Is you Amplifier only as Good as the Tube Brands?

Modern high quality tube amplifiers will usually sound best with the tubes the designers used to balance the amps sound in the first place. If the unit sounded great when you purchased it be careful in swapping in NOS tubes for the sake of it. Many of us change the sound of our amps but not necessarily for the better.

 

While it is true that any given swap in tubes might result in sound that is, to the person doing the swap, a detriment, one can only make a determination by doing the experiment. The fact that a particular tube was chosen by the manufacturer does not mean it will be any particular owner's preferred tube. The manufacturer, for practical reasons, supplies tubes that commonly available and reasonably cheap. Because the manufacturer has no way of knowing and accommodating the personal preference of each buyer, it does not make sense supplying expensive and rare tube types even if such might be the designer's preference.

Yes, there are some manufacturers that do supply rare NOS tubes (my Audio Note Kageki came with such tubes), but, I still managed to find alternatives that better fit my system and preference.

 

Even having given it some thought, I still have no idea what that consistency comment was supposed to mean...

 

My amplifiers only sound as good as the engineers who designed them. Being a tube Jockey is fun and expensive, but I've never found swapping brands changes the inherent sound of an amplifier at all.

 

Most amp, pre- amp manufactures encourage tube swapping as each persons system is different and a tube from the same family can sound different from one brand to another.

 

I have said this before. The manufacture is not stupid and needs to produce a consistent, good sounding and reliable product. The manufacturer's will find a tube that matches well with their design and go with it.

If I am an owner and need to replace a tube, I want a tube that I can easily obtain as a replacement and I want my amps to sound the same as it did before.

A lot of tubes are going to sound just about the same, which, in theory, that is what they are designed to do.

Some people have this idea, that if they change out a tube their amps sound signature will be different and that is not often the case. This is ture as specially if you have a modern amp and are using modern tubes.

That does happen. So just randomly changing out tubes may offer little or no positive benefit and may have a detrimental effect on the overall sound signature.

So true, just be aware and understand the term "experiment".

Plus the manufacture needs to put his product on the market at a particular price point, all manufacturer's do. So, sometimes more expensive tubes can be a significant upgrade for the product, but sometimes this is not the case.

Personal preferences and budgetary considerations always come into play.

 

Question then - if an inferior tube makes a premium tube perform worse, does a superior tube make a mediocre amp better?

 

Most likely not.

I really haven't done a lot of tube rolling. Very little actually.

Part of this has to do with the point you put forth to ponder. Change out a few tubes and then you don't know where you are at anymore.

And then when you get to the SET class of amps and have 300B and those large 845's and such, like if had in the Line Magnetic 518iA, experimental rolling with these types of tubes is VERY costly.

I do suggest you check out the NOS RFT EL34's with your PL Four. They really made my AN Kit amp shine. This was with the A7's, but the Zu's will be as close as you can rationally use in an NYC size apartment.

I think they will work well with the Zu's and will cost about $280/quad.

They should last you about twice as long as modern EL34's, so the cost to operate is not really that great.

These tube are really impressive and I am not really a fan of EL34's (at least modern day ones, I am finding out).

Most of my other tube rolling, is just my buying what ever tubes I could find some decent deals on, because prices on older tubes will keep going up and there are still tubes that are in relative surplus at this time.

 

I may give it a try, but, honestly, if I was to invest any money into tube-rolling for my PL-4, I'd probably spring for a quad of nice NOS KT-77's, which are deemed the ultimate EL-34.

EDIT: Otherwise, the 4 may not even be in the league meriting such investment.

 

I liked the KT77's that were in my Line Magnetic 211iA. Very nice sounding amplifier, but the KT77's were of new manufacture.

I have never heard NOS KT77's. I was given to believe that they are on the rare and rather expensive side?

That is why I was delighted with the RTF's as they were reasonably priced.

There are very few choices available for any thing in the way of the large NOS power tubes, unfortunately.

I just have a feeling that the RTF's would sound nice with the Zu's. Before retiring, I ran the Omen Definition's (MKI) from the PL Five and it was really nice.

If I still had the room set up, I could try the Omen Definitions with the ANK L4 and the NOS RFT's.

 

I found NOS Telefunken Black plates for about $38 apiece. Not sure how good they are. Any ideas?

 

No experience with them myself, There are some NOS Mullard's that are highly thought of in the EL34's.

I noted at the time that the NOS Telefunkin's were even more expensive than the NOS Mullard's on eBay.

These have a starting bid of $999!



The NOS xf2 Mullard's seem to go for $500-$600 a quad.

