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Why the hell are tube amps so expensive?


SuBXeRo

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Dukanes using 8 8417s 1.jpg

Well the question was COST---look at the iron and hand wiring as contributions. Nice amps btw.

Cost was actually my point that for well-engineered solid state and well-engineered tube amplifiers the cost would be comparable and was addressed in the remaining portions of my post. For me, it took listening to a First Watt J2 as somthing I liked in comparison to my Yamamoto A-08s and it took a Pass Labs XA30.5 to bring me comparable enjoyment of a set of VRDs. In each of these instances the original selling prices of the solid state amplifiers actually cost more than the original selling prices of the mentioned tube amplifiers.

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All one needs to do is to listen to Jewel's album This Way specifically three songs: (1) Break Me, (2) Serve the Ego, and (3) Grey Matter.

Listen to that on whatever SS system you want.

Then listen to it on a modest tube system - an Eico HF-81 and a pair of Heresies. The difference is - simply put - palpable; not only in that it is easily perceivable, but in that listening to it on that specific combo, you will believe that you could 'touch' her or 'feel' her presence.

Anyone that I have ever demonstrated that particular combination to has walked away stunned and in disbelief.

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One of the things I lke about my setups is that they all sound a litte different. The tube sounds better at higher volume and the class D amps are just ultra clean. I listen more to the system with the big subs. I just like the bass using subs. I only use digital music and I am not a fan of vinyl, mainly for storage issues. One thing about tube gear, it looks good in a system, lol.

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I suspect that the low power chip amps would also have a difficult time driving the DTS-10s or a wall full of 18s too as your last sentence seems to imply, different tools for different jobs can bring the best of both worlds. I found the picture on Audiokarma posted by Sheltie Dave. His description, "I forget the exact number, but I think it was a little over 700 watts at 1 ohm, 510 at 2 ohms, and near 300 watts at 4 ohms. These Dukanes use 8 8417s and weigh too much. The power transformers are almost as big as my feet, the chokes are as big as the transformers on my Scotts." I suspect the Dukanes would drive the DTS-10s.....

While those big monster boat anchors have plenty of power and dip down in impedance to run subwoofers, but, what would be the low end frequency response?

Could they actually push a continuous say...15-20Hz at 300 watts at 4 ohms? Or 500 watts into a 2 ohm subwoofer?

This is where impractical space heater comes to mind. Most the folks around here like horn loaded type subwoofers and woofer bins...having a big Dukane with 8 8417's to power these sort of speakers seems overkill.

It would be interesting to try the Dukanes with a active crossover on some direct radiator type subwoofers, or IB type wall. But it's sure a lot cheaper and more practical to use a SS class D amp or some such...

Edited by mike stehr
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I suspect that the low power chip amps would also have a difficult time driving the DTS-10s or a wall full of 18s too as your last sentence seems to imply, different tools for different jobs can bring the best of both worlds. I found the picture on Audiokarma posted by Sheltie Dave. His description, "I forget the exact number, but I think it was a little over 700 watts at 1 ohm, 510 at 2 ohms, and near 300 watts at 4 ohms. These Dukanes use 8 8417s and weigh too much. The power transformers are almost as big as my feet, the chokes are as big as the transformers on my Scotts." I suspect the Dukanes would drive the DTS-10s.....

While those big monster boat anchors have plenty of power and dip down in impedance to run subwoofers, but, what would be the low end frequency response?

Could they actually push a continuous say...15-20Hz at 300 watts at 4 ohms? Or 500 watts into a 2 ohm subwoofer?

This is where impractical space heater comes to mind. Most the folks around here like horn loaded type subwoofers and woofer bins...having a big Dukane with 8 8417's to power these sort of speakers seems overkill.

It would be interesting to try the Dukanes with a active crossover on some direct radiator type subwoofers, or IB type wall. But it's sure a lot cheaper and more practical to use a SS class D amp or some such...

