Tube watts vs Solid State watts

[agedhorse]

I find that it takes about 10 times as much power from a SS amp to put out as much clean sound as a tube amp did. I run a 3800 solid state watt amp nowadays. It takes that much to be significantly louder than my 200 watt tube amp did. There are many widely varied technical reasons for it, physics, electronic, impedance coupling, power crest factors, tube soft clipping etc .

Or none of those reasons at all.

 

[svtb15]

JIm Bergantino spoke about something similar,, I thought this explained it well..But I don't know if this will answer your specific question since he did not reference a Tube amp in his post .. However, it is some good info to consider if you don't have some other mechanical or electrical issue
1200W Forte HP

I find that it takes about 10 times as much power from a SS amp to put out as much clean sound as a tube amp did. I run a 3800 solid state watt amp nowadays. It takes that much to be significantly louder than my 200 watt tube amp did. There are many widely varied technical reasons for it, physics, electronic, impedance coupling, power crest factors, tube soft clipping etc .

 

[oldjohn1951]

My suggestion is to save up for a well-made hand-wired tube amp if you are in this for the long haul; and I mean the long haul. I have a tube amp more than 50 years old. I treat my equipment well and the unit just keeps going, only needing servicing 2 or 3 times in its life. My solid state unit was also well cared for and I've had it for about 30 years. It is now a speaker cabinet. The circuit board looks like a car windshield after it's been hit with rock. There is no way in creation to fix that mess, nor would an NOS circuit board (if I could even find one of same vintage) be of any value. I attribute that to long term exposure to extreme variations in heat and cold and humidity and lack of humidity. The hand-wired tube amp doesn't care. It's plug and play. Costs more but definitely worth the dough.

 

[byacey]

I am engineer and suppose to be logical sensible etc. But I just like tube amps. My home and computer audio go through tube power amps. Even my bluetooth receiver is tube, the preamp portion of it anyways. I like how they sound not that they are louder. If I can I try to bring a tube bass amp. I practice with a tube amp 90% of the time

I'm still waiting for an all tube cell phone to hit the market.

 

[byacey]

I find that it takes about 10 times as much power from a SS amp to put out as much clean sound as a tube amp did. I run a 3800 solid state watt amp nowadays. It takes that much to be significantly louder than my 200 watt tube amp did. There are many widely varied technical reasons for it, physics, electronic, impedance coupling, power crest factors, tube soft clipping etc .

Is a clean, low distortion tube derived watt louder than a solid state derived watt, into the same speaker load?

 

[genesound]

My solid state amp is rack mounted and weighs 11 pounds without the case. I have a processor in the rack with it and a BBE BMAX-T tube preamp. It outputs 650 watts per channel at 8 ohms, 1900 watts per channel at 2 ohms. My 400 watt Fender weighed about 100 pounds and would only work as 3 133 watt outputs. It was anemic by comparison. Not anything like an SVT which is what I sent my band member after since he was going top buy it. He thought the Fender 400 would be better, I damn near cried. Crappy EQ, no punch and had 3 8 ohm outputs that could not be restrapped. Of course that was in 1975.

Back then I had a single 18 in a small box and 8 10s in another box. It was an Ampeg SBT (not SVT) cabinet. It did not impress anyone at all. Now I have 2 Avatar SB126 cabs, kicks ass on that other stuff by a country mile.

I was an electronics tech and had been a musician (dad was a music teacher) for years. Even SVT cabs aren't like they were then. They can be made out of Finland Birch and stuffed with high power 10s and really do some damage.

Having been a professional live soundman for almost 40 years since then, I have a pretty good handle on how stuff works. I also designed subwoofer speaker cabs with EVX180s (1000w woofers) for a while and Puff Daddy bought 8 of my cabinets in the 90s for his rehearsal studio. Those were the days.

I didn't play bass for the 35 years between the time my band broke up and the time I retired from sound.

 

[genesound]

Is a clean, low distortion tube derived watt louder than a solid state derived watt, into the same speaker load?