Here are some Gold Lion NOS KT77's for a Buy It Now price of $1,999.

4 X KT77 GENALEX GOLD LION 1970´S. GENUINE TUBES NOS/NIB OOGETTER, MATCHED QUAD



IMO, my ANK power amp with the NOS RFT EL34's sounds better than the LM 211iA did with the KT77's.

But the ANK might be a bit better designed and although they would be both around the same retail price (with the ANK assembled), the ANK only has to be a straight power amp, while the LM 211iA is more complex, being an integrated.

With the ANK L4, all the money is directed to the power amp section.

Plus, the L4 has the NOS EL34's and the LM 211iA has the modern KT77's.

Out of the dozen tube amps that I had, with the exception of the two that are single ended, my favorite amp, sound quality wise, is the ANK L4 with the NOS RFT's.

The midrange is very magical! And they have a lot of bass too. Which is something that I find to be a bit of a puzzle?

Being more of a KT88 guy, I had never been all that impressed with EL34's in the bass department. But then, my other EL34's have been of modern manufacture.

 

I some experience with using various tubes having played through blackface Fender amps for a few decades and owning a pair of McIntosh MC30s. I've put a wide range of 6L6s in the MC30s (including NOS Mac branded tubes) and they all sound different. The best tubes have been Philips 7581As. Same for the Fenders. Now they don't sound right to me without the 7581As. Luckily the MTBF is 5000 hours, so I'm set for a while.

 

Have you seen this scenario? An audio nut will complain about tone controls yet they won’t blink an eye swapping out tubes or changing interconnect cables. Go figure!

 

These were simply the common 811 RF power tube with the plate routed to a base pin, the plate cap deleted and the spacing of the control grid changed to vary the mu. Unfortunately no OEM user utilized them and so they had no demand. DIYers were not particularly interested either.

Was a good idea that didn't find a timely market.

The DIY tube amp building craze pretty well died from sometime after 9/11 and the market for new tube types suitable for audio that do not have heavy demand from guitar players is mostly Pacific Rim now. Tube audio does not have sustainable numbers and is an irrational Veblen goods market so technical innovation is not encouraged or economic at this point. Sad but true.

 

The McIntosh unity coupled circuit is very gentle on power tubes in most ways but does provide high AC cathode to heater potentials. There is no provisioning for bias adjustment so they are biased at cutoff at idle, but how far from cutoff depends on the particular tubes and the various tolerances of components in the circuit.

 

There are lots of very cheap tubes but they are usually not suited for audio or not used in any commercial equipment, which is why they are cheap.

All known sources of large quantities of NOS tubes have pretty well been mined, though small batches show up as hoarding cleanouts and industrial building salvage occurs. There's a guy I know in his nineties that has half a basement of tubes, transformers, other electronic components including many desirable NOS audio tubes , will never do anything with them, and absolutely will not part with one thing at any price. He'll die or be committed by his kids and they will probably throw everything in that basement in the dumpster within 48 hours, or worse simply bulldoze the house and excavate the rubble, since the ground is retail zoned now. If some shark is there as the house is cleaned out the tubes will go on the market and if not the landfill. This is not an exceptionally rare situation.

Yet we are still not talking about huge numbers in the great scheme of things.

Tube audio does not exist in sustainable rational market potential sufficient to see really first class audio types made by first world sources. The current business is done in places without high commitments of quality culturally for , primarily, the guitar amp market. Using mostly old machinery that is slowly wearing out. High quality vacuum tube production required a phalanx of specialized skills, toolmakers, grid lathe mechanics, glass fabricators, vacuum technicians, that don't exist any more. Even the books are rare: Richardson got most of that stuff and are not letting go of it. Litton grid lathes turn up every once in a while, but try to find the manual for it.

There are artisanal tube makers that hand build a few types but basically they are WW1 era tubes, simple filamentary triodes. This is basically a hobby activity and is fascinating, but they aren't going to be providing a usable product in any quantity.

The digital emulation of guitar amp distortion is still not as good as the real thing but as anyone who plays electric guitar who has played with the Kemper can tell you huge strides have been made. At some point either the mass market for rock and roll guitar may vanish or the profiling tech may eclipse them and then 90+ percent of the market for common audio tubes is gone. What we have today will seem like a Golden Era in comparison.

I'm not trying to be a downer here. I'm just saying that the future of tube audio does not seem bright. It's largely a numbers thing, same with analog audio tape , and as we go along film is going the same way. There is a critical market size you need and that is either going away or gone.

