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Good read on "The Great Debate"

#281
Personally, I don't care if tubes sound better or not. What I care about is that the amp sounds good and is small and lightweight---also the cab(s). To wit, my LMIII and Traveler 151P cabs. SS sounds fine to me. Yes, there's a difference, but not enough to make me wanna carry more weight and bulk. Nope.

That's me.
 
#282
JimmyM said:
Since this thread got dredged back up...

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One is a solid state DI. The other is a tube/transformer DI designed to sound identical to a tube amp being DI'd through the speaker out. Anyone who can't tell the differences in these two clips is deaf.
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Yes, and if you can't hear that the gains aren't matched, then what? :D
 
#284
i've yet to play a solid state amp that sounds like a tube amp

that being said, I don't want solid state amps to sound like tube amps... Solid state has it's place, and so do tubes.

Some of my favorite artists use solid state amps, or even just a solid state power section, so I hold no bias towards tube amps other than personal preference in sound and playability.
 
#285
I have a thought - why do we even care? I mean, when you drink a beer, is the first thing you think of whether or not it was brewed with fuggles or cascade and whether it was fermented with a lager yeast and whether or not it was naturally bottle/cask conditioned as opposed to force carbonated, or is it just a matter of whether or not you like the beer. When testing out a head, should you really only be thinking about whether or not it has tubes; class A, A/B, or D power section; brand name pots and orange drop caps; and point to point wired, or should you just think about how good it sounds to you, whether you can afford it, and whether or not you want to lug it around everywhere?
 
#286
Being an electronic engineer for 25 years I thought I'd give a ratz azz but I don't. If an amp sounds good I'll use whether it's active components made of dirty sand or transparent sand.

If presented with a couple of 200W amps that sound good enough for what I play with one weighing in at 70 lbs and the other weighs 2 lbs, I'll pick the one that weighs 2 lbs. every time.
 
#288
MilbertCom said:
Years ago at a winter CES show, the guys from Phoenix Gold hid one of their SS car amps in a big, presumably tube-driven 'audiophile-type' chassis which was sitting between big speakers in one of the home-audio demo suites in the "high-end" hotel of the show. They periodically sat a group of attendees down in about one dozen chairs, closed the suite door, told them what they were about to hear, and then played a 5-minute performance. As everyone was talking and sometimes raving afterward, the MC pressed a remote button and the (motorized) front of the fake big tube amp chassis folded down and out slid a tray containing their SS car amp. Finding that the joke was on them, the crowd usually left quickly (I sat in on several demonstrations in a row). I think the whole thing back-fired; I don't believe Phoenix Gold ever did it again.

Yet people clearly hear, feel and appreciate differences between tube and SS, across many types of listeners/players, situations, and decades of time. And more than a few vote with their dollars. Present reality proves this general truth. If it were not so, wouldn't this industry (and others similar) long ago have converged to the lowest common denominator?
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Marketing keeps pedaling the hype and keeps pushing that there's some special attribute of signal processing that can only be attributed to vacuum tubes. Yet the years of blind tests don't agree. And lack of new tests is apparent. MI makers add a tube just to appease a check box that it includes a tube. Tube - "Check".

There is a good reason marketing hype surrounds all this. It makes money. Just like with power conditioners, special power cords, and guitar cords. It's all coated in costly snake oil that has not been measured to make a difference.

Marketing is a strong influence, and through the years the truly best technology does not always win if Marketing is strong in some other direction. This is true in any industry.
 

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