Valve amps, great with Jazz, shit with everything else.

[anthonyTD]

TD Copper and Soul amps are indeed class A,however; its not just about the class of operation that makes one amp sound more right in the way it portrays music over another, which can sound sterile and lifeless untill pushed, and then everything becomes too loud and in your face, there are familiar misconceptions creeping in to this thread that threaten to bias one topology over the other which have no founding, i have said this many times before, there are good and bad designs from both camps, and it is mostly down to the way the devices are implimented, and choosing the right configuration and type of device for the best outcome, without having to nobble the end result with huge amounts of feedback and other types of frequency restrictions in an effort to make a bad design stable, the saying; "shutting the gate after the horse has bolted" is very apt in this paticular explanation.

There are other aspects to take into account when comparing Solid state with valves too, valves are inherently very linear devices,but with reletively low gain compared with transistors,hence they do not need huge amounts of feedback around them to control their gain, or linarity, this is one very important aspect when comparing valves and Solid state, another very important aspect is the type of harmonics that each topology has the ability to produce, valves tend to produce low order harmonics, ie; 2nd's and 3rd's, but not much else, we can tolerate quite large amounts of 2nd harmonics, [even orders of 10% is not objectionable] however; when we start getting into the realms of odd harmonics, especialy higher order odd harmonics, [3rd's 5th's 7th' s 9th's etc, etc] that's when things can get ugly sounding,even small amounts of higher order odd harmonics can be quite intolerable for many listeners, its one of the reasons we used to see the adverts from the early Japanese amp produces stating rediculously low harmonic distortion figures, but even then these figures were usualy only quoted at very small wattage figures!

Going back to valves, Pentodes, and Tetrodes produce even and odd order harmonics, [again mainy 2nd and 3rd] so if you use them in a single ended configuration they can produce even and odd harmonics, now if you put them in a push-pull design, the evens get canceled, and you are left with the odd order [again mainly 3rd harmonics that can be significantly reduced by correct biasing and sometimes negative feedback] triodes produce predominently even order harmonics [mainly 2nd] so in a single ended configuration, you will get mainly 2nd order, if you put them in a push-pull design, in theory you will end up with very little of any, due to the push-pull configuration. All of this is a bit simplified, but i hope it goes some way in helping those interested in uderstanding the basics of one topolgy over the other, when you start using feedback correctly, you can use it to make a well designed circuit perform even better.

No I don't think so. The XTZ can be switched in to Class A but still doesn't have it, and the Philips is an A/B and does have 'it'. Plus none of the Radford, Leak or TD amps are class A but all have 'it.'

I'd guess some amp designers know exactly what gives 'it' but they're not likely to give away their trade secrets.

[Mikeandvan]

^^ This ^^

Adam is *unquestionably spot on*.. 'Nuff said! Sorry, Mike.

Marco.

Really? Yeh cos Audio note speakers and valve amps are never matched are they.

[Mikeandvan]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, and I went through the same, it’s the speakers not the amp, and if your room is difficult, as you say, then this is even more likely.

Demo or borrow some other speakers until it works.


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Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, but my update was meant on a positive note, listening again to jazz last night it was tremendous, never heard anything like it, literally as if there is a jazz combo in my living room! Trouble is I now have to go out and score some heroin for Charlie, and whatever else John and Miles are into, shouldn't be too hard in Brighton. I would like to try some other speakers in future though, there may be more suitable ones out there for me, not sure, something about the J's which accentuates small band music really well I think. I've not listened to much rock stuff mind, like the Stones, kinks etc the kind of music I was having trouble with, as my mp200 cart broke, and I 've yet to source a new one, been using a very old Denon dl110 with alot of use, over 1500 hrs, so can't rely on that.

[Macca]

Really? Yeh cos Audio note speakers and valve amps are never matched are they.

lol - agree that was an odd comment. Audionote amp with Audionote speakers, how can that not be a good match?

