Tubes vs Solid State - Imaging, Soundstaging, 3D

10-21-13: Wolf_garcia writes:

Metralla...I was being ironic...or sarcastic...or something...Since when did people start taking this stuff so literally? Is this an Aussie thing?

I know, and my comment was in the same spirit. I was amused by Melbguy1's cricket reference.

Carry on.

Regards,

Wolf, When I finally found a correct original matching cabinet, the version with the single Cerwin Vega 18', and you are correct in that the other option was a dual 15" JBL D140F cab, the speaker was blown!!
The 18" is 4 ohm and 2-15" is 8 ohm. The amp has an output tap for each.
The full stack would have one of each cabinet!!

I may have mentioned this before, but we used 2 (music store lent to us) 2000S amps with the "jumbo" JBL loaded 2X15 Sunn cabs (weird, larger cabinet, but no argument from us!), and our own 200S with the standard cab when we opened for Led Zepellin in 1969. That's a lot of Sunn on stage, even back then. John Paul Jones asked if he could use the bass rig for the Zep set and we said, "hell yeah ya limey bastard" or something like that. Zep proceeded to erase our set from the collective memory.

I recall D-140F's in my DIY 4530 "scoop" cabinets were easily driven with my Marantz 8B. Driving them with the new (at the time) Cerwin-Vega 1800-A solid state was bordering on hideous, as was the SVT head.

well... I think that cost is a major factor here. If amp/preamp are valued at say 25-30K and above... then any differences between the SS and Tube is a difference between what the engineer's desired their gear to sound like (and not an inherent tube vs. SS thing). That is, in the high dollar no trade-off region, SS vs. tube is moot. If the amp/preamp are together valued at say 5-6K --- within the trade off region... it will be an issue of which trade offs work best given your equipment and listening desires... because, at that level, generally differences are connected to tube vs. SS. Still... room geometry/listening position, quality of input into the system and many other factors enter in too --- often to a greater degree than does the amplification. Any general one (tube or SS) is better than the other is not really a particularly useful or realistic position to hold. It is system-by-system and person-by-person dependent and... cost dependent too.

I have owned both and liked both. I am now using a tube preamp and SS amp. Tube amps, I have found at least, are too unreliable for me (way too many KT-88's died). But sonically... both can be great... both can be less than great. Both can be anywhere in between.