I hope I'm wrong about this but unless there is a huge revival of interest in this stuff, it doesn't look good.

 

Well I would have to say that any amplifier that reveals so much from any such component change in the preamp or to a different degree, even the power tubes, would prove even further just how sensitive and delicate and revealing the amplifier really is. That shows design and build quality, and reveals the true high fidelity ability of the product as a whole. But that isn't the entire story now is it...

The truth is, there are many tube amps out there now, most of which will change with the tubes you choose... but the circuit and its chain of quality (including each specially chosen individual part) are all going to be highly important parts of designing and building any amplifier. The quality of the tubes you choose is just one of the many other important components within the circuit chain that makes each amplifier. The build quality, soldering, PC board or wiring, all of it makes a difference. Transformers are probably the MOST important to start because the power for all the components comes from that source, then it's going to be a tie when choosing capacitors, chokes, interstage transformers, wire quality and the circuit capacitance, with the proper resistors following ever so closely behind. But in the end it is everything together, the stew, the mix or whatever you are going to call it.

You will easily find out how much of a difference exists between amps when you set them side by side and audition them against one another. I think it is HUGELY important to be able to do that when choosing an amplifier.

Once you choose a quality amplifier for your system you will then see just how important the REST of the system really is also. The better the amp and speakers - the better to reveal the weakest link in the system chain. Without sensitive and revealing speakers you would never know how good the amp really is though. The cabling is probably the fourth most important part of the chain behind the quality of your sources. You can put a cheap cartridge, phono stage or CD player in the chain and depreciate everything else too. Everything counts~! Everything.

Those of you that might not know this yet can easily find out by auditioning a Raven amplifier, speakers, or cables. We now allow a full month and a half of audition period now - because we know how important ALL of it is and we WANT you to compare us against the others out there. And this is an EXPENSIVE hobby. So we will never approach any of it from ONLY the profit side. Raven is about the music, the enjoyment of building a good system, and proving that each part of the chain has its percentage of value and all are exceptionally important. It's why we are now aiming at each link in that chain.

Raven will soon be about full systems - tested together, matched, and making each link in the chain work at its peak for the price point that we can figure out how to build it at. Having the most important parts of that chain made in the USA has always been important to us. But our European allies made some excellent glass during the heyday of those times. And now some of the best parts are made in Japan, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, etc. So we go where we have to to acquire them if they aren't available here. And that is just how it has to be. If WIMA capacitors are made in Germany, and they offer an extremely low-priced high quality value for our product, we will absolutely go where we need to to get that. Building fine electronics is now about searching the world for each value we can find. Did we look at China to try to do some of our work for us.... absolutely. So far each time proved fruitless. The QC wasn't there. So we chose Dallas, which cost 6 to 8 times as much, but the quality was superb and we could easily monitor each step. In the end the profit was no longer there, but the sound and fit and finish of these products is at the top. Our customers will love the result. So its now going to be about how many we can build each time.

We have to stay alive, so eventually we will have to make money at it. And we will. It is simply a must. And we will go where we can as long as we can control the quality. There is value in building in your own back yard though. As long as we build our products like this people will seek them out. And that is how it will all work from now on.

Built in the USA, our amplifiers and speakers are going to be the best we know how to make them. So when the DAC's come out our part of the expertise will be complete for a while. We will never want any of our customers to settle without being able to try each of our new products IN THEIR OWN homes where it is most important. We have a lot of experience now setting up full systems in many different types of rooms - at shows, in people's homes, and offices, shops, wedding receptions (!). If it can be done I will haul a system out and stick it in that environment - if only to gain that experience. I think some of the most fun sound I have yet heard is when I took a lowly Nighthawk outdoors and hooked it up to a full set of JBL professional speakers, big cabinets with 3" horn drivers and 15" midrange/upper bass woofers which were 99.8db (which I never knew before that were so easy to drive) and these huge JBL subwoofer cabinets with 18" drivers in them. Of course it was better when I used a power amp on the subs, but even the little 20wpc Nighthawk was able to fill two acres with glorious music for the barbeque. People could not help themselves... as the music drifted across the grassy lawns and washed around them people started to move with the beat. It was involuntary, addictive and it changed the mood of the gathering completely. You could see it on their faces, watch it move down and around their bodies as limbs started to react and hearts started beating a little bit faster....

