Valve sound versus solid state...

[Spectral Morn]

Talking the merits of tube vs SS is fun, and can go on for days, months, years. Even within the tube community, you can debate endlessly over SET vs Push Pull...hell, you can even debate which 300B is better in a SET design.

But at the end of the day, audio is about listening. And luckily, we all come equipped with the best testing devices ever invented...our ears.

When I want to convince someone about the merits of tube (SET to be precise), I don't say anything...I invite them over for a nice cocktail and a listen.

The procedure is very simple...

1. Sit them in a comfortable listening chair (mine happens to be a vintage Karuselli chair designed by Yrjö Kukkapuro)

2. Put on Holly Cole's Don't Smoke in Bed

3. Listen

Assimilation complete.

Only on your third post and I can see you will fit in here brilliantly..... Great music (love Holly Cole...Temptation particularly), designer furniture, and taste in gear.

"We will get most of them in the end...oh yes we will" Resistance is futile...

http://www.e-potpourri.com/index.php...h-bond-appeal/

The chair mentioned..
I like this one


Regards D S D L

[Dr. Flicker]

Mine is a vintage one in nicely aged/caramelized leather, and a slightly altered model to the "ususal" one. Very comfy. An essential, but often overlooked key component of any hi-fi set up.

love Holly Cole...Temptation particularly

I love all her stuff, except the latest left me a little wanting for some reason. Or perhaps it was that her local jazz diva rival (Molly Johnson) just seems a bit better these days.

If you like Holly, you might like the recording her band (Pitch & Davis) put out back in the 90's called Feast.

We will get most of them in the end...oh yes we will" Resistance is futile...

Female jazz voices and 300B tubes is a combo few can resist. 300B midrange magic is usually what clinches the deal regardless of what the plus-minus columns look like.

[Spectral Morn]

Mine is a vintage one in nicely aged/caramelized leather, and a slightly altered model to the "ususal" one. Very comfy. An essential, but often overlooked key component of any hi-fi set up.







I love all her stuff, except the latest left me a little wanting for some reason. Or perhaps it was that her local jazz diva rival (Molly Johnson) just seems a bit better these days.

If you like Holly, you might like the recording her band (Pitch & Davis) put out back in the 90's called Feast.




Female jazz voices and 300B tubes is a combo few can resist. 300B midrange magic is usually what clinches the deal regardless of what the plus-minus columns look like.

Ah thats a nice chair. I will have to look out for Feast. I agree about 300B tubes but to my taste I prefer 6c33c's or 845...more power and most of the subtlety of a 300B...though not all.


Regards D S D L

[Dr. Flicker]

I was a little concerned about lacking power when I put the 300B SET in my system with the existing speakers. They are apparently 91db, which is borderline speaker efficiency if you want decent spls when required.

I was pleasantly surprised how powerful my 1005DT is (as opposed to an earlier 300B SET it replaced), and can produce serious volume levels without ever having to go beyond 12 O'clock regardless of the recording I'm listening to. Clipping isn't a major problem with tubes anyway, but I think it's rarely even mildly clipping.

I seriously considered the 845 for the extra power, and the 6c33c wasn't even on my radar at the time, but I guess I have become a bit of a die-hard 300B fan, and I'm glad/lucky I don't suffer from power envy on my current set up.

But I am a bit fickle, so who knows what the future will bring.


Back to Holly...I hear her stuff is out on 200g virgin vinyl (not sure if vinyl is your thing), and cut from the original master on Bernie Grundman's all-tube cutting system.

[Spectral Morn]

I was a little concerned about lacking power when I put the 300B SET in my system with the existing speakers. They are apparently 91db, which is borderline speaker efficiency if you want decent spls when required.

I was pleasantly surprised how powerful my 1005DT is (as opposed to an earlier 300B SET it replaced), and can produce serious volume levels without ever having to go beyond 12 O'clock regardless of the recording I'm listening to. Clipping isn't a major problem with tubes anyway, but I think it's rarely even mildly clipping.

I seriously considered the 845 for the extra power, and the 6c33c wasn't even on my radar at the time, but I guess I have become a bit of a die-hard 300B fan, and I'm glad/lucky I don't suffer from power envy on my current set up.

But I am a bit fickle, so who knows what the future will bring.


Back to Holly...I hear her stuff is out on 200g virgin vinyl (not sure if vinyl is your thing), and cut from the original master on Bernie Grundman's all-tube cutting system.

Yes vinyl is my thing....Holly on vinyl, that would be excellent. Thanks for the info I will check it out.


