Vacuum tubes are best tubes

"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish) 01/03/2016 at 22:22 • Filed to: Audiositelock, sound, vintage

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My friend is in an apartment at the moment, and has no use for his tube amp, so as I mentioned in my previous post related to my sound system, he lent it to me in an attempt to bring me over to the vacuum tube side. The amp is the oldest piece of equipment I’m running now, a Dynaco from 1959.

The little Dynakit 70 is now sitting on top of my big Sansui 9090DB. the auxiliaries are running through a Nikko Beta attenuator, then the Dynaco runs the high end of my Infinitys, and the Sansui is running the low end. Now I know how to bi-amp things.

I was reading up on my speakers a while back, and saw somewhere that “if you’re not bi-amping Kappa 7.1s, there’s no point owning them”. I get understand that now. I already thought these things sounded amazing, but this made a pretty shocking difference.

Also, check out the weirdness that is the tweeter and the mid. The magnets are the same size as the plastic surrounds, and the voice coil of the mid is the size of the whole dome.

There isn’t much point trying to describe the difference in sound with no frame of reference, but i highly recommend tube amps, bi-amping power hungry speakers, and Steely Dan about as loud as still sounds good.

I like seeing the tubes glowing under the cover, so I turned the lights off and took some blurry pictures that I enjoy.

So yeah. He successfully brought me to the vacuum tube side. The saga of my mostly free sound system continues.

The Opponaut formerly known as MattP123 > gmctavish needs more space 01/03/2016 at 22:49

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Mattbob > gmctavish needs more space 01/03/2016 at 22:53

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Im on a phone so i will be brief. Instrument amplifiers are the only place where tubes make sense.

JGrabowMSt > gmctavish needs more space 01/03/2016 at 23:02

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If you ever need replacement tubes, tctubes.com is my go-to. Ive never had a bad experience with them. I have an 8 channel mic preamp that uses tubes, and the tubes are from tctubes. 12AX7 smooth plate tubes. For the price and size, its a beautiful sound. I wont break that box out for just anything, but damn does it sound good.

Ive also used insanely expensive tube speaker amps, thats where it can be a mixed bag. Pair tubes and speakers poorly and it can sound very bad, but the right combination will be an experience.

gmctavish needs more space > Mattbob 01/03/2016 at 23:04

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Well, that's just like, your opinion man

gmctavish needs more space > JGrabowMSt 01/03/2016 at 23:07

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Cool, that is good to know. We didn't really know what to expect hooking all this up together, but it turned out shockingly well. Definitely hearing the compression in music files, gonna be listening to vinyl, CDs, and lossless files next to see if we're at the limit of what any of the components are capable of. My friend who owns the amp says this is the best he's heard it sound running anything.

JGrabowMSt > gmctavish needs more space 01/03/2016 at 23:12

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CDs are all compressed, 44.1kHz 16 bit audio, its the industry standard. Run a cassette or vinyl through it. Digital audio isnt something I would want pushed through an analog circuit, nothing will sound quite right just because of the mastering process.

If you wanted to compare that amp to a full digital amp, you would need to find some form of solid state amp. Similar in cost to tubes.

Audio is tricky to get for some rooms as well, its a pretty intense topic to get into.

Raymundo > Mattbob 01/03/2016 at 23:14

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Ehhhhh things make sense when they feel they make sense. When you enter the world of tube amps, you typically expect a certain feel from the sound and tend to tune yourself to accept that feel. Whether or not you actually notice an audible difference or can actually tune the system to a desired level, many people can recognize that there really is something different about the analog delivery of audio. Digital or analog, placebo or panacea, if you feel like something is different then it is.

I do entirely prefer tube amps with my guitars but I do appreciate both digital and analog with audio playback.

gmctavish needs more space > JGrabowMSt 01/03/2016 at 23:18

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My full digital comparison is my dads setup, a fairly new Yamaha A/V receiver running a pair of giant SPL 4000s. My everything else comparison is the stereos of another friend, which have a lot of components to get into and I’m not even sure I know what’s running what, but it’s the best I’ve ever heard. I have to set up my cassette player and then we’ll see how that sounds. My buddy might also bring by a reel to reel just to see what happens. We didn’t realize how high the potential was for these speakers so we’re gonna try lots of stuff and see what happens. I've been half into audio for a while, but I'm really trying to learn more now, I like it a lot.

whoarder is tellurium > gmctavish needs more space 01/03/2016 at 23:41

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Mmm, that warm tube glow. So purdy.

Mattbob > Raymundo 01/04/2016 at 10:14

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I am looking at it from this angle: when you play something back, you want uncolored accurate reproduction of the original signal. Solid state is better for that. For creating music or audio, tubes do in fact give it a nice warmth. The ideal playback reproduces exactly what was recorded, not distort it a second time.

Raymundo > Mattbob 01/04/2016 at 14:28

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Yeah, that makes sense when you put it that way.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > gmctavish needs more space 02/17/2016 at 23:10

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Is there a tubes for dummies book?

gmctavish needs more space > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 02/18/2016 at 01:05

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I'm not sure, all I know is from random googling and what my friend who's very into them tells me