Music is so important to all of us. So there is important value in finding out how much each of those individual musicians put their hearts and souls into their part of the recording. And the best engineers do their best to allow each instrument and voice be a full component in the track. Sometimes its about the song itself. In the recording industry it IS about the song. But if it's not a hit on the charts, it's going to be about the quality and soul of the recorded event. If its not on tape its going to be gone in a few short minutes. The musicians know this, and its their job to put everything they have into the recording when that engineer says "rolling" over the little speaker.... and only then the magic takes place. And that is why we are all here... right? We truly love the music. Each recording is historic. It has the ability to touch us deeply inside and stir our emotions, and only a song can bring such a flood of memories and emotions rushing back to our brains... especially if it was at an important time in our lives. So knowing all of this is why we are here. This is all hugely important. We take it very seriously. And it can be so good if you can hear each note and instrument and vocals cleanly on each track. It makes it all so much better when you can.

That little 20 wpc tube amp never skipped a beat that day, and memories flowed through each of the brains controlling those legs and feet as the people remembered where they once were when they first heard each song. It was magical. It is ALWAYS magical. And its so darn important to each of us. We were only told by neighbors 250-500 yards away that they enjoyed our musical selection so much they stopped what they were doing and just sat outside and listened. Sure, I wouldn't have called it "audiophile level sound" but its important to know that it's about the "system" as a whole, not any single component - which matters MOST>! The environment/room/cables/source/speakers/amp/and your ears... all of that is the most important part of the system. And in the end the most important part of each system is YOU.

And even though I have done it literally thousands of times before, it never loses its importance. I want to go fire up some glass and listen to some music... because it's Sunday afternoon and I have some time open? No, its because I just wrote this and feel the need again remembering that day... I need to feel those feelings again. I need to remember, I need to hear music. I simply must. And I am so very proud of the quality we are providing in our components and how they can help stir the soul each time no matter how demanding the listener is. It's what drives us all here at Raven now that we aren't playing music for a living, or even for fun. Knowing that I can still do something like this... it's just so important. And I will never take it lightly. EVER.

 

I think that is exactly the situation. Any commercial trove of desirable NOS vacuum tubes has already been mined long ago.

There are pockets of these "horder's" around, with large stashes of tubes, but as you say, they are limited in number.

In another thread, a member inquired about, what is the big deal in producing the same old quality vacuum tubes today. I gave him a basic explanation, like you have and posted a video of a Mullard factory that was made many years ago.

I spent a sizable chunk of my life in microcomputer's (which is where today's PC's came from). I have seen the digital market change from where my first circa 1977 computer just "beeped" through the development of real 8-bit sound. A friend of mine happened to be a factory rep for Ensonic, who made the first popular 8-bit digitally sampled keyboard.

I used to loath digital music and now I embrace it. It has come a long way and digital technology will continue to improve. There will become a point where digital guitar amplifier's will replace tube amplifier's. The same thing will happen with audio class "D" amplifier's.

I am very happy that I find myself in the tube part of audio today. It is kind of the best of both world's. We have new improved electronics and we sill have the availability of affordable tubes. Maybe modern tube production is not up to old production standards, but at least we have them! This is in additional to some old NOS tubes.

No, you are right. Time marches on and technologies change, for better or worse, they change.

 

Just a cautionary answer would be, are they still viable - and how do they really test out, not microphonic? I have found many gem purchases on Ebay, but also many many that proved troublesome. Just be careful, return them immediately if they show to be problematic. Because KT77's aren't that common in today's amp designs, this also impacts their value. Good Luck if you get them.... I'm sure we all would love to hear how they sound.

 

Maybe, but that amplifier's final sound quality will ALWAYS be limited by the amplifier's ability to show each component's value within the circuit as a whole. It's about the "stew" of components, and the circuit's design as much as it is about the system it is attached/mated with. Any component in the chain that makes the system as a whole, can limit or help the final system's sound. If you have excellent speakers, amplifier(s), and a cheap DAC or maybe a lower quality cartridge on your turntable, therein lies the limiting factor in that particular system.

Each part of the system has its own value, and therefore creates its own limitations within the system. As a result, each piece is of the same importance I think. It's never about how much these components cost... its only about how well they fit into the system they are placed within.

Even the room a system is placed in, and where in that room you set it up is important~! That probably doesn't help a lot of people that may be starting out, and it may also prove daunting to rookies getting into this hobby... but the truth is complicated in this hobby. None of us know it all~!!! Yet... everything matters to a degree. Ask a lot of questions, and weigh the answers carefully and choose the information you acquire by carefully reading ALL the answers given. Never choose a single source as gospel. We all can only talk about what we hear in rooms that we have personally experienced. Another important truth is, ears are like fingerprints. Each one is different, and some are hugely so. So as a result even that affects the sound that reaches our brains. If you don't think that important, take your hands and cup them behind your ears while listening... ah, there it is!

