staygroovybaby Posted December 27, 2015 Share Posted December 27, 2015 I know this will open up a old can of worms ( but here goes). Yes its that old tube versus solid state again. So where dose one turn to, well its the internet, and guess what, the battle continues. I am listing the following info that came from the internet. Not my words, others comments. The Mind's Eye All musical perception is purely intangible. We can't put a finger on a musical image and point someone else to what we're seeing as we can on a painting, piece of sculpture, a musical score, a book or a photograph. Because musical images are created entirely in our imaginations, what we think we are going to hear is often what we hear. This is why otherwise reasonable people think they hear huge differences in foolish (but high-profit) items like cables or power cords. Even though there is no real difference, they hear very real differences that just aren't there. The differences are very real in that listener's vivid imagination, but no where else. This is why we use double blind tests where neither the subject nor the presenters know what's being heard when we try to do scientific research, like the AES research above. Music is all about using our imaginations. This is a very good thing and why music is such a powerful art form. This is why a good HiFi can recreate the original listening experience. Unlike a TV or movie, close your eyes, and you can be seeing and feeling the same things that you do in the concert hall. I close mine and see the performers, see them moving around, breathing, moving valves and keys, turning pages, and then I see the music itself. You have to concentrate, and if you listen carefully and keep your eyes closed, you'll see the music, too. If you think a nice, warm glowing tube amplifier is going to sound smooth, liquid and warm, it will! Our imaginations are very susceptible to suggestion; that's the whole point. And guess what else I found, so many different opinions and comments, it seem to be a discussion that can not be answered, tube guys say tubes all the way, ss guys say solid state all the way. Here is my dilemma, I have some great ss gear that I am currently running. I am perfectly happy with the sound. But the music monkey on my back telling me to seek that warm smooth liquid tube sound, and he just wont go away. I currently have two Dynaco MK VI mono block tube amps, but no tube preamp. Like most people I can only acquire what my wallet will allow. That crazy a double s monkey keeps telling me to get a Macintosh mc - 2500. Talking about laying out some bucks. That kind of money scares me to no end, for something that is an experimentation for me. I know I can get a cheaper preamp to start with, but If the sound is as different as tube people are saying, and I wind up liking it. I know me I will then shoot for the Macintosh. Now hear is the real kicker. I have read on the internet and talked to many people that have done and heard double blind test on the subject. and general consensus ( again not my words ) states even the best of us cant tell the difference. Ok Ok Ok , don't start kicking me, I do enough of that to my self. I had a nice Dynaco st 70 and borrowed a mac tube pre amp from a friend of mine. We did our own little test comparing tube to ss. I did this test over a two month period with 12 or so friends at different times, and no one in the group could tell any distinguishable difference as long as they were not told what system they were listening to. However when they were told what system was playing, out of the clear blue sky, each and every one said, yep big difference, they even had me convinced for a time. At that point I listen to a large variety of music by myself on both systems for a period of time and just became more confused. If it was just me listening and reaching that conclusion, then I would not even bring this post to the Klipsch Community. But me my wife and 12 others. What am I missing? I honestly believe all of you tube guys are on to something. I am just at a total loss here. I recently spoke with a man who was very strong with his view on this topic. Wont state his name, however he is highly regarded in the audio world. He has built some of the amps, tubes and solid state that we all listen to today. He said there is no way a person can tell the difference in tube and ss, in the event the two amps are of equal quality. He has preformed his own test with his own amps as well as others. He also stated the words we choose to describe the sound we are listening to, are totally absurd. Warm, Liquid, Smooth, have nothing to do with sound. As long as your equipment is decent or better and you are listening to the music of your choice, you will hear and define the sound in in ways that have nothing to do with sound. Folks, I may just be gooneball, hillbilly, idiot. But I don't think I have lost it yet, and I know my hearing is good. Wait a minute, I think I just heard a fly go by my head, It sounded like it was in two channel. I wonder if two flies going in opposite direction around your head, would sound quadraphonic. All my best to everyone, While a 1966 Deluxe is bound to sound amazing, it will only sound amazing for certain types of music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted December 27, 2015 Share Posted December 27, 2015 No one can know what another hears. One learns to hear