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arfandbark

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I've been told that tube equipment sounds better than solid state.

I've never heard tubes. Sure would like to......

Here's my setup.

Adcom GTP-400 preamp, Optonica ST 4405 tuner(thanx Jheis),Nakamichi CDC 200 and A Crown PS 400.

Oh yeah..... '76 Cornwalls with fresh crossovers. Almost forgot that part.

I'm willing to drive a coupe hours to hear what I've been missing.

I live between Lansing and Flint, Michigan.

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What you need to hear is a NOSvavled Scott intergrated amp.............STUNNING.......Simple, user friendly, and a more than reasonable priced, I have been tubed myself, which I think you know...............seems like there are alot of tubers in that area, shouldn't be hard to get a listen....I'd send you mine to try, but I'd never get it back, so that isn't happenin'............Someone will invite you over, I know they will....or.....throw your Cornwalls in your car and come to New York, and we'll give 'em a workout.............20 watts per channel will kick your a$$..........FACT not Fiction...........

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You won't have a problem here getting someone to offer that up I would bet, seems to be some pretty cool people here.

Would another option be to grab a set of smaller used tube amps or a single stereo used on agon?

I grabbed a pair of Antique Sound labs AV-20's for my trial run ($300/ pair plus shipping), got em cheap enough to feel confident in getting my money back either way, like em or not.

That option gives a little more flexibility in "trying" them as its in your enviroment, on your gear. I was amazed at the difference, sold em, got rid of all my high powered ss amps, moved up the glass food chain, and haven't looked back.

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You need to understand the difference between "different" and "better." There are those who like the "clinical" sound of SS. I am not one of them. At any price I've heard from 50.00 to 50k dollars, there is an edge to them that is always present. I've found this not to be true of the new digital amps...but they are still "clinical" in there abosolute purity. OTOH, tube amps are A. accurate, and B. have their own "take" on that accuracy, if that makes sense. As a Steinway is a Steinway whether in a garage or in a recital hall but will sound differently, though still like a Steinway, in each place, music through tubes exhibits accuracy wrapped in a different envelope.

There are undoubtably those far better suited to attempting to describe what is essentially a metaphysical, and therefore inherently undescribable, experience, but perhaps that will provide you with a starting point.

Regards, and happy experimenting,

Dave

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I understand differant and better very well. I hadn't considered digital.

I appreciate the Steinway comparisons.

It's not that I am unhappy with my current system.... I like my setup.

I'm looking for some one to invite me over to hear what I may be missing.

My ear is judge and jury.

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Arf..............I've got Digital Too......Two different worlds, two different purposes..............Load up the car and come on out.....I realize you won't do it, but the offer is there......stay here for a couple of days.....let's see what trouble we could get in.................EH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Woof! Woof!

Come on down Arf. I'll duplicate what you're running now and throw some tubes at the same system. I love what ya got now. I'll show what you can do for just a couple of pesos to rock your world through hot glass.

I've been running both for years and sadly I was under the assumption of high maintenance tubes. I can't go back to solid state now. It's almost as good as an orgy with triplets. It will spoil you.

HarryO

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I've been told that tube equipment sounds better than solid state.

I've never heard tubes. Sure would like to......

Here's my setup.

Adcom GTP-400 preamp, Optonica ST 4405 tuner(thanx Jheis),Nakamichi CDC 200 and A Crown PS 400.

Oh yeah..... '76 Cornwalls with fresh crossovers. Almost forgot that part.

I'm willing to drive a coupe hours to hear what I've been missing.

I live between Lansing and Flint, Michigan.

Craig's about an hour away from you.... Whata'ya waiting for?

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Gilbert......I like Home theatre so I have Digital.....and now I have Tube Analog......I have best of both worlds.....[:D]...Parrot is bustin' my nuts, that's fine, I'm a Big Guy, I can take it...............Wording not too strong, say what you think, No Problem, it's PARROT.............

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a sound worth?

Well, describing how tubes sound in words is not easy, but I'll give it a shot, at least from my perspective. I've been using tubes for about six or seven years now. I had heard of the virtues of tubes for a long time, but wasn't interested due to the supposed maintenance and them just being "different". Well, I finally decided to give it a shot based on the comments from this forum back in the late '90's.

At that time, I had a pair of Cornwalls (1976 models as wall) and some fairly decent equipment. I picked up a tube amp and mated it to the rest of my system (using a SS premp). As soon as the tube amp turned on and started playing music, I knew my 100 pound $5000 (when new, I got it used) solid state amp wasn't going to be sticking around. This was when the amp was still cold and the tubes were still a good hour away from being properly warmed up. The sound only got better.

