Tube equipment has a very distinctive sound due to distortion.
Tubes devices are also more linear than solid state devices without the use of feedback, Which also could have something to do with the way they sound.
Amir and Blind Testing
Let me start by saying I like watching Amir from ASR, so please let’s not get harsh or the thread will be deleted. Many times, Amir has noted that when we’re inserting a new component in our system, our brains go into (to paraphrase) “analytical mode” and we start hearing imaginary improvements. He has reiterated this many times, saying that when he switched to an expensive cable he heard improvements, but when he switched back to the cheap one, he also heard improvements because the brain switches from “music enjoyment mode” to “analytical mode.” Following this logic, which I agree with, wouldn’t blind testing, or any A/B testing be compromised because our brains are always in analytical mode and therefore feeding us inaccurate data? Seems to me you need to relax for a few hours at least and listen to a variety of music before your brain can accurately assess whether something is an actual improvement. Perhaps A/B testing is a strawman argument, because the human brain is not a spectrum analyzer. We are too affected by our biases to come up with any valid data. Maybe.
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@chayro Just to return to your original question in this thread, as long as you switch between components when evaluating gear and your mental state (analytical, relaxed, mellow, angry, happy, silly, or whatever) doesn't change dramatically as you switch gear, you should be able decide which gear sounds best to you. @rtorchia Your comments about "accurate" sound compared to "distinctive" sound in terms of distortion are not consistent with what I have learned over the course of 50 years of listening to hifi gear. I've lived through the Stereo Review mindset of the 1970s and 1980s, when designers sought ever-lower levels of THD (usually by increasing feedback in the circuits), despite the fact that many of these products sounded harsh and electronic. Many of the comments on the ASR site seem to embrace a view quite similar to that now debunked view from Stereo Review. If you want to learn how to design gear that measures and sounds great, pay attention to the approach of a great audio designer like Nelson Pass. I recently watched a YouTube interview by Steve Guttenberg, during which Nelson discusses the importance of listening to distortion profiles rather than just measuring THD levels when designing great amps. Some people like to claim that amps from Pass Labs add distortion (mainly 2nd and 3rd harmonics) to improve the sound, but Nelson says that they simply don't try to suppress the 2nd and 3rd harmonics as much as they suppress higher order distortions. So which design approach is more "accurate" and which is more unnatural, one that reduces the influence of higher order distortions or one that simply reduces THD? I would argue that whatever sounds more natural and more like real music is the best choice. And Nelson Pass stresses that they use an ongoing approach of measure-listen-measure-listen to design their amps. Any approach that prioritizes measuring over listening clearly does not have its priorities straight. |
I think this is now the 3rd time I've posted a link to this topic over the past 2 years concerning ASR so here it is again. All the best, |
Quite so (along with your other observations), and I took the liberty of changing your quote slightly so that it has a wider audience amongst audiophiles. |
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