Describe "Tube Sound"

how is it different from most SS amps?

 

If you have to ask you won't understand the answers you're going to get.

It is better to listen to a bunch of tube amps and then you'll understand. Describing it in words won't make sense till you've heard it yourself.

 

Warm, organic, dimensional.

 

Sounds more like the real thing

 

Voices sound like in the same room as you and very natural & the speakers can disappear. SS has trouble reproducing that. SS sounds like it is coming from a point source (speakers). The soundstage is very stabile with tubes having a lot of black in-between instruments & voices. Reverb as in a concert hall sounds right- effortless to pick out. Again, SS has trouble with that. The tube based soundstage width extends way wider than the speakers. It is so 3-dimensional that you do not need rear speakers. I had rear speakers set up in my listening room, but not hooked up. Everyone thought the rear speakers were playing.

Perhaps new Class A or Class D SS amps can reproduce the tube audio now. But a few years ago, not.

 

Alive! Well, the artist(s)/performers sound like they're there.

 

Good bass even at low volume.

No harshness.

 

That's one corner of the tube sound world. Not all tube amps are like that. Not all tube amps sound like the classic vintage tube amp sound. Yet those other tube amps still have tube sound in them. Which is a reason why it's so difficult to describe tube sound. Because there isn't one style of tube sound.

The way tube sound often gets described makes it seem like you can recreate the tube sound with a digital DSP that adds second order distortions and other processing to recreate that tube sound. And that ends up missing the point entirely.

One commonality in tube amps that I like is the extra dimensionality of the sound. More depth and layering combined with a bit more width. That combines into allowing the speakers/headphones to better disappear. The result ends up being what I consider sonic holography. But not all tube amps do that well, yet they're still tube amps and have some aspects of tube sound.

 

Well, the solid state amps that I have used so far, even the cheap Yamaha receiver from more than 10 years back, including class D and class AB, can make the speakers disappear and can extend sound field well beyond the speakers. One just needs the right speakers and music.

Those 3D sound field is not unique to tube. My Parasound is available more than 10 years ago, and it casts big sound field that extend far beyond my Paradigm speakers with the right music.

 

i thought i was happy with my adcom gfp565 pre and gfa555II until i brought an ARC SP3a1 home and plugged it in. DUH! tonal coloration as vivid as real, freq resp dc to daylight, DYNAMICS, depth and imaging, and soundstaging! i find no need for a tubed amp as yet. all that delicious music making revealed.

 

I've yet to hear a solid state headphone amp make my headphones disappear as well as a good hybrid or good full tube headphone amp.

 

In my experience, even a mediocre tube amp has qualities that hi-end solid state amps lack. I recently auditioned a top of the line Devialet amp in my home, my modest 45 tube SET amp (2 Watts) mopped the floor with it. Wasn’t even close.

 

I've heard tube amps that sounded more like a bad SS amp and conversely I've heard SS amps that sound like a good tube amp. Conclusion, both can sound musical or not.

I should add that a large part of how a tube amp sounds is down to the tubes. Find the right ones and it can be very rewarding.

 

I am curious. What type of music do you typically listening to? At what loudness level? Thanks!

 

I have yet to hear a headphone that gives me back massage.

 

There are some headphone setups that can. Some crazy bass-head headphone nuts have added Bass Shakers and similar vibrators to their listening chair in order to get a more physical bass when listening to headphones. Some have even developed vests with with bass vibrators sewn in.

Tube sound though isn't about making the bass vibrate your inner organs. It's about getting the dimensionality and sonic holography that is possible with good tube amps. It's about being able to hear reverb and room sound and room ambiance better. Good tube sound will also help a system better pass Steve's midrange purity test.

 

One of the neat things about headphone listening is that headphones allow the use of lower power tube amps. My current good amps are both hybrids. My plan is for my next amp to be a pure tube amp of some flavor. An OTL or a SET with transformers or something with neat dimensional tube sound. Something like maybe a Decware or similar. Something sonically neat with good tube sound. I have no plans to consider a solid state amp of similar cost.

 

It is "real".

 

Presence

 

Very good question, and reading various peoples' descriptions of what they hear is very interesting.

For me, there are two tube sounds, the sound of older or inexpensive tube amplifiers, and the sound of very well designed and well made tube amplifiers. And there are two solid state sounds, the cheap stuff and the good stuff.

1) Old or inexpensive tube amp sound is rolled-off in the bass and highs, warm in the midbass and very smooth and romantic.
2) High-end tube amp sound is extended in the bass and highs, very linear and realistic sounding, dynamic, lively, 3-dimensional, and a bit more like acoustic rather than electronic in character.
3) Old or inexpensive SS sound is harsh in the upper midrange, compressed in liveliness, and very electronic sounding.
4) High-end SS sound is very close to high-end tube sound. Maybe even indistinguishable. Or, maybe a little less lively, maybe a little more tight in the bass, and maybe a little bit quieter.

 

In one word...delicious

 

Ham Sandwich has really nailed this IMO. Tube amp sound varies tremendously, and is impossible to summarize generically. But one characteristic which does stand out pretty consistently IMO is depth.

Lots of competent sand amps can cast a very W I D E soundstage when a system is setup properly. But where the vast majority of these have much more difficult is usually with reproducing the illusion of depth. I've heard a lot of excellent sand amps casting a 20ft wide soundstage which sounds only about 2 feet deep. In 35 years in this hobby I can count on 1 hand the number of sand amps that I have heard which had tremendous depth as well as width.

By contrast I've heard tons of different good tube amps of different flavors which cast the illusion of a tremendously deep soundstage. Not all tube amps will do this, but most good ones can in my experience.

 

I own a fully discrete Yamaha CR-220. It falls quite short sonically compared to my tube amps. But, it is surprisingly good for solid-state.

 

I changed a year ago from a SS Phono stage to an EAR 834 P CLONE (with RCA 5751 as a V1, a Hitachi 7205 as a V2 and a Hit Ray (Hitachy-Raytheon) 12AU7A as a v3. I'm listenig to music now, real music, I was listening to a piece of black plastic touched by a needle before.

 

Been toying with the idea of going to a solid state system after hearing an impressive McIntosh system last week-end (albeit with a tube preamplifier). The awesome sound may have had something to do with the Magico speakers . However it did not sound organic or natural but rather "hyper real".
Yesterday I took my tube integrated out of the system and swapped in a quality high powered solid state amp. Sounded good at first, some things a little better, some not so good. But then as I started rotating in different recordings and quickly heard how flat and one dimensional the sound stage became and how some recordings were tinged with an edginess to the sound. The stage was collapsed and flat, horrible compared to the tube amp actually.
I had come to love the smooth yet detailed sound of tubes and the huge wall to wall floor to ceiling sound and swore that I would never have a solid state amplifier- yesterday's test brought me back to that reality.
If you want a small collapsed sound stage and an unnatural edge to the sound then solid state is for you.