A clean tube amp doesn't sound good for guitar or bass until they are overdriven to almost 50%. A solid state amp overdriven that much will sound like crap and blow up speakers. That's due to crest factor, and the way the different types of amps clip. A tube circuit has about 500 volts of B+ in the plate supply to the output tubes, whereas a solid state amp usually has much less. The output of a tube is extremely high impedance, so that's what the output transformer does, is bring down the impedance and voltage to a usable level. This results in the tube amp clipping sounding subdued and pleasing, where the solid state amp clips hard and makes tons of unpleasant distortion, which fries tweeters, mids, and can flat out burn up the voice coil in the woofer from hitting the DC rails so hard, it's like hooking up the voice coil to 100 volts DC (or more nowadays) which makes them glow white hot and burn up from lack of cooling..

 

[byacey]

If you want to make comparisons like this, the maximum power output has to be compared with the same distortion figure, otherwise the numbers can be twisted around to mean anything.

 

[mmon77]

If all of these statements about solid state amps needing 10x the wattage, 5x, 2x, etc were true, wouldn't people who really needed tons of volume and headroom always be using tube amps?

So next time you go watch a concert, see if you can take a look at their FOH amp racks. They must be full of those powerful, loud, headroom forever tube amps...

 

[JimmyM]

A clean tube amp doesn't sound good for guitar or bass until they are overdriven to almost 50%.

Who told you that?

 

[byacey]

If all of these statements about solid state amps needing 10x the wattage, 5x, 2x, etc were true, wouldn't people who really needed tons of volume and headroom always be using tube amps?

So next time you go watch a concert, see if you can take a look at their FOH amp racks. They must be full of those powerful, loud, headroom forever tube amps...

Ah, but the pro audio sound reinforcement industry strives for high power with minimal distortion in their audio reproduction to maintain accuracy. Contributing distortion would be unacceptable.

 

[Doner Designs]

One thing not mention is that no solid states, or at least none I am aware of, go to 11.

If the ratio is 8:1 then the SS amp would have to go to 88 at which point some serious $hit would happen.

 

[agedhorse]

My suggestion is to save up for a well-made hand-wired tube amp if you are in this for the long haul; and I mean the long haul. I have a tube amp more than 50 years old. I treat my equipment well and the unit just keeps going, only needing servicing 2 or 3 times in its life. My solid state unit was also well cared for and I've had it for about 30 years. It is now a speaker cabinet. The circuit board looks like a car windshield after it's been hit with rock. There is no way in creation to fix that mess, nor would an NOS circuit board (if I could even find one of same vintage) be of any value. I attribute that to long term exposure to extreme variations in heat and cold and humidity and lack of humidity. The hand-wired tube amp doesn't care. It's plug and play. Costs more but definitely worth the dough.

Funny, I work on 30+ year old solid state and tube gear with 30+ year old PCBs and don't have any problems whatsoever properly repairing or restoring such gear. Perhaps your solid state amp was of poor quality or something happened to it. Old phenolic brown board could break under extreme conditions, but FR4 and G-10 boards were as reliable then as they are today. Heat, cold and vibrations aren't an issue with well built gear.

I have seen more crappy point to point wired tube gear than I care to remember. IMO, point to point is about the worst way to build anything but the simplest amps. I don't even build my prototypes point to point anymore. I detest them that much.

Now there's turret board and strip board which can be nice to work with provided the layout makes sense. Well executed, this can be very reliable too.

 

[oldjohn1951]

Funny, I work on 30+ year old solid state and tube gear with 30+ year old PCBs and don't have any problems whatsoever properly repairing or restoring such gear. Perhaps your solid state amp was of poor quality or something happened to it. Old phenolic brown board could break under extreme conditions, but FR4 and G-10 boards were as reliable then as they are today. Heat, cold and vibrations aren't an issue with well built gear.

I have seen more crappy point to point wired tube gear than I care to remember. IMO, point to point is about the worst way to build anything but the simplest amps. I don't even build my prototypes point to point anymore. I detest them that much.

Now there's turret board and strip board which can be nice to work with provided the layout makes sense. Well executed, this can be very reliable too.

