Jump to content

Why the hell are tube amps so expensive?


SuBXeRo

Recommended Posts

All aspects of sound REproduction as opposed to sound production are measurable a repeatable.

Which sound are you reproducing in this comment? Are you talking about playing discs, or something else?

Pink noise. It contains all the music ever written! Still not relevant to the cost and peformance of tube amps. You need to start a new thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Everyone interested in enough to spend thousands of dollars for a home music system (HMS), and then spend hours arguing about it on internet forums, should spend a day with a luthier building a guitar paying special attention to how the maker knows when the instrument sounds right.

Some useful axioms for talking about our home music systems:

1. If it sounds good to you, it sounds good. The reason this is axiomatic is not always obvious as it should be. It means simply that there is no reference or universally agreed right sound. If you were in the business to make rulers, a 12" ruler would be right, when it measures exactly 12" by a universal standard which anyone can use. There is no such reference for a home music system. Making a HMS is like making chicken soup. Lots of recipes, lots of technique, lots of different styles, tastes. You like the one you like, and just because Wolfgang Puck makes it differently doesn't mean much.

2. The input is itself a black box. Not only is there no reference for output of an HMS, there is no reference for the input. We can not look at a CD or an LP and know what the output should be. Worse yet, and this is essential to appreciate, the CD/LP does not contain any particular output as observed by human senses. Worse even yet, you can not take the CD/LP and recreate the inputs which created it.

3. You are the actual sound engineer, not the guy in the studio. He is an intermediary. He is bundling the inputs up onto a convenient distribution mechanism to be sold to the end user. When you get the CD/LP, you finish the job he started by selecting an HMS let this material flow back into acoustic energy, from which it began. You are the important final artist in this chain of events.

When you use a home music system, you are making the music, not 'playing music back.' This is not semantics. Music is an acoustic phenomena only. A sheet of notes is not music. A piece of plastic with dots or grooves is not music. Music is the melodious beautiful sound - the stuff coming out of your speakers. A home music system is like a fancy player piano. You put a 'roll' in and hit the play button and music comes out. Here's where the visit to the luthier comes into play. What's he doing to make the instrument sound 'right?' What tools is he using to tune the final product? How does it compare to what some other luthier might be doing? How do guitarist customers choose which instrument to buy and use?

A successful HMS is a musical instrument. It takes electro-mechanical impressions of some previous musical event and creates a new, original musical event in your room. One that was maybe never heard before by any other human being and may never be heard again. It is not the same one that occurred on the day it was captured and transformed into electro-mechanical storage. But it has the ingredients you can use emulate it.

Not much relevance to your points concerning black boxes vs. wood boxes with strings suspended across a cavity as to the suject of this thread, which is the high price of devices that have a voltage based transfer function.

I think it is perfectly relevant. Guitars can be mass produced with all the wrong materials, and made very cheaply. They sound as you would expect. A luthier does have certain expectations when building a guitar, as do musicians seeking an instrument. Nuances in tone can always be expected, the same as in an amplifier.

Bruce

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it is perfectly relevant. Guitars can be mass produced with all the wrong materials, and made very cheaply. They sound as you would expect. A luthier does have certain expectations when building a guitar, as do musicians seeking an instrument. Nuances in tone can always be expected, the same as in an amplifier.

The few luthiers I have known would never agree that a machine-made guitar - made to precision dimensions with uniform materials - could ever be considered a serious instrument. That's not too surprising, after all, it is how they make a living. What is more important is that the bulk of musicians demand and pay for this level of human subjectivity. They're keeping luthiers very busy.

A Stradivarius comes to mind as I read this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All aspects of sound REproduction as opposed to sound production are measurable a repeatable.

Which sound are you reproducing in this comment? Are you talking about playing discs, or something else?

Pink noise. It contains all the music ever written! Still not relevant to the cost and peformance of tube amps. You need to start a new thread.

Pink noise? So, with respect to your comment above: "All aspects of sound REproduction as opposed to sound production are measurable a repeatable." you use pink noise as your repeatable measure? How do you apply that?

I was actually joking. But you really did not address the issue of cost of tubes. For some people the cost is worth it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2. The input is itself a black box. Not only is there no reference for output of an HMS, there is no reference for the input. We can not look at a CD or an LP and know what the output should be. Worse yet, and this is essential to appreciate, the CD/LP does not contain any particular output as observed by human senses. Worse even yet, you can not take the CD/LP and recreate the inputs which created it.

Actually, you can these days. The guy who helped me align my system used SMAART. SMAART is a dual FFT based measurement system most often used for live sound. There is a component of that system called "transfer function", IIRC, that compares the acoustic output of a system with the input to the system. The delays are corrected so that the input and output curves can be overlaid and compared in real time. We split the input to my HMS, as you say, and compared that to the mic input. My friend looked at the curves that were jumping around, froze them, and the ins and outs were nearly perfectly aligned.

