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Re: Tell me why (serious question)

"I attribute that to the Thermionic noise of the tube amps and how the speaker disperses that noise."

And what if the tube amp is as quiet as a good SS amp and yet soundstages much better? What then, Dan? I know many SS amps noisier (as in good old hiss coming from the speaker) than my tube amp. Do you know what the theoretical noise limit is for a good vacuum tube? I would bet that it is lower than you can hear. Soundstage is tied closely to the purity of HF reproduction. The less garbage at HF the more likely the amp is able to accurately recreate the ambient information on the recording (whether real or synthetic). It is a fact that tubes are better at delivering power at high frequencies. The fact that the output transformer rolls this off does not change the fact that they have a wider inherent bandwidth, without feedback, than a transistor. Adding feedback DOES increase HF hash in the form of high order harmonics that are signal correlated. This can degrade the ability of the amp to recreate an accurate soundstage. This has been known since the 1950s (read Crowhearst again).

All one has to do is look at the HF distortion of most SS amps with feedback. Nearly all of them show a rather large increase in HF distortion regardless of the power output. This increase is happening right where the critical information on the recording occurs. The implication is obvious.

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