2. amps-preamps
  3. 181075-135804

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
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.

 

donavabdear's avatar
donavabdear OP
500 posts
 
invalid Just asking an honest question, I assume you have tube amps, as I do as well. What sort of system do you use to change all the tubes just change them all each year or 6 months, they start sounding bad very slowly and It's hard to realize the sound is degrading, like a frog being boiled very slowly eventually you have dead sound.
coltrane1's avatar
coltrane1
739 posts
 

Yes, in the end, it’s about the music. What’s it sound like? Hmmm. 

jerryg123's avatar
jerryg123
3,429 posts
 

@donavabdear all guitar amps are not tube. I have a Vox Essex that is SS. Prefer my tube amps but the Eessex was the first guitar amp I bought in 1976. 

desktopguy
367 posts
 

I've always heard (and believed) that tubes sound as good as they do for 2 primary reasons:

1 - They better convey the particular harmonic structure of notes from different instruments (accuracy of tone & timbre)

2 - And very often, they overload more gracefully/less abruptly than SS devices, and the distortion byproducts sound more benign (the distortion representing more even-order harmonics and fewer odd-order ones).

But that doesn't really explain the 3D effect one often gets from tubes, where each musical note sounds more tangible, real, occupying real space in a real place. For me, that is the greatest asset of tube audio: how musically realistic the sound is.

More to discover