differences between tube and solid state designs

Newbee, I started out as a tuber in 1965, went solid state in the 70's and 80's, and today use both. I know it's trite but there are both great and poor tube products. Same for solid state. The keys to ear pleasing sonics although simplistic, IMO are design and quality parts. I'm not an engineer by education; my thoughts are based largely on experience and a little intuition. I could be wrong.

Not to muddy the waters but the other components in the system will dictate or at least influence our choice of tubes or ss. Ask an Apogee owner to use tubes or an Avantgarde owner to use ss. They'll probably laugh in your face. Actually I owned Apogee Duettas and Ohm F years ago in a galaxy far far away. Neither of those speakers would work well then or now with tubes. Well with most tube amps anyway.

In closing I'm thankful we have so many dedicated and interested manufacturers (here and abroad) for us to have the number of choices available today. Having both topologies can only make our hobby better.

Audiofeil

I'm driving my Apogee Duetta Signatures with Rogue Audio tube monos. A good number of the newer tube designs can drive some of the Apogees and Maggies without problems (better power supply) than the older "classic" gear.

I was using a Krell Ksa-250 for a long while (I still have the Krell)...moved it to the hometheater.

Both are (were) used with a tube preamp when in use with my Duetta's. While the Rogue amps won't play at the "extream" SPL's I can get from the huge Krell...they will play "very loud"...moot point for me.

Dave

Talk about painting opinion with broad strokes of the brush. I see this all the time regarding tube amps. The critical factor with tube amps is the speaker/amp combination. If this match has not been carefully chosen then sonics will suffer considerably. For example, an SET amp and horns can sound marvelous with very small amounts of distortion(103 dB sensitive speakers require only milliwatts to produce loud music--the distortion curve is very low at this level) and a properly designed transformer(expensive) will not appreciably alter frequency response at the extremes. Tube amps require judicious choices of partnering speakers which is quite different from SS amps which are basically plug and play with just about any speakers. I started out with SS and moved on to tube amps. I did this for a good reason--not just following the herd. Tubes allow you to see into the performance and connect with the music in a way that most SS amps cannot. I'm not talking about a romantic midrange(added harmonic distortion) or a shelved down upper frequencies which may make digital sound more palatable. There is a 3D quality to tubes that SS just doesn't address in most cases. That's why I "converted" and will remain so. As to adding tubes to "sweeten" or warm up the sound I have not found this to be the case with the tube amps I prefer. I did not prefer any of the tubed DAC's I auditioned before settling on a SS CD player. My preference is for tubes to be at the amp/speaker interface where I believe tubes to be the most critical for musical realism.

9

Newbee,

I didn't mean that tubers were trying to fix or flatten tube sounds by changing cables etc... all I meant was that tubes tend to accentuate these changes whilst SS gear often makes these kind of changes almost inaudible.

Therefore people with tubes tend to have a different view of cables and interconnects than people who use SS amps.

Neither is better, to each his own...but it does explain how two people can have almost opposing opinions about certain cables and speakers.

As I mentioned, one of the world's top mastering engineers uses tubes...many studios also use tubes on microphones as they soft clip rather than hard clip... tubes are also a must for electric guitars...tubes are extremely important in audio applications, their coloration is both pleasant and more effective than SS amps in certain applications. IMHO, it is only in overall accuracy, especially at higher power levels and with a wider variety of loads, that SS amps have an edge.

I agree with you, whilst SS amps do differ, on the whole, with SS gear you tend to get what you get; speakers and room characteristics tend become the dominant variables in an all SS setup.

Shadrone,

1st I want to make it perfectly clear that I take NO position on what others like or use for their entertainment. I'm just having some fun, and in that vein....

Perhaps us tubophiles find SS stuff boring if for no other reason that we can't tinker with it much. With tubes we get to tinker with everything! Getting bored with the sound buy some new drivers, exhaust that possibility - get some new power tubes, exhaust that possibility vary the bias on the power tubes, exhaust that possibilty change out caps, exhaust that possibility - oh well you get the idea! Now add to that the mid-range liquidity and upper frequency air, 3 dimensionality if you please, that I can't seem to find in SS, how can you go wrong. Hell I've even got some amps with a two ohm tap just in case I get some speakers that are hard to drive, bass and impedence wise. All I give up is a bit of slam in the bass, just a bit mind you.

All that said, on balance, I tend to agree with you.

One of the wonderful things about SS, assuming you have reached your sonic goals, is you don't have much angst about tube wear, finding suitble replacements for failures, tube amp damage caused by major shorts in power tubes, ad infinitum! Worryworts need not apply! Just those exact concerns kept me away from tubes for a long time!

In fact there are some occasions when I wish there weren't so many varibles with tubes, especially amps, which also require special attention to proper speaker matching in the first place, as mentioned above by Jayarr. Very important issue!

This is a fun hobby...........:-)