[Macca]

TD Copper and Soul amps are indeed class A,however; its not just about the class of operation that makes one amp sound more right in the way it portrays music over another, which can sound sterile and lifeless untill pushed, and then everything becomes too loud and in your face, there are familiar misconceptions creeping in to this thread that threaten to bias one topology over the other which have no founding, i have said this many times before, there are good and bad designs from both camps, and it is mostly down to the way the devices are implimented, and choosing the right configuration and type of device for the best outcome, without having to nobble the end result with huge amounts of feedback and other types of frequency restrictions in an effort to make a bad design stable, the saying; "shutting the gate after the horse has bolted" is very apt in this paticular explanation.

There are other aspects to take into account when comparing Solid state with valves too, valves are inherently very linear devices,but with reletively low gain compared with transistors,hence they do not need huge amounts of feedback around them to control their gain, or linarity, this is one very important aspect when comparing valves and Solid state, another very important aspect is the type of harmonics that each topology has the ability to produce, valves tend to produce low order harmonics, ie; 2nd's and 3rd's, but not much else, we can tolerate quite large amounts of 2nd harmonics, [even orders of 10% is not objectionable] however; when we start getting into the realms of odd harmonics, especialy higher order odd harmonics, [3rd's 5th's 7th' s 9th's etc, etc] that's when things can get ugly sounding,even small amounts of higher order odd harmonics can be quite intolerable for many listeners, its one of the reasons we used to see the adverts from the early Japanese amp produces stating rediculously low harmonic distortion figures, but even then these figures were usualy only quoted at very small wattage figures!

Going back to valves, Pentodes, and Tetrodes produce even and odd order harmonics, [again mainy 2nd and 3rd] so if you use them in a single ended configuration they can produce even and odd harmonics, now if you put them in a push-pull design, the evens get canceled, and you are left with the odd order [again mainly 3rd harmonics that can be significantly reduced by correct biasing and sometimes negative feedback] triodes produce predominently even order harmonics [mainly 2nd] so in a single ended configuration, you will get mainly 2nd order, if you put them in a push-pull design, in theory you will end up with very little of any, due to the push-pull configuration. All of this is a bit simplified, but i hope it goes some way in helping those interested in uderstanding the basics of one topolgy over the other, when you start using feedback correctly, you can use it to make a well designed circuit perform even better.

Have you ever designed any solid state amps, Anthony? (probably a stupid question I know).

[Marco]

Really? Yeh cos Audio note speakers and valve amps are never matched are they.

That's not what I meant, mate. What I meant was that ANY *properly designed* amplifier (valve or SS) and speakers should play ANY type of music well. It should NOT be a one-trick pony, in the way you describe, so don't settle for that unless you're happy just listening to jazz all the time.

If not, sell what you've got and start again, perhaps taking advantage of the knowledge and experience on this forum to help guide you in the right direction. I would say though, that if you want a valve amp to 'do it all', music wise, to a high standard, then as Steve said earlier, you need one fitted with serious attention paid to the PSUs, and which doesn't come cheap. And, unless you're using high-efficiency speakers, one with a goodly dose of watts up its ass!

There's nothing worse than the sound of a flea-powered valve amp clipping into a pair of (not efficient enough) speakers.... In that respect, always ensure that there's sufficient 'headroom' to allow the amp and speakers to faithfully and cleanly reproduce musical transients.

In that respect, I wouldn't entertain any new, commercially produced, valve amp costing less than £3K (probably nearer £5k to be sure), as you simply can't do really good valve amps on the cheap. Plus, as you've also discovered, it's *imperative* that you use the right speakers, which are an optimal electrical (and sonic) match for the partnering amp, therefore BOTH should be considered as a pairing, not as individual entities, and be auditioned and purchased on that basis.

That last bit is VERY important!

Marco.

