Why are tubes audio amplifiers so much better than transistors amplifiers ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: py1dkw@yahoo.com
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 10:02:04 pm
content: Every music player prefer tube amplifiers and that is the main reason that they are still produced for audiophiles and guitar players, but the specifications are worse than transistor amplifiers! What is your opinion and which is the best tube for pushpull operation in your opinion? EL34, KT66, 5881, 6L6GC or another? I would appreciate hearing from you!

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 10:07:43 pm
content: Hi-fi amps and guitar amps are totally opposite applications. Hi-fi amps are supposed to have low distortion, while guitar amps have distortion by design.Tubes are good for guitar amps because they make "nice" distortion when overdriven, while transistor amps tend to distort badly (although they can easily be designed to replicate the tube effect when this is wanted).In hi-fi amps, tubes may be desired because they can introduce a coloration to the sound that is liked by some people. Also, they look pretty, and can make a statement. Furthermore tube amps can be very expensive, which is also desirable in a hi-fi product.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 10:15:16 pm
content: a lot of musician seem to have strange beliefs that anything that's old, obsolete,rare etc. have some magical quality that makes it sound better

author: richnormand
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 10:33:09 pm
content: Q:Why are tubes audio amplifiers so much better than transistors amplifiers ?A:They are not.Q:Why is this in the RF/microwave section ?A:Your microwave oven still has a tube but not at audio frequencies....Look up third harmonic distortion and elegant overloading properties for audio...

author: Roehrenonkel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 15, 2024, 11:48:40 pm
content: Hi py1dkw@yahoo.com,....maybe because the people like to gather around the fire since ages? ;-))2nd harmonics, soft overdrive (like analog reel-tapes), square- vs. e-function.....If you insist on PP and can life with 17W than i propose the EL84 (6BQ5).Best regards

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 12:00:18 am
content: Holy crap, may as well get a bunch of rednecks extremely drunk and ask which is a better truck Ford or Chevy?Push pull tube amps have a pleasing introduction of musically related even harmonics as they begin to enter into the non-linear range of operation. Transistor amplifiers tend to work right up to the supply rail voltages where they hard clip and flat top instantly creating odd order harmonics 'which absolutely suck' when heard by the human ear. And that in a nutshell is the tube/transistor preference story. As for choice of tubes, again only the listener can say what 'they' think sounds best. Dozens of similar tubes, many plug and play compatibles after bias adjustment and so many brands and internal changes by the same brand even without the 'A', 'B' or 'C' suffix. AND it really depends on the very amplifier you plug the tubes into!!! Brand X tubes sound great in a certain amp but suck in a different amp. There is no right or wrong, There is no better or worse, there is only "What sounds good to you"!!!

author: vk4ffab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 07:21:51 am
content: Quote from: py1dkw@yahoo.com on March 15, 2024, 10:02:04 pmThere is not a single application where I would prefer a tube amp over a transistor amp. Spent 20 years as a music professional doing everything from playing bass and drums, to front of house, side of stage and studio production for some big names in the music scene here back in my day LOL and there is not a single time when I went, you know what this needs, more tubes.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 08:16:46 am
content: Tubes and transistors both have pros and cons.For example, tubes allows to get better dynamic range, high power and they have pleasant harmonic distortions.While transistors consume less power, more reliable and more linear frequency response.Tubes consume a lot of power, they are heating a lot, they have short lifetime and high weight.Transistors have low dynamic range, cannot handle very high power and have very unpleasant harmonic distortions, they can be easily damaged with static electricity.So, you're needs to select what you want...For exampel if you want to build 1 MW short wave high linear amplifier for AM transmitter, there is no choice for transistors, only tube can do that job.But if you want ultra low power and compact device, there is no choice for tube, only transistors can do that job.