things in a system after months of living with it that others cannot and would not with the most sophisticated A/B test. The entire debate is a waste of time. Each will listen to that which works for them sonically, visually, philosophically, and aesthetically and no one elses opinion will change that. Dave 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staygroovybaby Posted December 27, 2015 Author Share Posted December 27, 2015 No one can know what another hears. One learns to hear things in a system after months of living with it that others cannot and would not with the most sophisticated A/B test. The entire debate is a waste of time. Each will listen to that which works for them sonically, visually, philosophically, and aesthetically and no one elses opinion will change that. Dave Dave thanks for the post. Well thought out indeed. Love the Duke Ellington reference. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockhound Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 Agree with what Dave said, for me I use both a Peach pre and a mcintosh 2105 I love the combo. Valvestate!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richieb Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 For me, at the point of not hearing any sonic difference between tube amp A and SS amp B, why bother with tubes? Keep it simple and go with SS. I have several amps both tube and SS and I believe I can appreciate the different presentations each one offers. So for now I keep them all. If to my ears and listening environment a tube amp and SS amp sound the same I will sell the tube amp. I don't think anyone can argue maintaining SS is an easier proposition. I would never feel the need to keep a tube amp because "it's a tube amp" and its perceived "cool" factor. I have no one to impress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 Why the hell does one need to better than the other... they are merely DIFFERENT. If you like what you hear, who cares if it is tube based or solid state based. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 I worry more about the SPL limits of the listening area more than anything else. But I would love to have a computer controlled million dollar setup with push-button AB comparisons of all the best components including speaker components. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tube fanatic Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 I guess this is a good time to re-read the Carver Challenge article from Stereophile:http://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge#Vix1rjsF9IkDf7wk.97According to the late Harvey Rosenberg, the reference amp used tubes. Dave's comments in post #2 are right on target. If it sounds good to you, then it is good. No further agonizing is warranted. As to the SS vs. tubes debate, that has been raging since the first hobbyists began experimenting with SS amps. Maynard 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staygroovybaby Posted December 28, 2015 Author Share Posted December 28, 2015 Why the hell does one need to better than the other... they are merely DIFFERENT. If you like what you hear, who cares if it is tube based or solid state based. When your right, your right. I love the sound of my ss gear. However like most people, I just want to see if their is room for improvement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staygroovybaby Posted December 28, 2015 Author Share Posted December 28, 2015 Thanks everyone. You have made very good comments in reference to my post. I think I will continue to experiment and get a good tube preamp and listen for a while. I will post my findings when I have more experience on the topic. For each and everyone of you, I hope you have a safe and wonderful day. I do love this site. I have dealt with several people from this forum, both buying and selling. Some great people here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staygroovybaby Posted December 28, 2015 Author Share Posted December 28, 2015 I guess this is a good time to re-read the Carver Challenge article from Stereophile: http://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge#Vix1rjsF9IkDf7wk.97 According to the late Harvey Rosenberg, the reference amp used tubes. Dave's comments in post #2 are right on target. If it sounds good to you, then it is good. No further agonizing is warranted. As to the SS vs. tubes debate, that has been raging since the first hobbyists began experimenting with SS amps. Maynard Maynard, just read the carver challange. Eye opener indeed. Gave me a lot of food for thought. Many thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MORE KLIPSCH PLEASE Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 I guess this is a good time to re-read the Carver Challenge article from Stereophile:http://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge#Vix1rjsF9IkDf7wk.97 According to the late Harvey Rosenberg, the reference amp used tubes. Dave's comments in post #2 are right on target. If it sounds good to you, then it is good. No further agonizing is warranted. As to the SS vs. tubes debate, that has been raging since the first hobbyists began experimenting with SS amps. Maynard Maynard, just read the carver challange. Eye opener indeed. Gave me a lot of food for thought. Many thanks. And that's why most of my Klipsch are powered by Carver amps..... MKP :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 (edited) Gizmo was quite the character. Some interesting things to be read. Watch out the for the blast of ELP...turn down the volume... http://www.meta-gizmo.org/index.html Edited December 28, 2015 by mike stehr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarheel Posted December 28, 2015 Share Posted December 28, 2015 No one can know what another hears. One learns to hear things in a system after months of living with it that others cannot and would not with the most sophisticated A/B test. The entire debate is a waste of time. Each will listen to that which works for them sonically, visually, philosophically, and aesthetically and no one elses opinion will change that. Dave I'm the last surviving member who knows what Dave hears and I'm getting on up there in years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WMcD Posted December 29, 2015 Share Posted December 29, 2015 (edited) Some thoughts. We want to know which amplifier gives us a good experience with, presumably, horn loaded speakers. Carver reportedly was relived these were not involved in the challenge. More on that below. In the overall examination of amps we want to avoid dogmatic conclusions that SS is always bad or tubes are always good. Or negative feedback is always bad. I believe we've gotten beyond such dogma. But in some commercial settings there is hucksterism along these lines. Maybe I have my own dogma but I suspect that Class A operation is always best for horns and push pull is suspect. There is technical reason which is founded on the notion that Class A is most likely to work without the likelihood of distortion at low levels. A K-Horn, LS, or Belle is giving 103 dB at 1 watt input. It is putting out 43 dB with a microwatt input. That is fairly quiet. Still, we see that the amp's performance should be tested from 1 microwatt up to 1 watt. This is of course similar to the "first watt" theory. Carver was not fishing in those waters. I have no doubt he could. My main point is that there probably are technical tests to identify good amps for horns, but I've not seen any. Perhaps it is challenge to standard measuring equipment. - - - - I like and respect Dave. But I must take some issue with the notion that no one knows what anyone else hears. PWK had written about "the grunge factor and "it just isn't 'clean'." So perhaps we can agree that "not clean" is something which everyone can hear at some point. A bit OT but I'll also take issue on the general pseudo philosophy that everyone's perception is unknowable. It is based, it seems to me, that everyone's perception is different. This seems to assume an unproven hypothesis that there is a random distribution of perceptions because everyone is "different." This can't be true because we find strong clusters of favorites in people who are hypothetically proposed to be randomly different. We can start with chocolate flavor. If everyone perceives it as different, how come so many people like it? In music, major chords sound happy and harmonious. Minor chords, less so. Odd and even order combinations of overtones create different perceptions which are generally common to all listeners to some extent or another. The conclusion is that our perception of tones and the basics of music are common to all of us. As an extension, we probably do have common perceptions of a poor or good music reproduction systems. Floyd Toole has compiled extensive data on what people like or not in speaker systems. There is common agreement to a large extent in the statistics. Therefore. It is easy to say that no one can tell what another perceives. But it seems that most of us are in agreement on major points. We must be perceiving the same things. Doesn't everyone like The Beatles? That is strong cluster. Except for Thebes of course, he is not in that cluster and doesn't like The Beatles. Even with clusters, there are exceptions. Smile. WMcD Edited December 29, 2015 by WMcD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WMcD Posted December 29, 2015 Share Posted December 29, 2015 Do you like this music? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rHiDArtjuM If John, Paul, George, and Ringo perceived music differently, how could they play together? If the people in the audience each perceived it differently, why would they be there? WMcD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted December 29, 2015 Share Posted December 29, 2015 If the people in the audience each perceived it differently, why would they be there? OTOH, if everyone heard the same, why would we be having this discussion? Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staygroovybaby Posted December 29, 2015 Author Share Posted December 29, 2015 Wow! First post of mine, where everyone who responded appears to have valid points. You guys are way out of my league, when it comes all of the all of the technical jargon. I think when my money allows, I will purchase a good tube preamp and hook it up to my Dynaco MK VIs and give it a whirl. In the movie Open Range, Kevin Costner had a chocolate bar in his pocket that had melted. He pulled it out and tasted it, and then said ( melted or not, good is good ). Tubes versus Solid State, ( good is good ) I know one thing for sure, I am sticking with my Klipsch speakers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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