P.S Oh, and I'd also avoid buying said amps from 'badge-fi' brands, such as AN, or anything else where what you're largely paying for is the 'cachet' of the name, not what's under the hood, and which matters most. Go instead for respected small specialist companies, or employ the services of a good DIY-er who knows what he's doing. That way you'll achieve the highest SPPV, and likely have something that will last you a lifetime.

[Mikeandvan]

That's not what I meant, mate. What I meant was that ANY *properly designed* amplifier (valve or SS) and speakers should play ANY type of music well. It should NOT be a one-trick pony, in the way you describe, so don't settle for that unless you're happy just listening to jazz all the time.

If not, sell what you've got and start again, perhaps taking advantage of the knowledge and experience on this forum to help guide you in the right direction. I would say though, that if you want a valve amp to 'do it all', music wise, to a high standard, then as Steve said earlier, you need one fitted with serious attention paid to the PSUs, and which doesn't come cheap. And, unless you're using high-efficiency speakers, one with a goodly dose of watts up its ass!

There's nothing worse than the sound of a flea-powered valve amp clipping into a pair of (not efficient enough) speakers.... In that respect, always ensure that there's sufficient 'headroom' to allow the amp and speakers to faithfully and cleanly reproduce musical transients

In that respect, I wouldn't entertain any new, commercially produced, valve amp costing less than £3K (probably nearer £5k to be sure), as you simply can't do good valve amps on the cheap. Plus, as you've also discovered, it's *imperative* that you use the right speakers, which are an optimal electrical (and sonic) match for the partnering amp, so BOTH should be considered as a pairing, not as individual entities, and be auditioned and purchased in that that way.

That last bit is VERY important!

Marco.

Sorry but I've heard many people claim so and so small wattage valve amp drive their low efficiency beefy floor standers with ease to take this as gospel.

[Marco]

Sorry, could you reword that please, as I'm not sure exactly what you're saying

If you're saying that low-wattage valve amps can drive low-efficiency speakers (of any description) with ease, then I'm sorry, that is a total fallacy.

Marco.

[Lawrence001]

Sorry but I've heard many people claim {so and so small wattage valve amp} drive their {low efficiency beefy floor standers} with ease to take this as gospel.

Does this help?

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[AJSki2fly]

OK, lets try and try and get some common sense into this, and look at what Mike has.

A standard Audio Inovations S500 manufacturers specification is Total harmonic distortion (THD) <0,15% in the frequency range 80Hz-15kHz/1W, which is pretty low.

If you have a read of http://wuwuwu.trioda.com/index.php/e...ons-series-500 the last para is quite interesting "Usually, each audio description ends with the opinion of the sonic impressions of the device. Such opinions are characterized by a unique accumulation of metaphors with which the author is trying to convey to others what he subjectively feels, in other words, what if basically impossible to explain to the others. Not wanting to go this way, let me just say that in my opinion the amplifier plays really well. On a scale of "Radford" I would give it 8 points out of 10."

Considering Radford amps are generally well up there in the ranks and widely accepted as giving a great listening experience then a score of 8/10 from a lowly EL34 amp, and I am not saying their is anything wrong with EL34 amps, I in fact loved both my S500's.

So now we have the Audio Note Soro (currently there are several configurations of it from AN), basically PP - push push or SE Single Ended. From my limited amplifier design knowledge in SE it is not that far removed from the AI S500, maybe someone else can clarify this for us. If Mike's AN Soro is an SE then as he reports it does not sound that different from the AN S500, which personally I would expect.

http://www.audioreview.com/product/a...e/soro-se.html

https://www.audioasylum.com/reviews/...set/18318.html

Looking at the various reviews I can find for the Soro and based on my personal experience of the S500 as Mike say I would expect them to be similar sounding amps.

