That "tube sound" and power ratings

"That's not the same thing. In the studio, what you're talking about above is signal processing. Its part of the creative process. Playback gear's job is completely different. The idea behind that is to reproduce the original event as accurately as possible. Making your amp distort on playback goes in the opposite direction of that goal. You don't want you home audio system to distort because you want to reproduce whatever is on the recording as best you can. Even if its distortion. "

That's definitely true that in the studio it's processing the signal - but at home, tube amps are often doing the same thing. It is a form of distortion. Not all tube based systems distort this way, but I do see lots of listeners using underpowered amps for the speakers they have.

Tubes are a great way to emotionally get close to the music - I think of tubes as a way to create an illusion that performers are in the room with you - but I never think of this as accurate or neutral - but it can be very involving...

Most SS based systems I have heard over the years were underpowered in terms of achieving optimal performance not on purpose but for not knowing any better and/or not having many practical and cost effective options available, or people just being satisfied and it just not mattering much.

Same true I suspect with tube amps. It's not that tube amp lovers seek distortion, but rather that it similarly may be even less of a real issue for some due to the more benign sound of soft clipping.

Mesch- Agreed! It's a bit of a circus in a classroom ... fun, educational and full of entertaining surprises.

Zd542, Zkzpb8, Charles1dad & Atmasphere - many thanks for keeping this thread moving forward.

Atmasphere writes ...

"you never want to push an SET past about 20% of full power or else the higher ordered distortion products come into play (when this happens, its usually on transients, and because the human ear uses the higher orders as loudness cues, the result is that the SET sounds a lot more dynamic than it has any right to because the loudness cues are occurring on the transients. You read about this 'dynamic' character with SETs all the time, but its an indication that the speaker used is not efficient enough)."

20% of full power (I'm assuming that means average power) is a significant % but not outrageous if the speakers aren't crazy-sensitive. Am I to understand that SET owners go into it knowing they NEED to keep this contract if they want to enjoy their sound? If the "SET sounds a lot more dynamic" as it encroaches on this forbidden region, isn't it reasonable to think that SET owners (or dealers or wannabes) might poke through that limit just a wee bit to enjoy the subtle excitement of the extra dynamics? I need to hear this myself to know, but my guess is that doing such a thing might lead to one of those "wow, I never heard THAT before!" kind of moments.

Good question, Hazyj...