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 01:08:32 pm
content: I think Nautel and perhaps Collins may have been hot on the trail of megawatt solid state transmitters using PWM and lots of smaller modules who's output loops were connected in series and you could even hot-swap modules. The need for such high power transmitters has diminished for all but the most wasteful spender of tax dollars, the military. With suppressed carrier or reduced carrier broadcasts transmitters have become more efficient and smaller for a given power level. We replaced an RCA BTA-5H and a Gates/Harris MW-5 with a gates solid state. Huge savings in power consumed by the transmitter and HUGE savings in the HVAC support system for the transmitter room. The solid state rigs just don't have the glowing WOW factor of the old RCA!! (except during lightning induced fires) It is also cheaper to maintain high gain rhombic directional arrays coupled to lower power transmitters. You can get the same E.R.P. but no longer omni-directional. You pick your target audience, their location, language and local time of day. Sadly, today, shortwave listening is a shadow of its former self with mostly religeous goobledygook coming from just a few sources. I miss the days of Radio Norway and Swiss Radio International. Its all on podcast now and big tube transmitters are going cold one by one.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 01:20:54 pm
content: Quote from: CaptDon on March 16, 2024, 01:08:32 pmhttps://www.nautelpower.com/solutions-high-power-solid-state-rf-amplifier/broadcast-solid-state-analog-digital-radio-transmitter/

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 03:04:48 pm
content: Quote from: vk4ffab on March 16, 2024, 07:21:51 amSure, bass and house sound work better with clean solid state amps, although some bass players still want a "tube sound". But try telling a guitar player they can't use their Fender / Marshall / etc. tube amp. Many are happy with emulators, but all of them play the amp as much as they play their guitar.I used to play bass a lot. But this was a bit of a click-bait thread title...

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 04:32:35 pm
content: Quote from: py1dkw@yahoo.com on March 15, 2024, 10:02:04 pmNo ”every music player” does not. Some do, most do not care.Quote from: py1dkw@yahoo.com on March 15, 2024, 10:02:04 pmGuitar amps are a special case, since they’re often driven deliberately into distortion.But I will share a secret with you: there exist musicians whodon’tplay electric guitar or bass! Shocking, but true! Some play other instruments, others make noises with their mouths (we call it “singing”). These people don’t play their amps into distortion, so they don’t need tube amps.

author: 10maurycy10
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 05:38:44 pm
content: Audio amps and guitar amps have quite different requirements. An audio amplfier is designed to amplify the signal with minimal distortion and intermodulation, because any distortion will blend all the instruments together resulting in something best described as noise. However, because they are designed for low distortion over as wide of a range as possible, when they do distort, they distort very sharply, creating harsh sounds.Guitar amps are designed to gradually distort for artistic effect, and this is often done with tubes, but the same effect can be acheved with transistor amps.The difference is not the amplifying component itself, but they way it is used in a circuit, to achieve different goals.Anyone saying that tube amps are uniquely better is conflating intentional design decision with the technolgy itself.

author: Grandchuck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 05:54:05 pm
content: Is this Troll Bait?

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 06:28:39 pm
content: With AC powered filaments, powerline hum is quite ubiquitous with tubed amps.On many recordings, before the music starts one can listen to the hum. This is specially true on older live Rock recordings. Many from top bands playing legendary performances.As such, hum is not considered a defect but actually a desirable feature. In the words of a musician acquaintance, it gives a “body” to the sound.His words, not mine. But I do agree that hum provides a certain “classic rock” flavor to the music. I actually like it in small amounts.

author: Wallace Gasiewicz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 09:38:36 pm
content: Didn't some amps use DC filament voltage? To eliminate HUMMMMMMM?

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 09:58:26 pm
content: Quote from: Wallace Gasiewicz on March 16, 2024, 09:38:36 pmYes, but I don't think any guitar amps did. And that hum you hear on live rock recordings is usually hum from the instrument pickups. These are electromagnetic pickup coils under the steel strings. Some guitars (often the Gibson "Les Paul" models) use "humbucker" pickups, which are wound or wired somehow to minimize sensitivity to external fields from house wiring and amplifier power transformers.

