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Why do we tube lovers love tubes?

#201
Calaverasgrande said:
I am gonnahave to say its the transformers. Anyone that spends much time looking at recording gear is bound to notice the popularity of transformer based mic preamps. These can be tube but are more commonly solidstate boxes. With an input and an output transformer. It's no secret that the transformer is what adds "heft" to the signal. Using gainstaging you can get quite a lot of largeness to your signal without audibly distorting. Though I am sure an audio precision might say its quite distorted.
Now there arent a lot of solidstate bass amps with transformers in them, but pretty much every tube bass amp has one for the output. I guess it is possible to make a transformerless tubeamp, never seen one though.
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Don't think so - tubes = hi voltage, low power (ampere), speakers can't handle high voltage, they work with lots of power (amps), low voltage.
 
#204
Bob Lee (QSC) said:
Does it matter what kind of transformers, or how they're used? Or is it just the presence of transformers that improves the sound?
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excellent point, bob. honestly, i think the transformers get a little too much credit just for being transformers. i've played smps amps that i thought sounded pretty doggone tubey and robust. unless you can pull out the smps and put in an svt-style transformer setup in them, you really can't do a direct comparison. i think you can't assign credit for good sound solely to transformers.
 
#205
I have a Warwick Jonas Helborg Amp system (along with my all-tube amps) that uses an output transformer in a solid state power amp which makes it quite heavy. I haven't been able to put it through its paces (i.e., out of the home) yet but, at lower levels, there's something to be said about the effect. ....just can't put it into words yet, more about it later. I've just started to A-B it with my Sadowsky SA200.

Gale

WarwickJHrig-1.jpg
 
#206
Bob Lee (QSC) said:
Does it matter what kind of transformers, or how they're used? Or is it just the presence of transformers that improves the sound?
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Of course not all transformers are created equal. While I pretty much worship at the altar of Tubes and Transformers, I would be just as much of a fool to think that including a transformer in a circuit makes it sound better as to think including a tube in circuit automatically makes it sound better.
However the best stuff I have ever heard; tubes, transformers.
 
#210
JimmyM said:
excellent point, bob. honestly, i think the transformers get a little too much credit just for being transformers. i've played smps amps that i thought sounded pretty doggone tubey and robust. unless you can pull out the smps and put in an svt-style transformer setup in them, you really can't do a direct comparison. i think you can't assign credit for good sound solely to transformers.
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Yes. Transformers are often relatively large, noticeable and recognizable even to people who can't identify other components (other than tubes, perhaps). It's easier to determine the presence of transformers--regardless of whether they're good quality or even implemented well--than it is to evaluate a bias scheme, a phase splitter, et al.

BTW, an SMPS typically used in audio amplification will usually (maybe even all of them do) have a transformer.
 
#213
gbarchus said:
I have a Warwick Jonas Helborg Amp system (along with my all-tube amps) that uses an output transformer in a solid state power amp which makes it quite heavy. I haven't been able to put it through its paces (i.e., out of the home) yet but, at lower levels, there's something to be said about the effect. ....just can't put it into words yet, more about it later. I've just started to A-B it with my Sadowsky SA200.

Gale

WarwickJHrig-1.jpg
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Do want.
 
#214
Bob Lee (QSC) said:
Does it matter what kind of transformers, or how they're used? Or is it just the presence of transformers that improves the sound?
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I've always had the opinion that it's been the combination of tube PA and output transformer that's really responsible for the "tube sound". Low level tube amp compression is the other widely cited element of this. Some designers will use a 12AX7 with a current source instead of a plate resistor in order to get the effect in hybrid amps.

At mic or line levels, the point of design has always been NOT to color the sound with the transformer, when it's used. That is, a transformer with a big enough core not to saturate at the highest signal level anticipated gets used. Not to say that's completely transparent, as a transformer has more than just inductance and magnetics going on if you model it.

The nicest thing about transformer-coupled mic preamps is that they are far more RF proof than active balanced ones due to the transformer's inductance and distributed capacitance acting like a low pass filter.

Bob, I've always wondered if the choice of core material in the tube amp output transformer adds anything subtle to the sound. I'm thinking the modern Hypersil vs. iron/steel, not so much toroidal vs. laminated. The reluctance is different, the permeability is different, so the turns needed will be somewhat different. So far, I don't see that there is (for transformers that handle the same power and match the same impedances), but you never know. I've seen "selected grain-matched Hypersil core" touted in ads for some of the audiophile stuff. :)
 
#215
()smoke() said:
it matters to a lesser extent with bass amplification to me personally, as i find a number of ss bass amps sound good, and some sound fantastic, ie no tubes in my TF, but i love the sound...whereas with 6-string guitar, i haven't yet heard a ss amp that i'd prefer over a tube amp
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agreed completely. I _require_ a tube guitar amp, but for bass, SS is just fine.
 
#219
Bob Lee (QSC) said:
Yes. Transformers are often relatively large, noticeable and recognizable even to people who can't identify other components (other than tubes, perhaps). It's easier to determine the presence of transformers--regardless of whether they're good quality or even implemented well--than it is to evaluate a bias scheme, a phase splitter, et al.

BTW, an SMPS typically used in audio amplification will usually (maybe even all of them do) have a transformer.
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Thats disingenuous. A SMPS would have a tranny in the power supply section, not the audio output. I believe most of us were talking about the affect of output transformers on the audio. As in tube amps the tubes are pretty much always interfaced with the speakers via a transformer.

Good transformers add weight to the signal while passing it relatively transparently. Bad transformers make their presence known constantly in not a good way. Certain small mixers from the 70's come to mind.
 
#220
Disingenuous? How? An SMPS is a power supply section. It stands for "switch-mode power supply."

You didn't make any distinctions about kinds of transformer in your first post.

Good transformers add weight to the signal? Are you saying that an amp weighs more when a signal is passing through it?
 

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