I was participating today in answering the questions of a listener new to tubes. The major input came from a couple of long time audio professional who sell both tube and solid state gear. The list of advantages that presented itself is worth repeating, I think. The last thing on my mind is to start anything; I just want to share what transpired.

He asked, when told about clipping, if that is how a transistor amp protects itself when asked to produce too much power. Well, in a way, yes, I said. To “protect” itself, it destroys your speakers’ voice coils. This stops the unreasonable demand for watts and volts – it disappears – along with your speakers, of course. Tubes clip so gently, they are nearly incapable of perpetrating this act. Tubes produce predominately even order harmonics, much less harmful than the odd order products of solid state distortion. Not to mention much nicer sounding.

When a transistor amp fails catastrophically, it often sends a neat DC current down the line. This does a really thorough job of destroying any pesky ac devices in its path. Like your JBL’s, for instance. When a tube amp fails, it stops creating output.

When said amp needs to be repaired, it goes like this. Transistor amp: be very good at this stuff, or pay someone who claims to be very good for a lot of labor to find the problems. Then pay him a lot more to track down output transistors NLA for a decade or more. Tube amp: test the tubes and replace the one that failed.

How about the sound? Well, the triode is the lowest distortion audio device on the planet. Ask Steve Schell. But what about the overall distortion specifications? The audio pros around here with many years under their belts have noticed that, even back in the seventies, the transistor amps and receivers that measured so-so for distortion sounded OK, while the ones with the .001% specs sounded at best un-involving, more typically like crap. The tube amps generally benched terribly but sounded very pleasing, involving and musical, with ungodly wonderful soundstages and imaging clarity, and no listener fatigue. This has not changed to this day. It seems that measuring distortion by watching instruments does not necessarily have a direct connection to the activity of actually listening to music. Where perception is concerned, the complexity of the human brain seems to render a different reality than electronic “ears” and processors do. This has not changed appreciably in the intervening years, either.

For what it is worth, the fellow liked the tube sound a lot and is going to bring in his Altec Fifteens to do some direct listening. I'll keep you posted if anyone is interested. He'll be in around Christmas time. Me, I've found tubes to be an "electronic Aquaplas" for Altecs in particular and compression drivers in general.

I expect he would like PassLabs amps, but they cost too much for him and he has no time for DIY.

Me, I have liked solid state until I directly compare it to tube gear. I have gone from all SS to half and half to all tube.



Clark In Peoria