author: vk4ffab
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 11:24:52 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on March 16, 2024, 03:04:48 pmIts funny hey, other than audiofoolery, guitar is the last bastion of the tube. Many bass amps are class D now, as are PA bins in line array systems. I wish we had Class D amps and switch mode supplies back in my day. A 1500w powered line array sub comes in under 50kq, a single S-Bin that we used weighted close to 120Kg and then you had the amp and cross over and its case as well.Even in guitar amps I am not sure that tubes are better than anything else, but, there is a lot to be said for the Rickenbacker Marshal Stacker (LOL dating myself here quoting Sidewinder, Titanic of Days) having defined a sound many want to replicate. I think even here its more nostalgia that drives things than actually being "better". The number of times when recording I have left the cabinet out of the mix and just used the DI and the guitarist did not know any different kind of proves that point. Easy to do when they are using a bunch of digital effects and not the amps natural distortion. Essentially the tube amp became irrelevant to them the moment they started using digital effects, but they have the tube amp because that is what their hero used.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 16, 2024, 11:46:07 pm
content: Yeah, I used to haul around my Fender Super Bassman (two pairs of 6L6GC tubes in the output section) and a 4x12" cabinet. Heavy. I sure like my little SWR practice amp with the 10" speaker (which can actually fill a good-size living room). Of course I also have a 500W solid state amp and a 4x10" cabinet I can use when necessary.

author: John James
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 07:59:19 am
content: Good moorning; Italy time 08:51!! Let me introduce myself, Giovanni, I am Italian and I am a professional electronic designer and repair technician. I am opening this new topic, only to answer the comparison between valves and transistors or digital technology!! What is called technology is a word that in itself makes it clear that it is useful for something, in terms of what it represents!! Who would ever choose a power of 100 clean Watts against 10 dirty and deflated Watts? We are talking about transistors and valves!! Bearing in mind that while it is true that many people like the valve sound, it is absolutely not true that the valve sound is a beautiful sound, in fact it is not at all!! How is it possible that theory is upset by practice? impossible!! An audiophile (stuffed turkey!!) is ignorant in this matter, that is to say that if I take a well-made transistor amplifier, I am talking about bipolar ones, I see an original pair of the signal in question returned to me!!

author: John James
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 08:11:28 am
content: Quote from: John James on November 04, 2024, 07:59:19 amfurthermore, and let go of the beauty of the tube dreamers and incompetents, what do you want to get out of a static machine like the output transformer? What comparison could be made with a clean and powerful signal like that of the transistor? It is useless to write to me that I do not know, I can also demonstrate immediately how nothing they write about tube amplifiers is true, the sound of tube amplifiers even if built with excellent and custom transformers or however you want is always a very bland sound and despite the fact that I personally have reached almost transistorized levels with my tube amplifiers, it has nothing to do with real transistorized!! It is useless to comment, there is no comparison, it is all nonsense that tube enthusiasts write (stuffed turkeys!!) of whom you can only appreciate the wallet and the electricity meter!! It is useless to reiterate the stupid consumption of the tube, microphony, and complexity due to ground loop and high voltages!! So the same goes for the archaic turntable, centering of the disc, matrix, cantlever that slides on the disc, sound extracted through vibrations indicated by the grooves or microgrooves impressed in the plastic discs make the disc something archaic!! However, it remains that the love for a technology gone is not the fruit of instrumental measures and even less the fruit of powerful and updated projects, something that stuffed turkeys hate, as they cannot admire the "Chinese candelabra" that lights up the nights of full moon!! Having written this, everything else outside of the instrumentation is watery and as always, an important thing is the speaker amplifier interface!! Happy reading and thanks to everyone for accepting me in the forum!!

author: John James
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 08:27:21 am
content: I wanted to add; Those who claim that the compact disc player sounds bad and the turntable is better, are field chickens!!! Furthermore, everything that is sampled in comparison to the turntable is nothing, since considering only the sliding of the diamond stylus over the grooves of the Long Playing plastic record, the sampling is nothing in comparison!! So we have a tube amp with an output transformer, therefore large losses, provided that we buy a tango transformer or something similar!! Tubes that eat but don't shit, bulk, high voltages, ground loop, and a final sound beautiful for stuffed turkeys!! Who would ever dream of using a tube instead of a transistor? Only a blind enthusiast and harbinger of feats of a single-trio with a 2x2 watt grandma's plate and absorption close to 500 Watts!! Single-triodes, push pull, class A and the like are just waste and nothing more!! Great teaching and exercises with the soldering iron and there the fun is guaranteed, being an artist bending leads in the wiring of the valves on the fly, increases manual skill!! for the rest it is all a failure, and those who think that the valve is the job of the future have failed!! There are even field chickens who assert that the microphony of the valve is not a defect but a quality since the field chicken is in itself more defective than the microphonic valve itself!! Having written this I consider the valve stoned and therefore defunct with archaic induced support technologies and may it be a writing that becomes famous throughout the Web!! Thank you!! I am an expert in electronic forms, I repair electronic forms in all sauces, I design, build and sell amplifiers and speakers and I install digital audio systems in churches I have over forty years of experience in electronics and I also repair computerized industrial production machines!! Apart from the laser hair removal machines of which I am the official technician of oriental laser in Sardinia!! Thanks again, see you in the future!!

