I have multiple headphone and speaker chains, on two different locations. The best ones in presentation:
Linn Klimax Organik DSM + ATC SCM40A active speakers.
Holo May KTE DAC > Eddie Current Aficionado (Mullard 5AR4 rectifier,
Ericsson 396A driver, Psvane ACME 2A3 power) > ZMF Verité LTD blackwood.
1 is fast, expansive, 2 is intimate, dense. I also own/have owned many solid-state headphone amps, including some exotic ones I still use a lot (ecp DSHA-3F) but for that small-room immediacy, the tube amp is the winner. And to be even more tube-extreme, I have a custom DNA Stellaris on order.
Mil Spec, Hospital Grade, or Commercial Radar are my favorite sources. Incredible accuracy, great matching, and long life. It’s great having several sets and swapping them in and out. Years of enjoyment!
That nicely summarises why I am not a tube candidate and have a little technics linear tracking automatic turntable. Ive heard mega systems both ss and valve and they sounded wonderful but I personally would be distracted by them. Could they be improved etc.
let your ears be the judge.
and don’t hesitate to mix and match. I’m running an Audio Research LS16 tube pre-amp into
a Krell FPB600 solid state. Perfect match.
AceRimmer
(Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!)
93
One reason I still have an old Technics linear tracker in the living room rig.
The wife can handle plopping a record down and pushing the start button.
Of course it might be a Wham record or if in luck Bob Marley.
“It used six 300B tubes in 2 stages to deliver 50W of pure class A triode sound.”
The input is a 300B tube driving 4x300B tubes in the output stage and a shunt regulator based on yet another 300B tube"
4 Likes
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
99
Ah, but those meters are too modern. If you’re going on a nostalgia trip with tubes, the meters have to look the part! Sort of as if they were pulled out of the Krell lab in “Forbidden Planet”.
All true, and there is one more factor to consider - tube power amps almost always significantly change the sound of the loudspeaker they are driving. Virtually all tube power amps have significant output impedance, I.e. low damping factor. This impedance is in series with the varying impedance of the loudspeaker causing the frequency response of the signals driving the loudspeaker to be changed - it is not the loudspeaker that was designed.
As someone who has spent a lifetime in scientific research on sound reproduction, I appreciate well-designed - neutral - loudspeakers. I am not amused when an obsolete technology changes the performance of carefully designed loudspeakers. Well designed solid state power amps have vanishlngly small output impedances and when connected to loudspeakers with low resistance, large, wire there is a chance you may hear the loudspeaker as designed.
Absolutely - if your room is perfect, you sit absolutely still, clear any ear wax out, silence the whole house, turn off all wifi, sort the electricity and once all that is done you don’t think yourself better than the speaker designer and inject a bit of DSP to taste……
Welcome to the Roon Community Mr. Toole. It’s an honor to have someone with your distinguished background in professional audio join us mere hobbyists on this community. Hoe that you are enjoying Roon and discovering worthwhile items in your music collection that you may have long forgotten.
3 Likes
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
104
Welcome, Floyd! Good to have you with us here in the forum.
Re: DSP, the widespread use of full bandwidth “room EQ” devices that substitute steady-state frequency response curves from a 1/4-inch mic for two ears and a brain do far more damage to the sound from good loudspeakers than any tube power amp - so it is important to keep things in perspective.
