Smooth and silky top end

I have heard a number of SS and tube amps.In my experience, smooth and silky top end are realistic way of treble.
But it is really hard to say what is "real".
I think i have achieved extended and smooth treble at the same time in few systems i've tested or built.
I've found it mostly in the systems with SET amps and a soft-dome (silk or similar) tweeter.Metal domes usually (not always!) add "metalic hiss".

I suspect it is partly to do with slew rate.

It may explain why, on the whole many SS amps sound alike, however, a few have a distinctly silky or smoother treble...for example Luxman comes to mind in the smooth treble SS category and Bryston comes to mind in the sharp treble SS category.

Tubes tend to have higher slew rates and there is more varation between various tube designs (there are very high slew rate tubes designs too which may sound similar to high quality SS).

It works like this: High energy transients at high frequencies will have the fastest rise times and are "limited" by the slew rate and therefore are less loud.

Mix engineers use slew rate / attack and microphone placement to get a desired sound. (Attack is used in compressors to limit transients above a certain threshold)

I have found Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs CD's to have a silky treble versus the conventional mastered CD's...I suspect they played with slew rate or attack or some other trick to take a bit of the edge of of CD's (I recall that the edginess in the treble with CD's was a major complaint over analog when CD's came out)

Here is some discussion on this subject

Again I emphasize this is only part of it. I throw this out for discussion. This is not to say tubes are better than SS or SS are better than tubes...you pick what you like best. Just trying to further the discussion with some ideas...

i just wonder everyone is talking about amps what about the preamp i think this is were you get all the good stuff. of course you have to have good power but your front end starting with the preamp is where it is at

Hi Wwshull, imho (and with all respect) the poweramp has greater signature on the final sound than the preamp. To exert total control on the bass and to deliver dynamics is not an easy task. And besides of being a "brute force" the poweramp should also be able to perform the most subtile nuances in sound and this silkiness in the top end. I think a good preamp is essentially "invisible", a component that you shouldn't hear that it is in the system. Without a good preamp the sound becomes somewhat small scaled and threadbare though.

Chris

In TAS # 174 (the digital issue) Tom Martin has an interesting article where he compares 5 well regarded CD/SACD players and hypothesizes that the differences between them are due to how they handle top end transients. I can't summarise the article but you may find it interesting.