I was joking.

...I know! But, for those who might take you literally...

The audiophile quest for the "best" amp is still open. There are the Audio Note "Ongaku", the KR Audio "Kronzilla" and many more tube amps still in the race. Along with my amp, the ASR Emitter, and maybe some PASS amp. There is no sign that a state-of-the-art solid state would be able to kick a state-of-the-art tube amp out of the window. They both have their lovers.

We clearly have to distinguish between recording and play-back. On the play-back side, you don't want any distortion, coloration or alteration of sound. On the recording side, you have plenty of both.

DBT will not answer the tube vs solid state question. Just listen to an OTL tube amp (no output transformers) and the whole picture changes.

Cheers

David

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"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."

I will add this monkey wrench to the works:
Often a solid state amp will have "lesser" components--speakers, cabinets, etc.---because the "average" solid state amp is cheaper (price-wise and build quality) than the "average" tube amp.

A truer test would probably be to have various solid state heads and tube heads all running through the same cabinet. Since a large part of the sound is what we're absorbing from the speakers and the corresponding enclosure of those speakers, that should be standardized in the equation. An open-back finger jointed solid pine cabinet loaded with Celestions or JBL's and covered with tolex is going to respond differently than a closed-back particle-board screwed-together cab, loaded with Crudino Cheapista speakers and covered with carpet...even if the listener cannot see the cabinet, the difference between those two extremes (in itself) would change the perceived quality/complexity/dynamics of the sound (and by extension, the quality of the amp). The size, quantity and wattage rating of the speaker(s) will change the sound even more.

This doesn't even take into account the quality of the other components--the pots, transformers, caps, resistors, etc., which, while individually small, add up to a huge difference in quality (and sound).

I'll say this again--solid state amps aren't total crap--many are quite good, in fact...I love my cheap Gibson G-20 and a friend's mid-priced (at the time) old red-knobbed Fender Princeton Chorus.

But the "average" solid state amp is usually going to be built with (overall) lesser quality than the "average" tube amp...and the overall dynamics of the sound will show it.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

... but you're not wrong, in my opinion!

(particularly liked the term "Crudino Cheapista". May I use it from time to time?)

Cheers Screamin! Great post!

Most solid state amps are not good. The build and the guts are just not in them, simple as that. Look at old vintage tube amps that are still going strong. Give them attention and they last forever. Tranny amps are lightweight, flimsy and in almost all cases sound terrible.

I have had one's in the past i quite liked but they in no way can compare with a good tube amp. The difference is night and day. I had a good Peavey Special 120W but it was still nowhere near a good tube amp.

Tranny amps would never last for hard working bands either i wouldn't think, simply because they're not sturdily built. Pick up a tube combo and get a hernia! pick up a tranny one and you say "huh? where's the weight?!"

The proof of the pudding is that, years after the demise of tube amps was heralded, they are still the market leaders and always will be because no matter what you do you can't artificially emulate a vacuum tube, you just can't do it.

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

Music is art. It's not very much different than any kind of art to me. You choose your medium and work with it.





One painting is done with watercolor, the other with oil paint. I can tell you by my own experience that oil paints cost much more than watercolor. With oil paint's you can get very smooth brush-strokes, it can blend in a very life-like way if you choose to do that. Watercolors tend to be more layering and random. A smooth brush-stroke may still expand and run and take on it's own course.

Each artist chose what they wanted to work with to get the final result they were after. I don't have any problems with anyone choosing their medium or whatever tools they want to work with.

If I was having a discussion with someone who said "I won't ever use watercolor again until they find a way to make it behave like oil paint." It would just seem silly to me for anyone to actually vacillate over how it can be done.

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Jah, y're quite right.

Cheers

Nutter

You're comparing apples to oranges. What we're discussing is comparable to creating latex paint that mimics oil paint.

On the bright side, the cat is out o' dah bag. Somebody's gonna develop the SS technology that mimics the sympathetic vibrations of a tube -- the final step in getting SS to sound and *feel* like tube technology. Until then, I'm sticking with tubes -- tubes work better for me!

I'm certain the technology will be developed and the outcome will be more options to enhance the sympathetic vibrations taking playing into new sonic territories -- I'll vacillate over that all day long, when I'm not busy goin' liquid via tubes! I won't touch SS until then unless it's an emergency!

What the hell is sympathetic vibration?

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No no and no

I agree. I'd use SS for just mucking around but for any serious playing it has to be tubes. Not simply for the fact i don't like SS, but simply for the fact they don't inspire you to play better by their tone. They're not inspirational. Everyone on here i'm sure can relate to the fact that we play much better and with more feeling when we're inspired by the tone coming from our amps, with SS i just don't hear that tonal feedback.

I don't ever see them coming up with anything that replicates tubes, they've had the best engineers trying it for the last 40 years and IMO they're not that much closer to it.

_________________
Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

"Sympathetic resonance is a harmonic phenomenon wherein a formerly passive string or vibratory body responds to external vibrations to which it has a harmonic likeness."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_resonance

Ah feedback. You get that out of any amp.

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No no and no

This. I use hybrid or modeling amps live. The tube amps stay home... It doesn't matter what you play through, really. A good/great player can sound good/great through anything. Gospel truth ...

It's not feedback, however, it enhances feedback depending upon the quality of the tube(s), amp.