Good points. I added the Dukanes more from the perspective to show that not all tube amps are low power and that the original post drew out the situation where a low power tube amp could not drive the subs but failed to mention the low power chip amps wouldn't drive those subs either. I haven't really looked at the specs or seen any measurments, but I wonder what the Carver 305 watt tube amplifers would do or a pair of his old silver 7s.

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Don, while I respect your desire to hear what the recording engineer hears, I can't say that I agree with you. So many modern recordings sound like crap because the engineers have put in 10 db of boost at 10 kHz (as one example) that I personally find the sound awful (that thought is shared by many of the guys around here for whom I've had to provide filters to attenuate the highs so they can enjoy the music without the "ear bleed" effect that I've mentioned in other posts.) I don't know anyone who owns equipment with tone controls who doesn't crank the treble way down to make those recordings tolerable. How do you deal with such recordings? I recall a forum member stating a while back that he only buys good quality recordings. That approach is fine, but what about all of the great music out there which is recorded poorly? Anyway, sorry to digress from the original question posted.

Maynard

Let me tell you a little story. Several years ago I too became tired of listening to "poor sounding recordings" so I began to seek remedies to that issue. I tried recapping my Khorn's crossovers and that didn't do it for me. I redesigned the crossovers, changed the slopes to 2nd order, then 3rd order, tried attenuating the mids and tweeters, put new woofers in the bass cabinets, all to no avail. Then I went to biamping and heard a worthwhile improvement. Then I went to triamping with a different HF horn (a CD horn), different crossover points using a digital processor along with time alignment, PEQs and tuned the system with the help of a friend that has a SMAART rig. Guess what? Most of my "poor sounding recordings" suddenly sounded "good". I now own very few recordings that sound "bad" to me.

If one mostly listens to classical recordings made with 2 mics then Khorns with passive crossovers driven by one power amp will probably be sufficient. There is so much diffusion and reverberation in these types of recordings that time alignment doesn't mean much. OTOH, multitrack recordings of rock, jazz, and country, i.e. bands that use amplified instruments, benefit greatly from properly aligned transducers. I think the reason for that is because multiple mics are used and placed within inches of the instrument's speakers. The drums also use multiple mics, one for each drum and cymbal, placed within inches of each sound source. This is done so that each mic picks up the sound from one source, improving clarity and reducing "bleed". Gating is often used to further increase the separation. When recorded in this manner the individual instruments are in effect "time aligned" on the recording media and very "dry" with no diffusion or reverb, contrasted with the acoustically generated 2 mic recording that captures the acoustics of the venue in which the recording was made. With multitrack recordings reverb and echo is added during the mixdown process, so that the engineer has better control of these variables.

I therefore contend that a person listening to recordings made that way through a loudspeaker that is not time aligned cannot possibly hear what the engineer heard. Most of the studio monitors used today are near field monitors that are time aligned and have very flat frequency response at the listening position.

Of course all of this puts a lot on the shoulders of the mixdown engineer. However if one goes to a live concert with a band using amplified instruments then what one hears is sound coming from the PA with mics located inches in front of the sound sources and mixed by fader jockey, so a multitrack recording closely emulates what is heard live. Especially if one is listening through horn loaded speaker systems with full dynamic range similar to what the band is using. :D

IMHO

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Euphonic sound IS accurate sound.

By definition a euphonic amplifier imposes it's own sonic signature on the music. That means it does so on all music that it attempts to reproduce whether you want it to or not. It is anything but accurate.

Engineers listen through mixing monitors or headphones, and of course you're always at the mercy of their hearing, what's left of it. I have no interest in hearing what those clowns hear, for crying out loud, listen to the quality of the crap their putting out.

Well, what else are they going to listen through? Electrodes implanted in the brain hooked directly to the amplifier? Osmosis? An unnamed, unknown mechanism? How are you getting music to listen to then? Recording it yourself?