Now for the solid state amp, I am not sure is it is a Rega Mira or Brio that Mike has, or both, but in either case these have reasonable power outputs. An interesting review for the Brio https://www.the-ear.net/review-hardw...ated-amplifier and the comment "Listening commenced with a pair of PMC twenty5.23 floor standing speaker, this is an expensive speaker for the amp and one that proved a little too difficult to control in the bass for the Brio. Moving over to the standmount twenty5.22 proved a far more rewarding experience, this delivered highly coherent tabla playing, lots of low level detail and inspired some ‘air bass’ playing when that instrument joined the mix, always a good sign in my book. With this speaker you get bass weight and excellent timing, it isn’t fat bass it's tuneful melodic bass that makes the music swing."

A few other comments I came across for the Rega's was the could sound a little warm down in the low end, which may explain why Mike prefers them for Rock music.

The speakers I believe Mike generally uses are AN J's and these are efficient, sensitivity of 93dB, so the valve amps should be able to drive them reasonably easily, and the Rega should find them easy.

My experience with AN S500's was with Snell type J's and KEF Reference 3.2's, as you no doubt will recognise very different speaker designs. So I originally has Snell J's and had them for at least 5-6 years, and enjoyed them greatly, during that period due to the limitation of the 3 rooms that I had the hifi in I was forced into a close listening set up and bass was not particularly an issue, although some times on heavy rock I felt that I would have liked a bit more oomph. So we moved house again and this had a reasonably large lounge, I had the option of 2 listening positions, close field about 9' from them and a least twice that distance. What became quickly apparent was that the J's were reasonably fine at close listening but if I went away from this then I needed to crank the amp up several notches and drive the speakers harder, this did not cause any noticeable distortion at all, but comments from SWMBO. I then got the KEF's and immediately it was obvious I was getting the desired bass impact but at lower volumes, this was due to speaker type/design.

So what is my point, well if I recall correctly from previous threads of Mike's where he lives means he cannot turn things up too loud without risking complaints, also his listening room is limiting on speaker and listening position. So if this is the case then he is probably forced to listen at lower volumes and in which case will not necessarily get the oomph he is looking for in certain music, certainly with the J's. In my personal experience if you want to get a good sounding bass at lower levels then you need to shift more air, in other words bigger drivers to push more volume, much less that 10" won't do it IMO. So here is the rub, as most of us know reasonably well along with bigger drivers comes the issue of the damping factor and the ability of the amp to not get overrun by the feedback from the speaker drive (in simple terms). But in my experience you need to start driving a speaker quite hard for this to happen even with a SET. Apart from that we enter into the bigger box issue and how that works in a room. Another option is to go for the floor stander with multiple drivers, the more you have the more air you will shift at the low end.

This actually holds true with my personal recent experience as well, I have a SET 300B amp putting out a max of 12w. I previously had a pair of Tannoy Legacy Arden's and they sounded very nice indeed, lots of low end bass and even at volumes. However there was a big but, and that was the aesthetics and the impact on the lounge, my wife was not that happy with this at all. So I found a compromise, a pair if Wilson Benesch Vectors, a well designed floor stander, they sound great across the frequency range, but the compromise is that they only go down to about 36hz, whereas the Tannoys were down at 20hz, I have measured both. I still get a very similar listening experience, in anything the mid/top is slightly better, but if I want to feel the low end then I have to turn it up and little, what am I missing some very low organ notes and very large drums, which are not on that many recordings, so to change that then a sub-woofer would be the next step.

So what I am trying to get across is that before Mike goes amp swapping, unless he wants to, his best course of action IMO would be to try some speakers with larger drivers in his room with his amps and see if he likes what he hears. 12" Tannoys, JBLs and I am sure there are many others that many can recommend. As long as they have a sensitivity of 89dB or more they should be fine with the amps. One speaker for Mike to consider is a pair of Impulse H2's, different again as they are horns, but very efficient, musical and great bass, but quite large boxes, yes I have had a pair but SWMBO got me to move them on.

I did not intend to write quite so much but hope that this may be of some help to Mike in working out what to do .