Tube amps... what is so great about 'em

I'm not sure about ML's due to power requirements, but.. It's funny you should ask- I just put together a system for my girlfriend, and had a chance to substitue a nice solid state amp, (Bryston,60W), which is going into her "budget system" to compare with my Cary. All I can say is I'll never go back to S.S. It's not a masive difference, but I hear a more 3D aspect to the instruments, a better soundstage, and a certain hard to describe "body" or solidity to the sound, the mids especially, but over the whole spectrum too. The highs are also smoother than any SS I've owned. Granted, if I were playing something with a huge electric bass, there might be some power missing from the bottom end, the slam as they say, but on upright bass it's perfect. It's hard to describe but, it just seems more "right", more like "the real thing", especially on acoustic instruments, especially those made of wood, mmmm oh, I'm drooling.

Jay:
Talk about kharma (not the speakers). I went to a little shop in my town this weekend which hand makes all things tube - Space Tech. The owner Albert, a great guy, played some of my music on his tube gear. I can only describe the sound as lush and placed instruments better than my Bryston B60. When he played some classical the tube sound really showed itself. I went home and listened to the same music on solid state and would say that the bass was much cleaner, the sound analytical. If I listened to classical I would strongly consider tubes.

This is a very interesting question. I could simply argue that my tube amps make the music sound more like the real thing than any silly state amp I have heard. But that would verge on rhetoric.

I suspect the reason why I perceive my tube amps to be more faithful to the real thing is something going on between my brain and the sound, that I don't fully recognise at a conscious level. To digress for a moment, some of you may have read an article recently how researchers had studied individuals tapping their fingers along with some music. They found that the individuals adjusted the rhythm of their tapping in response to very small deviations in the beat, without being aware of doing so consciously.

I believe we often make the mistake of trying to objectify everything we hear in this hobby, at a grave risk of missing the point. If you put something on and just relax into the groove, then your system is doing something right. Your cognitive skills may never catch up with what you can learn about a system by just having a crack at enjoying the music.

This is all heresy to the objectivists - but RHUBARB to them, since musical enjoyment is the only rational measure of the value of an audio system.

I also suspect that one's choice of musical pleasure has a lot to do with your choice of amp - tubed or ss. Tubed is for those that want a feeling of the real thing and ss is for those playing the sonic equivalent of a special effects movie. Man is that going to get a backlash or what - cannot wait to see the voting results.

Dacquistot - this ramble of mine is simply to conclude with - of course you won't get it, till you have heard one, and you let yourself be swept away by the music.

Well, to start with, the only solid state amps I have heard that impressed me were the Levinson 33 Reference and Halcro DM58s (wow!!!). I have heard that the very expensive Roland 9TiHCs are excellent as well as the Accuphase. These are all reference solid state amps. There are not many below these that I could stand to listen to for any great legnth of time.

I am a tube guy and always will be. It does not mean that I could not live with any of the products above, it just means that I am willing to put up with more maintenance than someone who owns solid state. The posts above are all quite correct, there is a 3 dimensionality and harmonic texture that is not as prevalent in ss amps. Yet the ss amps have their great benefits as well, they are incredibly quiet and usually have excellent control, and of course, have no tubes to screw with :)

Good luck,
Jonathan

I liken the sound of SS to something like the old Nintendo. Single dimensional.

Tube are more like a Sony Playstation 2. Multidimensional.