Why are tube amps better? (1 Viewer)

[Larry B]

Saurav:
Did you actually dignify my comment with a semi-serious response? If so, why? Is my humor that obscure or alternatively, that un-funny?
Larry
P.S. Rest assured, I know what a DBT is!

 

[Saurav]

Hm. My response wasn't meant to be semi serious at all. Guess I should have put in the smileys, I thought the drollness was obvious. Oh well.
Here:

P.S. Rest assured, I know what a DBT is!

I was also wondering it involves closing the blinds in the room before listening to the equipment.

 

[Larry B]

I was also wondering it involves closing the blinds in the room before listening to the equipment.

Now we're getting somewhere!!

 

[Larry B]

Saurav:

When HT forum members actually meet each other face to face, does the lack of smiley faces effectively preclude all intelligent communication? Or perhaps they hold up little signs.

Just wondering.

Larry

 

[Saurav]

I met my wife online. She came to visit me when I was still in India. My ever helpful sister offered me this advice prior to our first face-to-face meeting: If you run out of things to say, write your messages on pieces of paper, hold up a carboard rectangle between your faces and pass the paper slips back and forth through that.

 

[Larry B]

I see that cleverness runs in your family

 

[Frank_S]

Enough of the personal bickering already.

 

[Duke H]

Larry B-
In answer to your question about face-to-face meetings, who needs cards? With all these "retro tube amp" fans and guitarists, I'd say it's safe enough to assume that the smiley faces (as well as swirly colors and "tasty" sounds) never leave the periferal vision of many of us. If you need proof, drink a lot of cough syrup. 2 bottles. There you go. Good. Now watch:
:star: :star: :star: :b
See? Home Theater Forum, or Psycadelic safe haven for vinyl? You be the judge. Now you see why I love this place so much! Oh, yeah...

 

[Duke H]

By the way, is anyone going to answer my question about the needle that doesn't touch the record?

 

[John Sully]

Saurav,

Back in the day the SL1200 was considered to be an excellent turntable. The reason it became popular as a DJ workhorse was because of the high torque of the motor which allowed it to spin up to speed very quickly (IIRC it was less than 1/2 revolution from full stop to proper speed). It was very quiet and had excellent wow/flutter figures. IMNSHMO the table itself, as long as it meets reasonable expectations as to rumble and wow/flutter and resistance to LF feedback is inconsequential to the ultimate sound of the system.

What about tonearms/bearings and cartridges? I don't know enough to comment on that, but I do know that the sound I get out of my Rega table/arm is in a totally different league from what my 70s Pioneer belt drive can produce, with the same cartridge and phono stage. It's possible that the technology hasn't changed, but IMO the availability certainly has. Most people trying out vinyl these days have something at the level of a Rega or an MMF. These seem to be several notches up from the run-of-the-mill turntables from the 60s and 70s, based on my experience with a few of them. I'm not comparing state-of-the-art back then to SOTA now.

The most important aspect of a turntable is the resonance of the arm/cartridge system. Go to a cooperative store and see if you can audition a cartridge in several different arms. You will notice big differences in the sound of the system in the bass and lower midrange, differences which are as noticable as those found in loudspeakers. The trick is to find a cartrige whose HF character you like and to balance it with an arm which gives the LF character you like.

As far as bearings and tonearm construction goes? I'm not aware of any revolutionary or even evolutionary changes. The most far out bearing tech I can remember was found on (I believe) the Mitchell turntable which used air bearings! The thing about state of the art turntables, both then and now, is that they are not so much mechanically head and shoulders above all the others, but rather that they were (and are) works of freakin' art, kinetic sculptures if you will.

 

[Saurav]

By the way, is anyone going to answer my question about the needle that doesn't touch the record?

Well, I read a review... I think it costs in the 5 or 6 figures, it's extremely sensitive to dust and surface noise, and some people believe that the wavelength of light used is bigger than some of the groove modulations, which means it cannot retrieve as much detail from the vinyl as a top-of-the-line cartridge. I don't know much more about it, because it's not anything I'll be able to afford anytime soon, or ever.

