solid state vs tubes

Soft clipping means that dynamic range is restricted to some extent as I understand. That means loudness cues are reduced relatively, all other things aside, as well, right?

What I was talking about is the types of distortions made by tubes and transistors, VS how the ear hears. It is true that the soft clipping of tubes means you will get less of the odd-ordered harmonics, but this has nothing to do with dynamic range. That is a completely different issue!

Minorl, I do take exception to one comment you made about
"well engineered/designed tube or solid state amps", which is the issue of the human ear. If the equipment is "well engineered" to look good on paper, how "well engineered" is it to obey the rules of human hearing? In my book, it is thus not well engineered to the task that it was built for, since the bench specs have very little to do with how human hearing rules.

Have you seen this link? IMO this is one of the more serious stumbling blocks MrT has to face in his quest, and why I commented earlier on the particular SS amps that I did.

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html

"It is true that the soft clipping of tubes means you will get less of the odd-ordered harmonics, but this has nothing to do with dynamic range."

Less loudness cues perhaps then. If you perceive the peaks as less loud because that is how people hear, that would seem to infer that the dynamic range is affected, at least as perceived, since the peaks do not seem as loud anymore, just as those nasty loudness cues due to negative feedback that you are focused on make you perceive things as louder as you describe. Two different things causing perhaps opposite effects in regards to how loudness cues are "perceived"? Only one is adding and one is subtracting. I suppose the truth lies somewhere in the middle then when negative feedback is applied appropriately to not produce the undesired side effects.

Compare the 'best' with the 'best' and see....and not just the amp, but an entire system.
Source, pre/amp and speakers.

I'll bet the BEST of each when properly matched have much more in common than differences. Some of these esoteric differences which I see bandied about, may be unheard in a 'best' system.

Even the best tube amps will fall flat with highly reactive loads of huge impedance swings, while SS has its own limits, maybe when dealing with single driver / full range speakers.

hi magfan:

you make an interesting point regarding differences in sound between "the best of the best" ss and tube amps. i agree with you, but i suspect that such differences will probably be detectable in most cases.

i think it would be interesting for a designer to try to duplicate what bob carver did years ago, when he "fooled" a panel of stereophile's "golden-ears", when he designed a ss amp that could not be distinguished from a cj tube amp by that panel ?

obviously, a particular tube amp would be selected as a bench mark and a ss amp would be designed to sound like the hypothetical tube amp.

can anyone do what bob carver did, again ?

Interesting Mrtennis. It makes me wonder: Do you think there a single set of speakers and components that are capable of revealing everything that the finest examples of each design have to offer?