Regards D S D L

[DSJR]

Our ears may be fairly adequate, but the thing that processes the info given - our brain - is the most temperamental and easily fooled device of all, so there!!!!!!!!!

Amazing how many audible "differences" disappear when sight is taken away from the equation.

If you think I'm having a go again, I'm not. I can't wait to get the Quad II's running again and rue the fact I have my Croft pre in a cabinet, when I want to look inside and see the warm orangey glow from within (mine has a thick "mesh" top)..

All good fun and I do envy those who can afford something that sounds wonderful and also looks the part

[trane]

hi, there, all,
just finished reading the previous pages - great discussion
to join up, i myself am a valve afficionado for ~25 years - with some derailment towards sand amps...
and why converted back? for MUSIC, in capitals, so simple the reason is.
in details, first i used ss amps (of course) since they were the only equipment produced for listening to music available here. i live in hungary, and all hi-fi madness came from the west, in the '80s, in the form of, first, the quad 405, then, in home-made sand amps (rather, replicas of western related gear), and later hungarian-designed and made real hi-fi equipment. in the late '80s the first audio dealers appeared carrying creek, ion, cambridge audio, musical fidelity, cyrus - and Audio Innovations and Audio Note. and that was something that made a real change...
i remember a show held in a relatively big city hall, where all the AI line was presented as building up from the smallest to the most competitive firing in the end via AN E speakers and backed by the Voyd TT range, using only 'normal press' LPs. it was then when i got perfectly obsessed with the valve thing, and have remained so up till now.
in the meantime i switched for some ss amps including various creek amps, and our truly outstanding Etalon gear, finally even the YBA and its variants, but none could convey the musical expression that tubes are capable of.
however, here i must emphasise, just as some other mates have done before, i am speaking about 'correctly designed and built' tube amps.
the model i lived the most with was not a pricey make: AI's Series 400 MK I (at ebay, when it extremely rarely appears, price is below 400 pounds). but this pp used class a and applied no feedback at all, thus, produced MUSIC with PRaT, emotion, air, transparency - everything i was and still am after when deciding on taking an amp home. the design was actually the same as that of the AN Oto Phono, mr. Qvortrup when switched for AN after his AI period, just re-cased and re-named it as that...
BUT now i 'evolved' to be a convert. why?, you may ask, with a good reason. which may sound even more silly when explained, even knowing that when i decided to go tranny i had an YBA Integré DT Delta at home for a week to make the decision well-founded - and the little AI S400 performed over the 5-times costlier YBA in all aspects of MUSIC and hi-fi...
then why? i can not determine whether it is laziness or truly financial considerations mixed with reliability issues... but the reason is the valves themselves. simply put, i got a bit tired of changing the power tubes in every 2nd year, and the others in 3-4 years, and when a n.o.s. tube goes down before it's due, to replace it in the pair or the quad for the best sonics... that's what made me step the change.
however, what i was after in terms of 'valve sound' i managed to find in only one manufacturer's gear: Croft's. no other sand-make could come that close to tube sound that the Croft Integrated (and the other Crofts may as well be also capable of) can. there is only one minor caveat that i am not truly in terms with it, if you're interested you can read it in the accordingly titled topic here, but this Croft is by far the best ss amp with a true valve voicing i ever heard. thus, if anyone is for a sand make, do not miss it - provided you're happy enough to grab one for its being discontinued...

[DSJR]

... and never to return..

Never fear, the new pre/power combo may well be even better and not that expensive at £1400 or so...

[trane]

... and never to return...

hi, may i ask you, please, to elaborate what d'ya mean by this note? i believe it must do a lot with what was just hinted at at the croft topic, but the point was not truly discussed there, and as an outsider from hungary, i learnt only that there something went pretty wrong between mr. Croft and that Amar guy... so? thanks

[Giant Haystacks]

hi some lovely seats there ,but you would be a little nervous letting me sitting on them at over 20 stone ,
i havent read all posts, but a little on my findings on 300b using a arion 300b single ended we had access to jj tesla , cetron, kron, western electric, output valves ,
a beautiful wife friendly sound ,very nice ,very warm and kind ,and the bass which initially sounded big, is an exagerated one . there was a slight veil which im not sure if other amplifier designs could remove , i am not being critical it is still a very fine sound,top class , some other issues these 300bs are now being auctioned so nos is to expensive , a lot of the 300b users have converted to type 50s which are mostly rca and western electric sylvania in bulbous shape and standard coke bottle shape both the 50 and 300b valves were used in a western electric cinema amp
so the type 50s are still quite available and 300b amps can be converted a little less power so ill read more of the posts and contribute my bit later