 

[Larry B]

Frank:

Enough of the personal bickering already.

I assure you it was just good-natured bantering, not bickering. But in any event, we're back to the main topic. (Or are we? It was originally about tubes, and now it's about turntables. )
Larry

 

[Duke H]

5 or 6 figures! Good God! Now I can see that I've picked the wrong hobby! I'll probably have to sell a lot of my HT equipment soon, as my car threw a rod, and I have exactly $673.32 to put towards repairs. With the glowing Central Ohio economy, that might be enough to get my oil changed . I foresee this also putting a damper on my venture into the tube amp field, as well. Let's see...sell Plasma (the bodily fluid), sell a few guitars, pawn an amp or two (guitar amps), stop eating solid foods...yep, still looks like I'll come up short. Damn! Looks like I might have to give up my Yamaha HTR-5560 and my Toshiba SD-4700 as well. Looks like I'll have to go back to my po' boy's HT...1986 circa Fisher VCR, Technics Stereo receiver, Kenwood Turntable, and $35.00 Symphonic CD changer. Ahh...I'll likely go crazy. At least I'll still have my vinyl!

 

[Saurav]

And why exactly do you want the laser turntable?

 

[Duke H]

The reason I was looking at it was because it would reduce (or effectively eliminate) wear and tear on my vinyl. I also thought that it might eliminate some of the pops and hiss associated with vinyl. I didn't know if it would reduce the sound quality or not.
Oh, yeah. On reading back my post, it seems a bit akward. I am not implying that I'm going to get rid of everything, to buy a laser turntable. I was refering to the fact that I'm going to need to get money to fix my car. Sorry if I threw anyone off there.

 

[Saurav]

The reason I was looking at it was because it would reduce (or effectively eliminate) wear and tear on my vinyl.

I wonder how much wear and tear vinyl really suffers when played with a properly setup cartridge. Everything I've read seems to indicate that the vinyl deforms under the pressure of the stylus, and the slowly regains its shape over a little while. Or something like that - at any rate, people have been playing the same record for several years, and the records don't start sounding like the grooves are damaged (which has a fairly characteristic sound). Of course, there isn't any easy way to tell how the sound quality on the LP changes with time.

 

[Jack Keck]

Duke and Saurav,

The way that I fought record wear was to tape all of my records as soon as I got them. I used the tapes for casual listening and the records for serious listening. I still have my Rega tt and Nakamichi cassette deck, but most of the tapes were made on a succession of Teac, HK and Hitachi decks.

I wish youwell on the car repairs, Duke.

 

[Doug_B]

Let's say all this recent talk about tubes has me interested. Is there any way to integrate a tube pre-amp, for example, into an existing SS-based HT system, i.e., can I somehow have both the tube pre-amp and the multichannel pre-pro feeding my 2 channel SS amp? If not, at least I could try an inexpensive tube pre running to my 2 ch amp and switch the interconnects that run to the amp.

So which tube pre-amp would be good for a test drive (even if integration with the mch pre/pro is not possible)? I have planars which can sound harsh at high volumes with less than good quality CD recordings (esp a good portion of my classic rock stuff), so I'm assuming a tube pre-amp may help with this.

Thanks.

Doug

 

[Saurav]

So which tube pre-amp would be good for a test drive (even if integration with the mch pre/pro is not possible)?

You mentioned inexpensive - what's your budget? Also, are you willing to build a preamp from a kit? There'll probably be some troubleshooting/noise hunting involved, but you'll end up with something that sounds as good as commercial gear costing 10 times as much.

Feel free to email me if you'd rather take this discussion offline.

 

[KeithR]

Doug_B

I am having great success with the new Cary 2002, which has HT bypass, a remote, and is fully balanced. While not as aesthetically pleasing as the previous 98P it replaced, it is a very good preamp, and not an overly tubey sound (ala cj).

New they are 3k, but much,much better deals are to be found...