Tube amps have a signature sound

Bigkidz, I've biamped with SS on bottom and tubes on top. The sound was nice, but in the end, it was more of a pain than it was worth... four PCs instead of two, two pairs of ICs instead of one, extra space, extra heat, clutter. I was glad to dismantle it. It was overkill with little sonic benefit. -Mark

Bigkidz- If you bi-amp correctly, you'll never go back. For instance, read this: (http://www.avguide.com/products/product-1672/) Click on the review. I'd been using a Dahlquist DQLP-1(slightly modded over the years) since 1981 with great results. The time-alignment that the TacT provided took everything to a whole new level, and still proved as transparent as the Placette Passive Linestage I'd used last with the Dahlquist.

all products are imperfect. thus, they have some consistent characteristic which can be identified after some duration of audition. if products sound different i, it may not be meaningful to generalize about coloration attributable to tube designs.

i find many in-production tube amps unbalanced in frequency response and overly detailed. there is often too much treble energy. i find this is the case with solid state amps as well. the trend in the design of electronic components is to provide more and more detail, less noise and hence a more unflattering presentation of less-than-ideally recorded music. this is unfortunate, but unless one wants to purchase components, especially tube gear from the 80's and 90's, one may ride the carousel of dissatisfaction and frustration.

Mrtennis, it is possible to get more detail without an excess of treble energy. This is where understanding the rules of human hearing comes in.

The traditional way to get more detail is by reducing distortion. Distortion 'masks' detail ('masking' is a quality of the human ear; one of those rules...). Usually this is done by adding negative loop feedback. While this reduces distortion overall (and thus increases detail), negative feedback will also augment certain odd-ordered harmonics slightly, but enough that our ears detect the augmentation has hardness or brightness (another rule of human hearing: we use odd-ordered harmonics to detect loudness and we are **very** sensitive to them, even in amounts of only hundredths of a percent).

Negative feedback frequently tends to compress dynamic contrasts also. Incidentally an amplifier that employs lots of feedback might measure very flat, but is very likely to sound bright.

So the way to get more detail (and impact) without brightness is to reduce distortion without using negative feedback as a crutch. This results in a detailed amplifier that is also at the same time very relaxed and lacking artificial loudness cues of the type you mention.

IOW: you can have your cake and eat it too.