author: Tation
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 08:45:51 am
content: Why on earth ending each phrase with "!!"?

author: stretchyman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 08:52:59 am
content: SW is coming back!Finland has 'legalised' hobby broadcasting!

author: John James
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 02:10:46 pm
content: Quote from: Tation on November 04, 2024, 08:45:51 amHi, I put exclamation points to give myself some importance otherwise the field chickens don't understand!!

author: John James
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 02:16:15 pm
content: Quote from: stretchyman on November 04, 2024, 08:52:59 amThink about it, they even write on the walls that retrograde technology is better than innovations and I understood that they write it as a hobby!! But they don't know that a hobby as such can't show anything divine or anything else!! I wrote only to put an end and forever to the nonsense that many write about outdated technologies, I explained at length where you have to stop with fantasy and see what is real without believing in golden spirits (cables worth half a million euros!!) and in magical powers that could come from a glass puppet that is the valve, that's all!! Anyway, thanks for answering me, I don't have much time to argue, always remembering that improving brings different satisfactions than being obsessed with now archaic technologies!! Bye everyone, good luck guys!!

author: John James
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 02:17:27 pm
content: Quote from: stretchyman on November 04, 2024, 08:52:59 amThink about it, they even write on the walls that retrograde technology is better than innovations and I understood that they write it as a hobby!! But they don't know that a hobby as such can't show anything divine or anything else!! I wrote only to put an end and forever to the nonsense that many write about outdated technologies, I explained at length where you have to stop with fantasy and see what is real without believing in golden spirits (cables worth half a million euros!!) and in magical powers that could come from a glass puppet that is the valve, that's all!! Anyway, thanks for answering me, I don't have much time to argue, always remembering that improving brings different satisfactions than being obsessed with now archaic technologies!! Bye everyone, good luck guys!!

author: John James
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 02:18:36 pm
content: Think about it, they even write on the walls that retrograde technology is better than innovations and I understood that they write it as a hobby!! But they don't know that a hobby as such can't show anything divine or anything else!! I wrote only to put an end and forever to the nonsense that many write about outdated technologies, I explained at length where you have to stop with fantasy and see what is real without believing in golden spirits (cables worth half a million euros!!) and in magical powers that could come from a glass puppet that is the valve, that's all!! Anyway, thanks for answering me, I don't have much time to argue, always remembering that improving brings different satisfactions than being obsessed with now archaic technologies!! Bye everyone, good luck guys!!

author: squadchannel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 02:20:20 pm
content: you don't have to make 3 identical posts. I understand.Everyone but guitar geeks and some(extreme) audio geeks know that solid state is better than tube in terms of overall performance.Even I know that. Why I use 6L6GC tube amps? Nostalgia, fun of made my own, and as a heater for the winter.I'm planning my 829B amp. I'm collecting parts. I've got the Tango transformers. All that's left is my motivation.It makes me laugh, because some guitar enthusiasts will even sell Bumblebee caps for a high price because they sound "good".The sound of the guitar you are listening to is the sound of a capacitor with degraded capacitance

author: stretchyman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2024, 05:43:24 pm
content: I use MOSFETS, a good halfway house!Yes an age old argument.I have muso mates who can hear the tonal difference a certain capacitor makes so it's just whatever sounds good to your ears.I've seen rooms full of direct cut vinyl and heard the difference fancy speaker cables can make to a hifi system. All a bit silly.