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Tube amps and a Stradivarius

I was mixing an orchestra in a church and the conductor who was my friend wanted me to hear one of the musicians play their Stradivarius violin for me back at the mixer. The sound was so beautiful it seemed like there was already reverb on it. I was brought to tears simply because of the beauty and I'd never hear such an instrument before.

Tube amps are not technically as accurate as solid-state but they sound more musical, I would submit that they sound that way because of the ring of the tubes just like the reverb of the Stradivarius violin. I believe the vibration of the sound from the speakers excite the tubes and there is a pleasant reverb effect. In mixing vocals there is an important effect in the reverb processor called pre delay and that time delay before the reverb is actuated in the processor is like the time delay of the speakers making the tubes ring. Thoughts?

128x128donavabdear
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,541 posts
 

"Also if you think tube amps are more accurate you are simply fooling yourself."

You have very strong opinions about tubes, considering that you seem to have ZERO stated knowledge on such.

Also, your OT premise is laughable, IMO.

 

DeKay

fisher_400
71 posts
 

All I know is tubes have sounded better than SS amps to me so far.

donavabdear's avatar
donavabdear OP
500 posts
 

 

invalid

You are right, a designer must use feedback that is always a compromise but transistors are still more accurate (don’t sound better) than tubes if you look at them on a scope. Another fare worse aspect is how transistors distort when clipped they sound awful but tubes sound smooth and forgiving. Audiophiles use underpowered amps in general, it takes a lot of power to produce loud sounds from some of our big not so efficient speakers. Tube amps are always way lower power than ss amps but because of the nice distortion it doesn’t matter as much. But physics is physics it takes a certon amount of power to produce a high volume from the speaker and it is very rare that tube amps have even close to enough power in fact it is the exception that even ss amps have enough power to produce movie theater volumes at home. By the way even golden ears have a hard time hearing <15% distortion at high volumes.

invalid
1,180 posts
 

Movie theaters use solid state amplifiers, so your point isn't a very good one. I've heard better dynamics in home theater systems than at movie theaters.

donavabdear's avatar
donavabdear OP
500 posts
 

Movie theaters use ss equipment because tubes would be a nightmare the tubes would always be sounding not like new and it would be nearly impossible to get the LF response needed to make spec. Sure there are tube amps that can put out a lot of power but the tubes are very expensive, unreliable, and degrade immediately after putting them in the slot they also are about 90% inefficient creating more heat than power. 

My amps are the BHK 300s by PF Audio they make sense to me because the front end is tubes and the power side is mosfet, gives you the best of both. Guitar amps are always tubes they need the ring, warmth and distortion characteristics that tubes can bring, but now guitar amps can be ss and simply be programed to emulate other tube amps, the best of these emulators can fool anyone.

 

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