I hear. Not the modern 6L6, but the lower power RCA 6L6G.

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TJ I know the old RCAs will take a heck of a beating, the military metal cover is another tough valve.

Something about a good 6L6, my buddy in Sheldon, great musician, great person. He use to be a BIG time bass player. ALL his bass amps were 6L6. He plays just about anything well, so he starts working on his 6-12 string stuff, again, back to the 6L6. He doesn’t like the British sound, EL34. KT88 are to fat on the bottom, he is tinkering though.. After 55 years of rockin’ he’s not gonna change to much..

I’ll say this though, DON’T buy the cheepos’ (6L6) that are being advertised on EBay from, the Eastern block.. BAD, design and sound. They come out of the box at 10-25% of a new Sylvania, RCA or GE. Just JUNK.. They won’t hold a bias, and take a while to sound OK.. I lost over 10% due to out of the box failure and another 5% with a 24 hour break-in. BAD.

Merry Christmas Everyone.. / Have a Good Holiday..

Regards