tubes are evil

[Marvel]

Every single stinkin' time you looked at your Corns you would hear a very lingering sound that played very much like that tune you can't get out of your head. Worse yet is the constant message you say to yourself about needing to spend the money on something else like a retirement fund or a badly needed new set of tires or another Viagra refill (wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......). Seriously - it's almost debilitating.

Chris Robinson let me listen to Corns on tubes and he is forever out of my will.

Tom

That is soooooo funny! I can't tell you how freakin' real the music sounds with my Moondogs.

Bruce

[dtel]

Hangin' in there, dtel! I have a consultation with the anesthesiologist tomorrow, but can't get my epidural until the 22nd! Arggghh!

Hope you get so relief soon.

[dtel]

dtel - You were very wise not to allow that POS tube amp to get any where near your Cornwalls. Seriously, you didn't miss a thing. All that would've happened had you done that would've been the same thing that happened to me............

Every single stinkin' time you looked at your Corns you would hear a very lingering sound that played very much like that tune you can't get out of your head. Worse yet is the constant message you say to yourself about needing to spend the money on something else like a retirement fund or a badly needed new set of tires or another Viagra refill (wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......). Seriously - it's almost debilitating.

Chris Robinson let me listen to Corns on tubes and he is forever out of my will.

Tom

That's funny

I know every time I look at the Cornwalls now I think how they would sound on tubes. [] If I only had another room, and a bunch of $.

I was looking up tube preamps........the prices are crazy, does anyone make a poor persons model ? [+o(]

Viagra........I am going to give it a try one day, I might like it ? Or if I could just be 20 again, that would work !

[Wrinkles]

For a poor persons model you may want to consider building one from a kit.

As an example, take a look at the Bottlehead site. I have built many of their kits. And as upgrades are designed, you can increase you sonic pleasure incrementally.

I have put together their older Foreplay 1 preamp, their older Paramour monoblock 2A3, their Seduction phono preamp and have a pair of their Straight 8 line array speakers. The directions are easy to follow and there is a forum you can ask questions on if your build runs into a snag. And it was fun building them.

http://www.bottlehead.com/store.php

Wrinkles

[Tom Adams]

dtel - You were very wise not to allow that POS tube amp to get any where near your Cornwalls. Seriously, you didn't miss a thing. All that would've happened had you done that would've been the same thing that happened to me............

Every single stinkin' time you looked at your Corns you would hear a very lingering sound that played very much like that tune you can't get out of your head. Worse yet is the constant message you say to yourself about needing to spend the money on something else like a retirement fund or a badly needed new set of tires or another Viagra refill (wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......wife/sex or tubes......). Seriously - it's almost debilitating.

Chris Robinson let me listen to Corns on tubes and he is forever out of my will.

Tom

That's funny

I know every time I look at the Cornwalls now I think how they would sound on tubes. If I only had another room, and a bunch of $.

I was looking up tube preamps........the prices are crazy, does anyone make a poor persons model ?

Viagra........I am going to give it a try one day, I might like it ? Or if I could just be 20 again, that would work !

Tubes would be cheaper than the Viagra prescrip - trust me.

Unless you're on Medicade. Which then means you can have tubes AND s*x.

Hmmmm......I think I've just stumbled onto a plan.....

Tom

[dtel]

For a poor persons model you may want to consider building one from a kit.

As an example, take a look at the Bottlehead site. I have built many of their kits. And as upgrades are designed, you can increase you sonic pleasure incrementally.

I have put together their older Foreplay 1 preamp, their older Paramour monoblock 2A3, their Seduction phono preamp and have a pair of their Straight 8 line array speakers. The directions are easy to follow and there is a forum you can ask questions on if your build runs into a snag. And it was fun building them.

http://www.bottlehead.com/store.php

Wrinkles

With good instructions I could do that, I guess, I would need to practice soldering first.

Thanks

[dtel]

Tubes would be cheaper than the Viagra prescrip - trust me.

Unless you're on Medicade. Which then means you can have tubes AND s*x.

Hmmmm......I think I've just stumbled onto a plan.....

Tom

Well I will have to stick with standard s*x if it's that expensive.

At some of the prices I had seen for some tube preamps if I spent that much I would not need Viagra for sure, she wouldn't even talk to me.

[Marvel]

Well I will have to stick with standard s*x if it's that expensive.

At some of the prices I had seen for some tube preamps if I spent that much I would not need Viagra for sure, she wouldn't even talk to me.

Now THAT is funny! []

[fini]

For a poor persons model you may want to consider building one from a kit.

As an example, take a look at the Bottlehead site. I have built many of their kits. And as upgrades are designed, you can increase you sonic pleasure incrementally.

I have put together their older Foreplay 1 preamp, their older Paramour monoblock 2A3, their Seduction phono preamp and have a pair of their Straight 8 line array speakers. The directions are easy to follow and there is a forum you can ask questions on if your build runs into a snag. And it was fun building them.

http://www.bottlehead.com/store.php

Wrinkles

Wrinkles,

Bottlehead's brand new headphone amp has me thinkin'...

[mike stehr]

If you are really poor, you kinda figure out how things work. And then scrounge up a piece here and a piece there, and find things like DC tube power supplies. Good quality output transformers make a big difference. Having multiple primary taps is nice for the audio tweeker.

I was fortunate enough to come across some RCA ST 45's for a reasonable price from Craigslist.

So I lashed up a 45 SET amp, with a 6SL7 SRPP driver, AC heated. It's got somewhat boutique parts in there...Russian military coupling caps, a couple Nichicon Muse caps, and James HS 6123 universal output transformers.

Looks like hell, but my Cornwalls sound pretty awesome.

[dtel]

No thanks Mike, I would electrocute myself and set the house on fire. [:-*]

[seti]

No thanks Mike, I would electrocute myself and set the house on fire.