I'm not going to dispute a word of your observation but you had to see this to believe it. Shortly after having it serviced one time, the unit began performing poorly again. This time I took it to another tech for a 2nd opinion. The response was "put your wallet away--it isn't worth it" and then he showed me all the tiny breaks in the circuit pathways. I hated to go that route but I was not going to throw good money after bad. The cabinet and speakers are clean and in really nice shape. I just have a used head amp on the cabinet and that works for me. Eventually I'll just remove and replace the amp portion with a trim piece so it looks the part as a cabinet.

 

[byacey]

I'm not going to dispute a word of your observation but you had to see this to believe it. Shortly after having it serviced one time, the unit began performing poorly again. This time I took it to another tech for a 2nd opinion. The response was "put your wallet away--it isn't worth it" and then he showed me all the tiny breaks in the circuit pathways. I hated to go that route but I was not going to throw good money after bad. The cabinet and speakers are clean and in really nice shape. I just have a used head amp on the cabinet and that works for me. Eventually I'll just remove and replace the amp portion with a trim piece so it looks the part as a cabinet.

From what you describe, it sounds more like a poorly etched circuit board, with porosity in the traces.

 

[genesound]

Busted up circuit boards can be fixed with epoxy, solder and a little small bus wire (no insulation), I've done it. It takes a little skill, but could be done. Most old tube circuit boards weren't double sided prints, so that makes it much easier.

You could also have someone reproduce the circuit board if it means that much to you.

 

[byacey]

Busted up circuit boards can be fixed with epoxy, solder and a little small bus wire (no insulation), I've done it. It takes a little skill, but could be done. You could also have someone reproduce the circuit board if it means that much to you.

This is true, I've even spliced and epoxied in pieces of board material to replace areas that were charred and burnt. Fiberglass boards aren't prone to disintegration, but cheap phenolic can be fragile.

I remember seeing some thin board material that was sort of a cross between fish paper and phenolic; It would warp after a time and curl up like a potato chip. I don't know what this material was called; perhaps Agedhorse might know. It was generally in the cheapest of cheap consumer garbage.

 

[Ric Vice]

For me it's not what the amplifier is made of, it’s how it sounds, so since I started with an Ampeg B-15N(C) and it has a great sound, it’s the sound I’m looking for when I buy new amps.
Now while the Grace Designs Felix has
a much more refined EQ section, the core sound I’m looking for, has the timbre of the B-15’s Baxandall tone stack.

 

[agedhorse]

This is true, I've even spliced and epoxied in pieces of board material to replace areas that were charred and burnt. Fiberglass boards aren't prone to disintegration, but cheap phenolic can be fragile.

I remember seeing some thin board material that was sort of a cross between fish paper and phenolic; It would warp after a time and curl up like a potato chip. I don't know what this material was called; perhaps Agedhorse might know. It was generally in the cheapest of cheap consumer garbage.

I think that's a form of brown board with an impregnated paper core, they don't drill the holes in those boards, they generally punch them with hard tooling in huge quantities. It's awful stuff.

 

[beans-on-toast]

There were some cheesy circuit boards made in the 60’s and 70’s. Traces lift easily, the glue used to hold them down was an issue. At the same time, there were very good quality boards at the time. These cheesey boards were simply made on the cheap.

Some point to point built amps are a real rats nest. To change a component, you need to remove multiple attachments. Sometimes the other end needs to be removed, like a chain reaction. Having said that, if done well, these amps can be very quiet. Still, they are best avoided unless the piece of gear is very special. Some studio equipment comes to mind.

Eyelet boards can be a problem. Contact against the ring of the eyelet can be bad due to bad building technique. A wire plopped into a pool of solder in an eyelet is not a good way to solder a connection. Yet I’ve seen this all the time. Turrets are better., leads are wrapped around them making good contact.

Some old amps run very hot. After years of use, you can get a lot of bad solder joints. Having to resolder all the solder joints isn’t good.

With a badly damaged PCB’s there are ways to lay wires and solder over the traces to repair and reinforce them. Having to glue down lifting traces is not something that you want to do. If the board is too far gone, I’d design a new board. There is always a solution. Cost to implement these solutions is another consideration.