Of course one cannot examine a CD, tape, or LP visually and hear music. Thank you so much for pointing out this obvious fact. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it is perfectly relevant. Guitars can be mass produced with all the wrong materials, and made very cheaply. They sound as you would expect. A luthier does have certain expectations when building a guitar, as do musicians seeking an instrument. Nuances in tone can always be expected, the same as in an amplifier.

The few luthiers I have known would never agree that a machine-made guitar - made to precision dimensions with uniform materials - could ever be considered a serious instrument. That's not too surprising, after all, it is how they make a living. What is more important is that the bulk of musicians demand and pay for this level of human subjectivity. They're keeping luthiers very busy.

They should get around more. ;) I realize there are $60k guitars, and more. But what about a $12k guitar. Try out a James Olson (James Taylor plays one), he only makes about 30-40 per year, by himself. They start at that price and go up. He uses a CNC machine to cut a lot of the parts. As does C.F. Martin and Taylor Guitars. They use a machine for the precision cut and fit of the parts and do hand work where it matters. You can look at the tone woods like capacitors and such, to get the sound you want. Or the bracing.

Most small shop luthiers would use a CNC and laser cutter if they could afford them, because they can make better, more consistent instruments that way. Sure, hand shave the braces, pick this wood for the top, make it this thick, that's the tuning of the instrument.

We are in a magnificent Golden Age of instrument making, not just guitars. Even my Taylor 812C would cost me close to $5k if I wanted Taylor to replicate it. But it wouldn't sound the same as the one I have, because it's made of organic materials. But it would play the same and fret the same. The intonation would be the same. My Taylor has my old '51 Martin D-18 beat, hands down. It is a great guitar, but the Taylor plays better because they used machines to help them build it.

Wood isn't a uniform material, so tossing that in the mix is flawed. There are acoustic guitars made of carbon fiber. You wouldn't know it if you heard one.

Attached is a pic of an Olson. Nice! I wanted to get one once. Not a serious instrument? Really?

Rant off...

Bruce

post-5045-0-50520000-1389912183_thumb.jp

Edited by Marvel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you so much for pointing out this obvious fact

I point it out because it is the only fact that has any importance when people play CDs and LPs.

Just what is it you think is on the CD or the LP?

Information.

Loosely, yes. But that information is strictly limited. It is just the sounds of two studio speakers. Not much beyond that. Suppose the recording was a rock and roll record and featured five musicians. Would the disc tell you anything about the performance space? Not reliably. Would it tell you anything about the physical relationship between the musicians? Not reliably. Would it tell you anything about the interaction between musicians? Not reliably. Would it sound anything like when you heard them play in a stadium? In a club? Not reliably. Would it tell you anything about loudness? No. So, this "information" is pretty much limited to "the sound coming out of two studio monitors." If you want to accurately duplicate that sound, what's the logical next step? The next step is just to buy a pair of those studio monitors and the same amp they use and be done with it. It doesn't get any more accurate than that, and it doesn't get any simpler than that. You're done.

Notice that you are trying to duplicate the sound of other speakers, not other instruments, like guitars or flutes, but speakers. When you say the recording engineer is the performer, you are quite right. And the instrument he plays is a studio loudspeaker. You want your speaker to sound like his speaker? Well just go get a pair of his.

Is that the objective of most people who enjoy playing CD/LPs in their living room? Is that what they want to do? Some, yes. But most are trying to do something else. They are trying to create an illusion in their room that actual musicians are having a performance in their room. They want the room to be a performance space that is believable for the musicians they are wanting to hear, playing the material they want to hear. They want an illusion of what they hear happening in real performances where all the musicians are together at once, playing off each other. That's a musical performance. That's not the "information" on a CD/LP. The CD doesn't represent, capture or store a musical performance. There is no performance space. There is absolutely nothing but the sound of two studio monitors flopping away. Who knows how those sounds were generated? Where they were generated? A mix is an abstraction of musical performance, not a copy, reproduction, facsimile, or duplicate of one.

Once you leave the idea of using the same studio monitors that are the source of the information on the CD/LP, you are in the business of creating musical performance illusions, and the only useful reference point is one's own imagination about how musical performance should sound.

EDIT:

I think of the process like this.

Musical performances ---->Black Box Abstraction and Wall--------->|Commercial CD or LP

You can not use the CD/LP to understand anything real or factual about the musical performance on the left of the black box. You can't see behind the wall in any meaningful way. Using 32 mics, multiple performance spaces, and gross time shifting to create two signal channels is an abstraction of the left hand process. Black box is an unknown process.

Commercial CD or LP------->White Box Processor------------> Illusion of musical performance in the home.

The white box is a set of known algorithms with controls. Amps, EQ, tonearms, types of speaker boxes, crossovers, cone materials, horn shapes, all the elements of processing that the user can define to produce the output on the right. The white box is transparent.

Wow. All of those words just to say this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj73yYe3AY8

Link to comment
Share on other sites

. They use a machine for the precision cut and fit of the parts and do hand work where it matters. You can look at the tone woods like capacitors and such, to get the sound you want. Or the bracing.

That's the subjectivity people pay for, is it not?