To me, tubes just sound more natural, more realistic, smoother, and just more pleasing than solid state. I'd say it sounds more like real music than reproduced music. With solid state, I always knew the sound was coming out of electronic equipment, not so much with tubes. Vocals can sound like the person is there is the room. Good SS can make vocals sound good, but I'd have to use a lot of imagination to believe the person was in the room. In a word, I would say tubes just sound more "musical."

I've wondered if there are certain types of music where tubes would not be the best choice. Specificaly, I've thought that rap, electronic/synthesized music might be better served with solid state as maybe the virtues of tube might not shine through.

Anyway, just some of my perspective...

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I'm in the same ballpark A&B, got these Khorns sitting in a beautiful listening room. It's a shame the little HK430 that I drive them with is soooo noisy.

I've heard Woodog's Scott 299 and other tubes, it pains to that I now know that 'that old amp' from my Dad's office in the 1960's happened to be a 299, along with Bogen tuner and Utah 8" duo-cones (woohoo- at the time I was all excited about the Utah's!)

[:(] dumb [:'(] dumb [8o|] dumb [:@]

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JMON ,And a good perspective it is..............Saw Johnny Winter and Leon Russell a couple of weeks ago, The Scott sounds just like they did in that hall, the drummer sounded just like it sounds in my room now............the sound is more" True to life " than my SS equipment........

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I've rewritten this several times. I started by takeing the bait. Dumped that and started a technical discussion. BS and a waste of time.

I'll try this. I record location music from the most delicate of instruments in the most demanding acoustic situations. I NEVER forget the sound of a given instrument in a given space. When I hear the playback of an event I have the ability to judge precisely what differs in the playback from what I heard in the event, and most of the time the reason for it. The TI chipset digital amp I use as one of the amps in my main system offers playback at any level that does not reveal its presence. I am not sure what others are looking for in an amplifier, but that is all I ask.

If you are an "armchair" audiophile who listens to nothing but off the shelf stuff, your ability to determine accuracy is severely limited, IMHO.

Dave

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a warning to you on this arf

a little over a year or so ago i was invited to hear tubes by gary in md. i was happy with my home system at the time as well, 2 phase linear 400 amps, a 4000 pre, dual cs 5000 tt, nakamichi rx 202 cassette, and a tuner, with a pair of cornwalls and a pair of heresys........i thought the sound was as good as i could get stereo imaging was great and when i showed it off to other people they were floored...........now realize i was running 400 watts of power total and i was in the crowd that more is better

fast forward to garys house, first he takes me to the basement where he has dynaco mark 3 running with a blueberry and his basis rig he is running 60 watts per channell on the craig rebuilt dynacos thru his k-horns (by his admission his room wasnt a good one for the set up) but i was floored by what i was hearing absolutely crystl clear sound good hard bass, and loucder than i would ever need, but the coop-de-grah happened when he took me up stairs to listen to what he called his 2nd system, scott 299 with cornwalls 17 watts per channel and man my jaw hit the floor the imaging was to die for, with all the improvments i had heard downstairs, im not big on little detail differances so when i say i could hear a differance it was pretty big..........and to top that 17 watts was kicking 400 watts A$$ all over the place

make a long story short i went home sold all my ss gear went to tubes and havnt went back yet, i have continually looked to upgrade and have found that the differant topologys do indeed make a differance that one has to hear for themselves to see which way they would prefer to go, i would suggest going to at least 1 or 2 differant places and hearing both SET and PP in a good system and making an informed decision on what you really want your system to do for you...............although either way i think you will find tubes hard to pass up after hearing them in a good system

good luck, if you were closer i would invite you here for a good listen

Joe

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I've rewritten this several times. I started by takeing the bait. Dumped that and started a technical discussion. BS and a waste of time.

I'll try this. I record location music from the most delicate of instruments in the most demanding acoustic situations. I NEVER forget the sound of a given instrument in a given space. When I hear the playback of an event I have the ability to judge precisely what differs in the playback from what I heard in the event, and most of the time the reason for it. The TI chipset digital amp I use as one of the amps in my main system offers playback at any level that does not reveal its presence. I am not sure what others are looking for in an amplifier, but that is all I ask.

If you are an "armchair" audiophile who listens to nothing but off the shelf stuff, your ability to determine accuracy is severely limited, IMHO.

Dave

Obviously, Dave, none of us here have anything even approaching the superhuman ability of your golden ears and auditory memory. Makes one wonder why any of the rest of us simpletons even bother to post anything when we could just wait for your take on the matter and have THE TRVTH revealed.

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