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In Reply to: Re: emulating tube sound posted by Charlie Stuangstabalack on August 18, 2003 at 10:49:36:
> Just put cotton in your ears, or throw a blanket over your speakers.Unfortunately, that's the sound I hear when I listen to solid state. I like big watts, and would like to hear clarity in a SS amp, but they always seem cloudy in the mids and highs. And I just run nothing to special Eico ST70 PP UL 7591. I've heard homebrews that kick its butt; still blows away my old Flame Linear. I guess I have yet to hear a really good SS.
So what is a good sounding SS? Now's your chance to be positive Charlie. :)
GB
Follow Ups:
GB,I am not recommending that you listen to your horns with SS amplification. My comment was a little joke coming from a fellow tube listener. :-) But seeing (and hearing) how SS amps that purportedly “emulate” tube amps mimic the worst qualities of the worst designs, perhaps freddyi *could* save time and money by simply stuffing his ears. If you read about the (in)famous “Carver experiment” that DeKay mentions, you’ll discover what the Stereophile-reading (m)asses consider to be the “tube sound.”
Hi Charlie -I remember hearing Carver "T" series on gawd-knows what direct radiators at local store - may have been Bose, Sound Dynamics (w. dhorm)- somewhat more tolerable on that stuff than Denon receiver... - mighta been hell on horns - not sure if any better than his sheet metal cube or not.for higher power (on manepans) ran Citation II with Mullard 6SL/SN front end done by Bruce Moore and Scott Frankland - probably would have sounded a bit better without 6BL7 cathode followers
had Moore's "Its The Allatoyah" (sp?) & "New Venusian" proto preamps with bigass electrolytic caps on outboard supply - latter was pretty mellow despite big pooter lytics and loop RIAA eq.
Best,
Freddy
Oh yeah, the school of amp designers that think SS amps are straight wire and think people only like tubes cuz they are euphonic. So when they design a hybrid they stick a tube distortion stage in there and give you the worst of both worlds. Yuck. I wonder if some designers have ever heard live music at all. I'd rather have a DIY gainclone or something. Isn't it possible to get 50w or something out of one?Greg B
hey Charlie - can't afford the "artist" 50 Cent Rap but listen to lotsa 50 cent rap cds (some better engineered imo than 'audiophile' labels and maybe more artistic than a clasical piece being done for the jillionth time worse than machine - seems like tired Altec 806 will pretty much take off the edge - but I use Karlson tailpipe waveguidetoo old/burntout to build anything - or get very excited about audio- last diy tube unit was parallel 2A3SE pile w. 5842 and IT - "ok" with certain horns
ever hear Threshold 800? - old buddy of mine said it sounded like blanket (w. Tympani 1D)
best,
Freddy
Freddy,
Not all new classical has the life beat out of it. Ever heard the Club Foot Orchestra? Their soundtrack for 'the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' totally rocks. (i think that's the one - www.clubfoot.com) Wish I still had a copy. Tin Hat Trio is pretty cool too, never heard them except live though. The other locals Kronos Quartet are a little to cutesy or forced or something for my taste.GB
dunno GB - I like opera singers from 1900-to mid 1950's - from Anselmi to Zenatello for tenors - bass-baritones in my stack include Heinz Rehfuss, Otto Wiener, Gottlob Frick, Josef Greindl,Wilhem Strienz, on and on - have many cds and 2-3K rough LPsfor modern tenors, Alagna with guitars is nice - much better than some elevator "new-flamenco" guitar - do you know of any good Spanish or italian or whatever tenors accompanied by guitar?
Weill-Brecht stuff is always interesting - but not heard much in last 25 years - Romy ought to know of some nice recordings
pcm recordings (or engineer) can sometimes reduce the texture of an orchestra or pipe organ down to ~Casio keyboard - when winter arrives will use tubes again = casio overlaid with Fender geetar-amp driver/inverter - yeehaw! 12AT7
btw do find some rap pretty cool - development maybe be passe at this point
i was in Sound by Singer several years ago demoing an Acurus and CJ amp... they both cost around $1000. I chose the Acurus in a blind test because it sounded faster and more dynamic (at least on the pair of Martin Logans it was playing on) than the CJ.The salesman got angry with me and told me i was wrong about which one sounded better.
A couple years later.. the Anthem tubed integrated vs the (3x the price) Krell integrated. I chose the Krell.
It sounded more dynamic.
I bought an Aragon 200 watt monster... and became fatigued.. and got headaches.. and traded it in for a much smoother sounding, 3D image producing tube amp (Cary) after 3 or 4 years of tweeking speakers..
Nowadays i listen to tubes because my speakers sound better with tubes. They are tweaked this way. Once you hear the SS grain and flat soundstage you will always here it.. But if i had a pair of Martin Logans.. i would again consider SS.
They like to call it 'clarity'. They don't want to be confused by too much detail, accuracy, soundstaging or things like that.
I wonder if they just have poor hearing sometimes. To me, a good tube amp simply sounds lifelike and convincingly recreates the original event. At worst, it's more like watching the event through a dirty window or maybe a camera obscura. SS is like watching TV. Good SS is like HDTV, but there's always a bit of grain and I'd rather have a window, even if it's old rolled dirty glass.GB
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