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RE: Nobody here ever said tubes don't need break in. (nt)

"I am a research scientist for a big Pharma company and I can tell you that double-blind is not a suitable test for audio."

Yes, one hears such assertions, but what is the real basis for saying this? A chap claims he hears a "night and day" difference between amplifier configuration A and amplifier configuration B. He's then tested in a double-blind listening, and he fails to be able to distinguish them. What is the flaw in making the deduction that he was imagining the differences in the first place?

"Based on your comments it seems that you would favor rather than a SET (this is the SET forum you are commenting in afterall) but rather a ultra low THD SS amp...is that correct? Those are, afterall, "properly" designed based on "known" engineering principles and fully worked out theories, right? Some even measure, for the most part, below "audibility". "

I like making and using tube amplifiers largely for nostalgic and aesthetic reasons, I suppose. I don't have particularly strong feelings or opinions one way or the other about whether they sound better, or worse, than solid-state amplifiers. According to what one can read (for example in the accounts of the Richard Clark "amplifier challenge"), even alleged experts are unable to distinguish between the sound of a tube amplifier and a solid-state amplifier, provided that neither has particularly large distortion, and provided that the frequency response of (typically) the solid state amplifier is downgraded with simple RC networks (and maybe a series resistor on the output) to match that of the tube amplifier. I have never tried such experiments myself, and so I do not know for sure that I too would fail to be able to discriminate between them, but I have no reason to think I would do any better. Of course, if one knows what one is listening to, it is very easy to hear differences that accord with one's expectations or prejudices, and I have most certainly experienced that myself.

I sympathise with people's desire to imagine an intricate world of ultra-fine nuances in the sound that their favourite amplifier produces. And in fact, it may be that in a sense their imagining these nuances does actually bring them into being, via the incredibly complex interplay of the senses and the human mind. But if theses nuances cannot be demonstrated and verified in objective listening tests, it is surely more honest to recognise them for what they evidently are, namely imagined effects that exist in the mind of the listener?

Chris

PS: My homemade amplifiers are mostly OTL, and one is an ultra-linear push-pull. I'd like to try an SET some time, which is why I like to follow the SET forum too. Some would say, I think, that SET may give distortions, or perhaps colourations is a nicer word, that would exceed the bounds allowed in listening test like the Richard Clark amplifier challenge, and such that even a dyed-in-the-wool objectivist like myself could hear a difference. So I'd be interested to try that.


Edits: 08/24/15 08/24/15
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