Why people like tube gear-interesting thread

[moktan]

what you say is correct..but then an electric guitar is a different and surely a much more wilder animal as compared to the tamer acoustic version....what Jimi did with it was therefore more electric than guitar, to borrow an old journalistic cliche..in his and other similar cases the amp, the wa wa and other distortion inducing electric paraphernalia were as much of a musical instrument as the guitar(or as a wag wrote..'guitar feedback and odd meters ..'are' ..the rock equivalent of chamber instruments')...surely we are into another purist vs ......debate of a different sort...

p.s. ravenstine the keyboardist of David Thomas's Per Ubu was considered to be a pioneer of the synthesizer, the main reason being that he supposedly 'played' this instrument as a 'thing in it self' as opposed to a piano or an organ.....

 

[suri]

what you say is correct..but then an electric guitar is a different and surely a much more wilder animal as compared to the tamer acoustic version....what Jimi did with it was therefore more electric than guitar, to borrow an old journalistic cliche..in his and other similar cases the amp, the wa wa and other distortion inducing electric paraphernalia were as much of a musical instrument as the guitar(or as a wag wrote..'guitar feedback and odd meters into the rock equivalent of chamber instruments')...surely we are into another purist vs ......debate of a different sort...

p.s. ravenstine the keyboardist of David Thomas's Per Ubu was considered to be a pioneer of the synthesizer, the main reason being that he supposedly 'played' this instrument as a 'thing in it self' as opposed to a piano or an organ.....

all geniuses, these guys are in a class of one!

 

[kaushik]

I have observed that just because a tube pre-amp is in the chain ,the end result may not be significant improvements

Well designed SS gear can do wonders.
Good Tube Amps are costly ,but i would love to keep a small tube bedside amp, will obviously be a diy unit .

 

[thevortex]

As Americans would say, it is a slam dunk in favour of tube gear - for me!

I have lived with Marantz and NAD amps in the past. The 2A3 amp was a new dimension. The 2A3 has the most detail that I have ever heard from any setup - price no bar. And it has a way of bringing that detail in with utmost musicality and not in a business-like sort of fashion - if you know what I mean. I have been meaning to write a review about my experience with the tube amp for quite some time now. Lets see when I break out of my lazy mold.

I am nowhere near as technical as Cranky. But what I can say is that I do not detect any rolling off of the highs or any distortion of any kind. But what I will acknowledge is the reduction in overall volume levels. I am talking about maximum volume levels of course. Mine is a personal audio system and I like my audio system entertaining me as opposed to my neighbours . So, I am pretty happy with the volume levels that I am getting from my amp till now. Also talking about bass, never have the lower frequencies excited me so viscerally as with the tube amp. There has been so much going on behind the scenes even in my favourite songs and I never had a clue about that with my earlier amps. I do not mean to berate all solid state amps based on my admittedly very meagre experience. Lets just say that this tube amp beats all other amplifiers I have heard. Arcam, Musical Fidelity, NAD, Marantz et al.

Lastly simplicity is something which appeals to me in a big way. I prefer riding a simple machine - Enfield Bullet - to so many other technologically advanced bikes that we have. There are so many reasons for that. But to hardcore bikers it would appear fairly suicidal to ride what is known as an 'almost antique' kind of bike. Big deal! So, we disagree. But even the hardcore bikers see some sense when I drive 400-450 kms non stop and alight from the bike, sprightly as ever when they are happy to get their butts off the seat. Like most people here say, its all a perspective. Different people have different ones. And like with all perspectives nothing is immune to change.

 

[square_wave]

I think it all depends on the implementation.

There are many mushy sounding SS designs and very clean sounding tube gear and Vice versa.

At budget levels it is easy to design cleaner sounding SS gear than tube gear. If price is not a criterion you can make superb sounding implementations with Vacuum tubes too.

I have heard some very clean measuring SS gear making sounds which does not resemble anything close to accurate music. It was making very impersonal clinical sounds. If I listen to live music, it does not sound impersonal. So something must be wrong. But I have heard SS gear sound very good too. I guess implementation was right this time.

There are two measuring devices. The engineering device as well as your brain. If a device which measure well in a lab is not liked by the brain, then there is something wrong with the measurements or we may not be measuring the right things.
Two similar measuring equipment does not sound very similar. Why ? Most have TDH levels which are inaudible to the human ear but they sound dissimilar.

I feel there is something more to all this apart from what we usually measure. IMHO, stay with what sounds beautiful to you.

Both are good if done right !

 

[anm]

what speakers have you paired it with? It is a 1.5wpc amp, isn't it?

regards

As Americans would say, it is a slam dunk in favour of tube gear - for me!

I have lived with Marantz and NAD amps in the past. The 2A3 amp was a new dimension. The 2A3 has the most detail that I have ever heard from any setup - price no bar. And it has a way of bringing that detail in with utmost musicality and not in a business-like sort of fashion - if you know what I mean. I have been meaning to write a review about my experience with the tube amp for quite some time now. Lets see when I break out of my lazy mold.

I am nowhere near as technical as Cranky. But what I can say is that I do not detect any rolling off of the highs or any distortion of any kind. But what I will acknowledge is the reduction in overall volume levels. I am talking about maximum volume levels of course. Mine is a personal audio system and I like my audio system entertaining me as opposed to my neighbours . So, I am pretty happy with the volume levels that I am getting from my amp till now. Also talking about bass, never have the lower frequencies excited me so viscerally as with the tube amp. There has been so much going on behind the scenes even in my favourite songs and I never had a clue about that with my earlier amps. I do not mean to berate all solid state amps based on my admittedly very meagre experience. Lets just say that this tube amp beats all other amplifiers I have heard. Arcam, Musical Fidelity, NAD, Marantz et al.

