"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:42:06 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:


wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:50:49 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:


wrote in message
m...



Yes, and solid state pre amps and power amps are cleaner than tube
amps, as well. Clean and accurate reproduction is not necessarily the
objective with tube amplifiers for musical instrument amplification.

How the power is delivered to tubes can measurably affect things such
as rise time and decay. I'm not promising that you can actually hear
the difference, but purists will swear they can even if it is a
physiological impossibility.


If you think about it though, the "power" is really being delivered by
one
or more big filter capacitors. I never asked one if it cared how the
power
got there. At that point, DC is DC.

Eisboch


You would think so, wouldn't you! Bear in mind that a vacuum tube is a
mechanical structure and not all of the power is part of the signal
path. You have to account for uneven heat, vibration and other
anomalies that all go into what come out. The vagaries of a wimpy,
tube rectified power supply, with hand rolled paper caps should not be
underestimated.

Purists will also insist that point to point wiring sounds different
than circuit board construction. They may be right about that in some
cases. Sounds crazy, though...


I'll buy into the point to point wiring. An important critera used in
high
quality tube amps was to design the chassis so the signal wiring was as
far
away as possible from the power wiring. And, if you noted any funny
noises
or distortion, you could always re-route the wires.

As for the power supply, I am still not convinced a tube rectifier is
going
to sound (or display on an O'scope) any different than solid state, if
measured at the filter stage or any B+ test point. The audio amplifiers
certainly are different between solid state and tubes and that is readily
noticeable, even by people with tin ears.
But 300 volts DC?

Well, good points every one.

However, I can tell the difference between, say, my Mac 50s and a
similar power level solid state monoblock.

And I know others who can.

So there must be something to it.

Maybe it's all in our heads.

Mine's certainly empty enough. :)


Solid state did great things in the 1940's. Magnetic Amps controlled the
16" guns on the battleships. But Russia used microtubes / micro-valves for
the English, in their ICBMs and other rockets.