I don't know why distortion signatures are being discussed. As long as the amp isn't run into the clipping, the distortion signature is of relatively low consequence.

Amplifiers made without using negative feedback, particularly single-ended amplifiers, have smoothly rising distortion curves that can get into the double digit range at low peak power levels (3-5 watts) when playing at normal listening levels. Remember that at least 13 dB (20X power ratio) headroom is necessary to reproduce undistorted peaks.

All of you guys who want "accurate", which basically means sterile, thin, flat, and makes you wince and grit your teeth -- can have it!

"Accurate" means no such thing. It means that the amplifier reproduces what is put into it without adding noise or adding harmonics. If you don't like it, that's cool. But know this; what you do like is distorted sound.

Edited by Don Richard
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Euphonic sound IS accurate sound.

By definition a euphonic amplifier imposes it's own sonic signature on the music. That means it does so on all music that it attempts to reproduce whether you want it to or not. It is anything but accurate.

Engineers listen through mixing monitors or headphones, and of course you're always at the mercy of their hearing, what's left of it. I have no interest in hearing what those clowns hear, for crying out loud, listen to the quality of the crap their putting out.

Well, what else are they going to listen through? Electrodes implanted in the brain hooked directly to the amplifier? Osmosis? An unnamed, unknown mechanism? How are you getting music to listen to then? Recording it yourself?

I don't know why distortion signatures are being discussed. As long as the amp isn't run into the clipping, the distortion signature is of relatively low consequence.

Amplifiers made without using negative feedback, particularly single-ended amplifiers, have smoothly rising distortion curves that can get into the double digit range at low peak power levels (3-5 watts) when playing at normal listening levels. Remember that at least 13 dB (20X power ratio) headroom is necessary to reproduce undistorted peaks.

All of you guys who want "accurate", which basically means sterile, thin, flat, and makes you wince and grit your teeth -- can have it!

"Accurate" means no such thing. It means that the amplifier reproduces what is put into it without adding noise or adding harmonics. If you don't like it, that's cool. But know this; what you do like is distorted sound.

None of which has anything to do with the question posed in this thread. Tubes generally aren't any more expensive than their SS counterparts. There's something out there for every budget, you just have to hunt around and decide what works for your ears/room/speakers/etc.

More importantly, I think, is why we spend all this time and money chasing down gear to reproduce the studio when all we have to do is go out and buy the same stuff recording studios use to make the damn discs. Ah yes, personal preference.

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Well, the beauty of using tube power amps on Klipsch Heritage is that you can keep down the wattage 10-35 Watts per channel is plenty good. So if you get one from China, you can have the "tube sound" pretty cheap since the power requirements are not as high as non-Klipsch speakers.

Edited by ClaudeJ1
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Well, the beauty of using tube power amps on Klipsch Heritage is that you can keep down the wattage 10-35 Watts per channel is plenty good. So if you get one from China, you can have the "tube sound" pretty cheap since the power requirements are not as high as non-Klipsch speakers.

Lets say you are bi-amping or even tri-amping these highly efficient systems. You can get buy on much less power. For tweeter and mid you could run a sweet 45 tubes. My dream combo is a Brook PP 2a3 tube amp on the bass bin and a pair of 50 SETs amp on the other horns. Throw in a PLLXO and you could be in miliamp territory.

I recently heard my jubs bi-amped with 2a3 set amps and I was reminded just how good SET amps can sound. It was the best I've heard my Jubilees to date. There was no lacking in top or bottom end.. Kaiser even made me play Roy's cd. lol.. We were listening 100db peaks but mostly around 90db. The room 12ft x 15ft and 11.5 ft ceiling.

I've tried chip amps and it was a poor experience. I wanted to like them but after a month I wanted better quality sound. I ultimately destroyed them trying to modify them lol...

Cheap amps will usually sound cheap whether solid state or tubes. There ain't no free lunch.

If you want to see someone building modern high end tube amps check out Thomas Mayer.

http://vinylsavor.blogspot.com/

To each his own if we all liked the same thing this would be a very boring forum.