In a mass produced guitar there is no human sensitivity ingredient. In a hand made guitar there is. The fact that some or many of the parts are made with CNC cutting isn't the distinguishing characteristic of either guitar, is it?. It is the selection of woods, tuning of the bracing, tuning of the finishes and human interventions that create value, is it not?

Is there a $10,000 guitar with all machine made with no human intervention? I don't know.

You can't really make any guitar with no human intervention. Like most things, though, you get what you pay for. Like the JMA products, Dean's crossovers, etc. The same goes for most instruments. What's a 'serious' instrument cost? I'm not trying to bait you.. For fifteen year old, a $500 guitar could be a serious instrument. It would sure bat an all plywood/cardboard instrument that you can't even keep in tune. Go ahead and ask me how I know. My playing improved greatly every time I jumped up a level in guitars. Fortunately, for me, I went from a very inexpensive guitar to a Martin D-28 at about my third purchase. Very few people jump to the top right off. It ould be great if the fifteen year old could start with a $1500 + guitar. His fingers would thank him and he would probably learn much more quickly.

Cheers,

Bruce

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What gives?????????????? I know the tubes themselves will vary upon make but the actual design of the amp seems so simple in comparison to a transistor amp. Any thoughts?

Tube amplifiers are nominally** more expensive than SS amps for these reasons:

  • They are nearly all designed to use output transformers which SS amps rarely have. It's the single most expensive component in the amp.
  • They operate at higher voltages which require higher cost capacitors. A 500V capacitor is considerably more expensive than a 50V.
  • The components are heavier, and this increases the cost of materials for the chassis
  • Because there are so few tubed products made (insignificant portion of the market) the special parts are made in ultra low volume, in very few factories. This raises the cost of all these parts. Ex: a single transistor can be 10-cents, compared to a single tube costing $12 for the same function. Even more dramatically, a single OpAmp for 30-cents can provide the entire front-end of an SS amp. A simple front-end for a tube amp will need two tubes at a cost of $25 and at least a couple $6 capacitors.
  • Most SS amps can use robotics for most of the assembly. A pick and place machine can build the PC boards in 20 seconds. Tubes can't take advantage of that labor savings and most of the tube gear has to be hand soldered and wired. Labor is an enormous cost penalty in the tube amp.
  • Manufacturing volumes are orders of magnitude lower. Sony plans production in terms of thousands of units. A tube amp might be hundreds for the most popular, and tens for the specialty brands. Low volume adds a significant cost penalty.
  • Shipping weight is almost always higher for tubes. End user pays for all shipping, including hidden shipping like the $8 it costs to ship a output transformer to the builder.

To summarize, the tube amp lies outside the main pathway of modern manufacturing. So far off the main pathway that it can be considered an arcane manufacturing process. As to the question of design simplicity there isn't too much difference between tube and SS. Both can be designed from cookbooks with almost no engineering input, and both can be so complicated as to need thousands of hours of engineering. If there is an advantage there, it is probably that SS amps can be prototyped a lot faster than tube amps.

**By nominally I am excluding the very high end. At the highest end you can spend $200,000 for tube amps or SS amps.

Well said

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To get back on track a little bit, it might be helpful if Ian would define "so expensive." To me, an incredible sounding tube amp which can be built for $250 in parts, and using $4 tubes, is inexpensive and a true bargain. A system built around such an amp with, say, a pair of RF-52IIs or used pair of Heresys (or CWs, Fortes, Chorus', etc.) is a bargain as well to me. I consider a new car which costs 16k to be exhorbitant while my neighbor spends that much in real estate taxes for his vacation place and considers that a bargain.

Maynard

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Solid state amplifiers cost just as much as vacuum tube amplifiers. All depends on choice&taste

tube to ss is apple to an orange. its been said its nice to enjoy different setups ss one day or room and tube the other. i love hooking up my big ss crown macro techs to my chorus iis and knocking stuff over with the with high dbs. i also love warming one of my 12x2 knight tube up to my belles. they both serve their purpose in my life.

solid state is good in stereo although they run so nice in surround sound applications. at times i like to run all tube power in my surround sound minus my bass driver section. i have a couple of these yaqin mc10L's from china one of which is american modded and sounds so good. rolling tubes in the stock version is a great value for approx $640 and can be modded yourself or by a good tech(my suggestion)as you get money.

everybody should have a tube amp on tap always regardless of how you feel about them. out of my tube amps a couple of the vintage are completely original minus few caps being replaced and being over 50 years old are very exceptional sounding. at the same time my powered monitors serve their purpose in my home as well. In my collection out of 25amplifiers ss&tube and I have no idea how many speakers besides modding/upgrading i have only had to recone 2 woofers, replace 1 cord, toss 2 receivers(1marantz and 1hk)due to user error and replace 4 power tubes in 5 years.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i have a couple of these yaqin mc10L's from china one of which is american modded and sounds so good.

I also have a Yaqin and really like it. Cost is reasonable and they are good build quality. Mines as functioned flawlessly.

I had a Yaqin tube amp, and still have a Yaqin phono preamp. Seems well built, sound great, and trouble free for me.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...