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In Reply to: Experienced the classic "tubey" sound recently - and LOVED it! posted by LowRedMoon on May 3, 2007 at 10:48:52:
Part of the glory might have been the single full-range driver. It probably has an alnico magnet and a very light paper cone. Of course it doesn't really cover the 'full range,' but some of those old speakers in open back cabinets present a deliciously satisfying sound that you just don't find anywhere else. They mate so well with simple little SE amps.It's tempting (and easy) to suppose that it's just a lot of 2nd order harmonic distortion giving a rich sweet flavor, but I don't buy it. 2nd HD is easy to produce. Adding it to a 'clean' system does not bring back the magic.
Follow Ups:
> Part of the glory might have been the single full-range driver.Another part might be the single full-range driver. :) Seriously, most of those old brittle paper cones couldn't reproduce 12K with a kilowatt. Removing the upper passband takes a lot of distortion products with it. I've heard many, many others through the years refer to restricted bandwidth consoles and table radios as having "sweet tube sound."
Do you suppose that if LowRedMoon rolled off a couple of octaves on each end of his EL84 or EL34 systems that he would be rewarded with the captivating midrange beauty that took him by surprise in the table radio?
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that if you don't have any bass it pays to balance the sound out by not having any treble.Still, those old tube radios sound better on AM too, where max frequency is 5 KHz. At least I think so.
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I'd like to hear some of the newer Alnio drivers (older ones are hard to come by in my experience). They're pricey, but if what you're saying is valid (and I don't doubt that it is), then I think it would be worth looking into. The Fostex F200 looks affordable.
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