At 65 I am still constantly learning more about this hobby, every time I enter a different room and hear a great system I hope to learn more. This may be among the most complicated of hobbies... and yet certainly among the most fun - without risking our neck or health... though that was at one time fun too.... and I am glad I am still here to remember it... or at least some of it.

The older we get the more we can enjoy such a sedentary hobby that can take us on such a wild trip without leaving a chair. And this one is the ONLY one I know if that can act as a time machine, stir long hidden emotions, bring memories flooding back to life and move one so deeply at such a personal level. So it is incredibly valuable to us all as we get on in life.

For me it started while I was in my teens... and proceeded to every town and every stage I played each night, and yet once I got back home I would eventually turn my system on to play the recordings we made... that was part of my job back then. Even then I realized how valuable all of this was, and would be in the future as I grew older. And can you imagine what it feels like to listen to those old recordings now! I only wish so many had not gotten lost in the shuffle that is/was my past life.

Some of us might bicker back and forth on the little elements that make the all important chain that is the complete system. But the real truth is how playing music makes us all feel. THAT is why we are all here... isn't it? It is for me. I am a hopeless tube addict, and no solid state or digital system is ever going to do it for me. Part of it is about the endless and limitless chameleon that a tube amp system can bring its owner. I love the fact that I can constantly try new glass. I live for it~! Yeah, the pile of glass grows annually, but as long as I don't use them completely up, they have value. I am very protective of my pile of glass, but I also love sharing... sometimes! Someday, hopefully in a few more decades, someone is going to get very lucky.

I can only hope it brings a fraction of the enjoyment that it gives me... and allows my memory to live on through the music.

 

Such great answers... and great points. If it makes us think, and agree or disagree, it is brings great value to the discussion. I am not sure that vacuum tube guitar amps will ever be replaced because of their ability to change with the tube choices, and this may even be more important when discussing tube amp playback systems. But it is something to think about. I personally would never want to "settle" on a single sonic signature. My personality always wants to know what would happen with a different choice. When I was young this got me into a LOT of trouble. Maybe black plates, or ladder plates, Mullards, Telefunkens, Valvos, etc. are something like blondes, brunettes or redheads...

 

That is ever so true.

One evening I was enjoying an hour and a half phone call with another member, whose audio experience goes back many years. He has a lot of nice McIntosh gear, both tube and SS.

As we have both been around gear for many, many years, we had a common basis for a nice in-depth audio discussion.

One comment that he made was that to him, both his McIntosh SS and his McIntosh Tube amplifier sounded exactly the same.

Now, this caught me somewhat off guard, because I don't think that my SS amps sound anything like the any of the dozen tube amplifier's that I have.

Now, I have heard others make similar comments on the forum, usually dismissing them, because they were being down on tubes, and in favor of SS.

But here, I knew that I was speaking with someone with a lot of experience and excellent equipment, including some with horn loaded speakers.

What you have said is just the conclusion that I came up with. If you don't have the right quality, sensitive speaker's, you probably won't be able to discern much of a difference, if any at all.

If you really do have the right speakers, then coupled with the right tube amplification, things sound stupid good and completely different that even very nice SS systems.

Only my A7's and Zu Omen Definitions are powered by tube amps. All of my other systems are 100% powered by SS and sound perfectly matched with SS amplification.

Speaker's that are nicely voiced for SS system's, which account for most of today's speaker's, don't benefit much, if any from tube amplification.

Getting the right match between an amplifier and the speaker's you are using, is ever so important.

Those are some righteous size speaker's! Until you actually run speaker's like these, you can't really appreciate how loud they can play with only 20-Watts of amplification. My vintage Altec Lansing A7, Voice Of The Theater speaker's are rated at 103-dB, but are padded down a bit to match the 511B HF horn/driver to the 15" bass speaker in the Altec 828 bass bin.

The factory A7's have been restored and upgraded for home audio and a two way system is now a four way system with a JBL super-tweeter and separate 15" passive horn loaded sub woofer.

I have run them with everything from a 475-Watt SS amp to a 3.9-Watt single ended pentode amp. The commercial sub get it's own 1,600-Watt Crown XTi-2000 power amp, which is running in the bridged mono mode.

I like your statement, "I love the fact that I can constantly try new glass. I live for it~!"

 

I would far rather prefer having a tube power amplifier with a SS preamplifier, than the other way around.

Hybrid amps, don't remotely sound tube-like to me.

I agree.

 

Upon closer look, they turned out to be new production, not NOS.