Lastly simplicity is something which appeals to me in a big way. I prefer riding a simple machine - Enfield Bullet - to so many other technologically advanced bikes that we have. There are so many reasons for that. But to hardcore bikers it would appear fairly suicidal to ride what is known as an 'almost antique' kind of bike. Big deal! So, we disagree. But even the hardcore bikers see some sense when I drive 400-450 kms non stop and alight from the bike, sprightly as ever when they are happy to get their butts off the seat. Like most people here say, its all a perspective. Different people have different ones. And like with all perspectives nothing is immune to change.

 

[thevortex]

what speakers have you paired it with? It is a 1.5wpc amp, isn't it?

regards

Well, its far more powerful than what you say. Its all of 2.5 Watts! A full Watt more powerful.

What one can do with a Watt of power has been a revelation to me in these few months truly.

I have the amp paired with my EPOS M12.2 speakers. And these are only rated at 87 db sensitivity although they are a light enough load at 8 ohms.

 

[stevieboy]

congrats vortex!

good to hear you're enjoying your amp. its the lyrita 2A3 set right? your speakers are also supposed to have a simple crossover hence it helps with a low power tube amp. good match!

regards

 

[thevortex]

congrats vortex!

good to hear you're enjoying your amp. its the lyrita 2A3 set right? your speakers are also supposed to have a simple crossover hence it helps with a low power tube amp. good match!

regards

Thanks Stevie. And yes, it is the Lyrita SET 2A3 amp.

 

[sachi]

Thanks Stevie. And yes, it is the Lyrita SET 2A3 amp.

How much does that SET cost..? WOnder if he would be willing to make a SET for headphone duty..

 

[thevortex]

How much does that SET cost..? WOnder if he would be willing to make a SET for headphone duty..

Viren Bakshi - owner of Lyrita Audio - is also a member of this forum. His ID is Viren. Please write to him regarding price. I could give it to you of course, but the best and probably the right thing would be for you to contact him.

To answer your question, he has been kind enough to build a pre-out for me to connect my EPOS subwoofer. So, I am sure he can do the headphone outs for you. But it is best to check with him.

 

[stevieboy]

How much does that SET cost..? WOnder if he would be willing to make a SET for headphone duty..

he does make a headphone amp you can check with him.

regards

EDIT: like kamal in his other thread on the delhi meet, i'm gonna mention the price cos his stuff is so affordable and the more people know about it the better! comparative gear costs double! the set amp is in the 45k range.

 

[Rajiv]

Hi,

Similar thread at AudioKarma.

The "Tube" sound - AudioKarma.org Home Audio Stereo Discussion Forums

As Viren mentioned in his post it is all about system matching.

Members are welcome to drop by and listen for themselves how loud, dynamic,musical and emotionaly satisfying (without sounding soggy in the bass or rolled off at the highs) a system based around a 1.5 watt tube amplifer can sound .

Regards
Rajiv

 

[unleash_me]

Hi Rajiv, Is this your system being discussed here?

 

[Rajiv]

Hi Rajiv, Is this your system being discussed here?

Hi Unleash-Me,

Yes.

Since then I have changed the crossover Caps, and done some tube rolling which has improved(I think) the system since the time Bala and S.R.Ramanujam heard it.

Regards
Rajiv

 

[thevortex]

Hi Rajiv, Is this your system being discussed here?

Unleash_me - that is yours truly's blog site. I have also placed a copy of that article here in the articles section.

 

[thevortex]

Hi Unleash-Me,

Yes.

Since then I have changed the crossover Caps, and done some tube rolling which has improved(I think) the system since the time Bala and S.R.Ramanujam heard it.

Regards
Rajiv

Rajiv,

Raghu told me your setup is amazing now. I should come visit you sometime and see how it goes.

And when are you going to move to a HDD based system?

 

[thevortex]

he does make a headphone amp you can check with him.

regards

EDIT: like kamal in his other thread on the delhi meet, i'm gonna mention the price cos his stuff is so affordable and the more people know about it the better! comparative gear costs double! the set amp is in the 45k range.

+1 to that! In fact I am willing to go out on a limb here and claim that there cannot be a better stereo amplifier available at that price. Not that I know too much about these things. But whatever little I have experienced of amps leads me to believe this. In fact I would be shocked if I were to find an amp - solid state or tube - of comparable quality at the same price.

 

[unleash_me]

Unleash_me - that is yours truly's blog site. I have also placed a copy of that article here in the articles section.

Hey that's cool man. Nice write-up!

Even though I haven't heard them, I was advocating the lyrita amp to a colleague the other day who is apparently smitten by my new tube house, but would like to take less expensive baby steps. He dug this up!

Will surely keep an eye on that blog form now on

 

[hifiashok]

Well, its far more powerful than what you say. Its all of 2.5 Watts! A full Watt more powerful.

What one can do with a Watt of power has been a revelation to me in these few months truly.

I have the amp paired with my EPOS M12.2 speakers. And these are only rated at 87 db sensitivity although they are a light enough load at 8 ohms.

+1 to this. hearing what the Sun Audio SV-2A3 SET (3.5W) did with the Avant Garde Duos (104/107 dB/W/m) took the meaning of a watt to a different level altogether (the duos having an active sub notwithstanding). some of us have been fortunate to hear virenji's options too, with similar experiences. of course, no powered sub-woofer in the Amitys!!