I would set the house on fire and electrocute myself.

[BE36]

JM Peach with good SS amp sounds great for 2 channel. Listened to this for hours with an at BSButton place when I picked up La Scalas. Female vocals were Outstanding.

Peach can be had for less the $800 and has a pass through for HT system.

If I were smarter I would have built a system around a Peach instead an could have saved some $s.

But I do not mind have a McIntosh Pre.

[kaiser SET say]

A tube preamp makes a bigger difference than tube power amp. That is from what I have experienced so far Tube preamp and solid state power can be a great match.... If others have opposite experiences please share. Not every scenerio is the same.

That's good to know, that would make it easy for me. I thought it was the opposite, but I have 0 experience with tubes.

Hold on I'll ask......

HEY EVERYONE IS THIS THE GENERAL THOUGHT THAT THE PRE-AMP MAKES THAT MUCH DIFFERENCE ?

sometimes you have to get there attention first.

Hold on here, I did not make that statement about tube pre being better with an SS amps! That was Seti, although I have that configuration I don't believe it sounds any better than a tube VK-60 would sound on my setup. Maybe a little more bottom end the way I have it[^o)] The VK-60 with a VK-20 SS pre is a very nice sounding pair[]

[dtel]

A tube preamp makes a bigger difference than tube power amp. That is from what I have experienced so far Tube preamp and solid state power can be a great match.... If others have opposite experiences please share. Not every scenerio is the same.

That's good to know, that would make it easy for me. I thought it was the opposite, but I have 0 experience with tubes.

Hold on I'll ask......

HEY EVERYONE IS THIS THE GENERAL THOUGHT THAT THE PRE-AMP MAKES THAT MUCH DIFFERENCE ?

sometimes you have to get there attention first.

Hold on here, I did not make that statement about tube pre being better with an SS amps! That was Seti, although I have that configuration I don't believe it sounds any better than a tube VK-60 would sound on my setup. Maybe a little more bottom end the way I have it The VK-60 with a VK-20 SS pre is a very nice sounding pair

No, it was Seti who said that, I was saying it's good to know a tube pre-amp makes that much difference. I was thinking the only way to get some of that tube sound was with the amp, I did not think a tube pre-amp would do much toward that "tube" sound.

[neo33]

I would electrocute the house and set myself on fire. []

No thanks Mike, I would electrocute myself and set the house on fire.

I would set the house on fire and electrocute myself.

[seti]

Why would a tube preamp be so sonically different from a SS preamp? Here's why.

Although many people view a preamp as a mere "switch box" - a selector switch for all your source inputs - that's only a minor function of the preamp. Perhaps the confusion begins with the prefix "pre" before "amplifier?" It isn't really "pre" amplification, it is AMPLIFICATION which occurs before a power amplifier!

In the case of our "preamp" - it does MOST of the work by far of increasing voltage in the signal chain. From 'source to speaker' the voltage of a phono cartridge must be raised by a factor of about 10,000X! A full 3/4 of that heavy lifting will be done in the preamp, and about 1/4 in the power amp. That is a lot of work to be done in the lowly preamp.

This lifting job - to make a signal bigger by some 10,000 times or more - is a transfer function - a physical process that can be defined by equations. Energy from the 120V wall outlet must be grafted onto the tiny signal in a way which only makes the signal bigger, but without making it different! Well, try simply doubling anything you can think of without changing any of it's character. Then, try scaling it up by 10,000 times!

So, in fact, it isn't possible to transfer energy making a small signal larger without distorting something - making it slightly different. This means, transfer functions are not linear. And whatever is not linear adds distortion. They don't simply multiply, they also "add & subtract." And to make matters a bit worse, the more you try to MULTIPLY, the more junk the transfer function wants to add and subtract! Multiply by 2, and you get a very small addition of distortion. Multiply by 2,000 and you get a much greater addition of distortion. And this is true no matter how you do the transfer. You can do it with tubes, you can do it with ICs, you can do it with transistors, and it always "adds & subtracts" as well as multiplies.

So, the reason preamps "sound different" from each other is because of the additions and subtractions which take place during multiplication of the signal. Triode tubes, pentode tubes, IC OpAmps, bipolar transistors, FETs all have different non-linear transfer functions. They all add and subtract different stuff to the final signal. What you are hearing when you compare one preamp to another is the difference in transfer function. It's like 5 guys make chicken soup using the same recipe, but different chickens, different noodles and different stock. The 5 soups will taste different.

So, power amps sound different because multiplying current is difficult and non-linear, and preamps sound different because multiplying voltage is difficult and non-linear. Together? Egads, an infinite mix of different sounds!

Ah! Very well done. Thanks

[fini]

Another post from Mark to print out and save!

I swear, you could make good money teaching this stuff. I would SO dig a week-long seminar with hands-on audio electronic builds. My wife goes off twice a year for week-long quilting adventures. I know, it'd be a ton of work, but it would be so fun (for me!). Hmm, The Zen of Circuits...

[fini]

Great schedule there! To save more time for first aid, we might combine Testing It All Out with Mass. I've been to a few masses with the in-laws, and during testing we will surely find some smoking projects that you could swing around by the cords...

[artto]

So, power amps sound different because multiplying current is difficult and non-linear, and preamps sound different because multiplying voltage is difficult and non-linear. Together? Egads, an infinite mix of different sounds!

So, let's see. Today, I think I'll have some banana strawberry with carmel and pistachios.

Tomorrow, I might have chocolate cookie dough with macadamia nuts.

Yesterday it was butter pecan with black cherries.

It's all ice cream. It all came from the same place. Just different flavors. Mmmmmmmmm

Tonight I think I'll try some 2A3 SET with vinyl.

[^]