Edited by seti
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Class D amps fascinate me as do the chip amps but I would rather a class D over tripath from the various feedback i've read over the years. Class D has its place and I can't really justify it in home unless i need a major space savings and chip amps are well...not worth it to me. Personally, I think that the G or H switching technologies is an excellent compromise for sound quality and efficiency. I have arc audio amps in my car with class g or h tech and i notice a huge difference with headlight dimming versus another regular a/b i had in there not to mention the sound quality is better, way better.

I don't think that the class D tech is totally there yet. I know there are major brands using the tech and are making really good stuff but it isn't widespread enough yet. There is just something wrong to me about chopping the sound wave apart/ Its like when i upload music through ITunes, i never have it chop out the sub bass frequencies.

Edited by SuBXeRo
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I don't think that the class D tech is totally there yet. There is just something wrong to me about chopping the sound wave apart/ Its like when i upload music through ITunes, i never have it chop out the sub bass frequencies.

I am not sure I understand that observation? are you under the impression class D means class "Digital"?

just curious.

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Some of those Chinese chip amps remind me of those dirt cheap car power amplifiers one would buy at a car parts outlet for like 20 bucks or so. They are powered by 12-14 volts like a car amp...the only difference is they have a volume control. When I see the circuits of some of these amps, they appear to be using a power op amplifier module, or some sort of power amp module. Not really a newfound amplifier topology I would guess.

I bought a Sonic Impact Tri-path amp years ago, it was more of a novelty thing with regard to quality sound. Like it sounded good for what it was, but overall it had a processed sound that I eventually bored of. I did do some mods, larger decoupling caps, deleted the volume pot, and put the circuit in a metal case. like Seti, in the end I smoked it.

That was years ago, and I know that there is way better offerings today. Or way more...

Are not some of the chip amps class AB?

Then there is the switching type amplifiers modules, like Tri-path. Is that class D?

Class H and G?

Edited by mike stehr
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I don't think that the class D tech is totally there yet. There is just something wrong to me about chopping the sound wave apart/ Its like when i upload music through ITunes, i never have it chop out the sub bass frequencies.

I am not sure I understand that observation? are you under the impression class D means class "Digital"?

just curious.

Class D, as to my understanding, suffers when the sine wave is converted into a square wave and this is where audio signals can get truncated and some signal is lost that isn't necessarily essential. The next thing is the switching of the amp for full range vs subwoofers where the sub ranges don't really suffer.

Some of those Chinese chip amps remind me of those dirt cheap car power amplifiers one would buy at a car parts outlet for like 20 bucks or so. They are powered by 12-14 volts like a car amp...the only difference is they have a volume control. When I see the circuits of some of these amps, they appear to be using a power op amplifier module, or some sort of power amp module. Not really a newfound amplifier topology I would guess.

I bought a Sonic Impact Tri-path amp years ago, it was more of a novelty thing with regard to quality sound. Like it sounded good for what it was, but overall it had a processed sound that I eventually bored of. I did do some mods, larger decoupling caps, deleted the volume pot, and put the circuit in a metal case. like Seti, in the end I smoked it.

That was years ago, and I know that there is way better offerings today. Or way more...

Are not some of the chip amps class AB?

Then there is the switching type amplifiers modules, like Tri-path. Is that class D?

Class H and G?

Class G and H have different voltage rails that can be ridden for different power requirements and to keep things efficient. It is essentially an AB circuit but with variable or fixed different voltage rails. The trade off is distortion at the higher rails but the distortion should be inaudible because of the higher volumes. At low volumes its basically the AB design and as you increase volume, the switching between rails is almost completely instantaneous, there is a millisecond delay but its inaudible. I can't hear it in my amps.

The new big *** emotiva amps are using g or h technology. if they didn't the transformer would probably weigh 200 pounds

Edited by SuBXeRo
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