Tube Sound vs.Transistor Sound, Again
 

Tonight I returned back to my tube equipment (Doge 8 pre with Telefunken tubes and a Antique Sound Labs AQ-1004 power amp) after using a new Hafler P3100 Transnova SS power amp with a PS Audio IV passive preamp for three summer months.

What a tremendous improvement in realism with tubes! The sound wasn't even close. My SS equipment's tone just sounds tread bare, grainy, lacking in depth and size of sound stage in comparison to my tube equipment. Just another example of Tubes Rule!

Will keep my SS amp for the summer months, as of course it just runs so much cooler than my "hot" running tube equipment.

There is definitely magic in tubes. The human ear was not wrong for so many decades before the transistor came to town to take that throne away. :D

Didn't realize Antique Sound Lab was still around. I had their "the wave" monoblocks many moons ago but they were much cheaper then. Not that the current price is expensive. :D

In fact I had an all tube system with a tube CDP from Kevin Deal, a tube preamp from Dennis Had and tube monoblocks from Antique Sound Labs driving a pair of stand mounted Soliloquy speakers. Total system at retail did not even break the $4K mark all together and it took me a while to put it together during those years being out of college, young family and all the household expenses...

It was sheer magic of listening sessions for literally years for me. :music: Not because it was somehow better than todays expensive gear but because it was simply musical and extremely engaging and I forgot all about gear and dove into hours and hours of music, bathed by the warm, romantic and engaging sound that was so pleasant to the ear.

In fact I am sitting right now taking in album after album of favorite music and there is only a pair of my favorite headphones and nothing but tubes between my ears and music. Once again, simplicity rules and it is all about the magic of music.

PHC1, thanks for your heart-felt reply to my post. I’ve loved tubed sound ever since I first remember hearing it in the early 1960s.

Back then I played lead guitar with friends in rock bands and eventually bought a Fender Jaguar guitar and Fender Bandmaster amp--all tube of course. I have a lot of good memories of playing music for dances all over the Bakersfield area back when I was in high school and college.
Attended many rock shows too, even the Fillmore West, so I heard a lot of that "magic" tube sound. All the bands had tube amps back in those days.

"Well, if they're both designed correctly, they should sound the same".

This could not be more wrong.

Was always solid-state until about 15yr ago. Then in & out of tubes until 3yr ago when I went back to solid-state. After about a year and 3 different amps am back to tubes. They simply sound more musical to my ears. More "real", if you will. I do wonder if this might be an age-related thing, being 73. Who knows? I go with what sounds the best to me.

Take any budget tube amp and connect it to a pair of speakers it is comfortable driving. What you will get is a musical, perhaps an overly colorful presentation due to budget components of lesser resolving capabilities.

Take a budget solid state amp and do the same test. What you get is typically a very cold and sterile presentation lacking any tonal density or harmonic beauty.

I have heard and lived with $200 tube amps for years with great satisfaction. I could not live with any budget solid state... :no:


Take a vintage tube amp from the earliest period, again with speakers appropriate for that vintage tube amp. Now take the earliest solid state of the late 60s/early 70's and tell me what sound like music and what doesn't :D

Root of solid state: Transistor amplifiers were largely confined to applications where saving weight was more important that high fidelity or maximum power. This meant portable and automobile radios, but not the home "high fidelity" systems. Lin's transformerless design would not become common in high power systems for some time.


1947 is the well known year that a working point-contact transistor was developed, but it would take nearly two decades longer for transistor power amplifiers to make a significant impact in the audio reproduction world.


Interesting article. https://sites.google.com/site/davidm...-state-history

Formally YB-2, I don't feel having a tube preference is an age related issue. Older guys like you and me just have the tube sound frame of reference to compare SS sound too.

PHC1, so true, a cheap tube amp will easily beat a cheap SS amp!

I have been pure tube in the past, and pure solid state... but I found the best combo for my listening and my ear is the tube pre-amp and solid state amp... specially with McIntosh where they deliberately make their solid state sound more tubby, and their tubes sound more SS... the fusion of the two works out to perfect for me.