Tubes vs Transistors: An Audible Difference?

cgenman writes "Are those vaccuum tubes worth the extra price? This paper, a transcript of a speech to the Audio Engineering Society of New York, indicates so, though the reason is surprising: Overloaded tubes behave better. While the speech itself is from the early 70's, the paper takes on new importance with the recent trend in louder is better music."

Comments

The recent trend in "louder is better"

[Cranx]

The recent trend in "louder is better." Did I just read that? The recent trend? Since the first real Rock and Roll music appeared approaching, 60 years ago now, louder has been better. That's a "recent" trend?

Re:The recent trend in "louder is better"

[wideBlueSkies]

Louder is better untill you start to notice the hearing loss.

When I was younger is used to love to "KRANK IT UP!!".

I got my hearing checked recently by a new doctor and afterwards she asked me if I had ever been in the military. I said no, and she looked at me sadly and asked if I like to listen to loud music. To this I said yes. She shook her head and told me that my high frequency hearing was gone, and that I'd start to notice difficulty hearing low volume sounds and general difficulty hearing by the time I'm 40 or 45 if I keep it up.

I asked her why she asked me the question about the military, and she said 2 words. Grenades and explosions.

Sadly, even though I stopped the high volume listening years ago (7 years before this exam) I guess that it took it's toll as I do have trouble hearing normal conversation...especially where there's background noise. We have a new truck, and I can't even hear the blinker noise over the sound of the road. My wife has to contantly tell me to turn it off.

Dumbest f*n thing I ever did to myself.

wbs.

Re:The recent trend in "louder is better"

[canadian_right]

You are completely missing the point. The complaint with "loud" cd's is NOT that people play them too loud on their stereos or at concerts. The point is that the CD is being recorded at a level too high to allow for full dynamic range. That is, soft sounds are too loud, and loud sounds are 'clipped'.

I use to record from vinyl (and CD) to high quality casette decks (way back before there were CD burners). The first step to make a good tape is to listen to the whole song, and watch the db level meteres, and adjust them so that the LOUDEST sound in the song is less than zero db (or whatever level your tape deck uses). This way when you play the music back it sounds correct. Soft parts are soft, loud parts are loud, and all those transients come across loud and clear.

What they are complaining about is that about is that newer CD's are recorded so even the softest sound is LOUD which means the loud parts of the song CAN'T get louder which makes the whole thing sound terrible. They just 'clip' the loud parts reducing their volume. Apparently this is done because 'loud sound better' and big music compaies think if their CD is 'louder' on the radio it will sound better. Of course, most music played on radio stations is not played directly off CD's! It gets recorded, 'normalized' and played from big digital jukeboxes.

What these audiophiles want (and most classical music CD's are still fine) is for the producers to let the large dynamic range that CD's support actually be USED to make good sounding music. If the CD is well recorded you can turn up your amp to "11" and still have great sounding music (as long as your amp has the head room to punch up those loud bits).

I have to question this....

[BenJeremy]

How does a speech from the 70s, discussing how better "behaved" tubes are, have relevance today? Transistor technology has had 3 decades to grow into a more stable, mature platform for audio, and we understand a great deal more about the nature of sound and the equipment producing that sound.

Digging up an ancient speech which probably SPARKED the religious war in the first place is idiotic, in my opinion.

What's next? Will we dig up some argument from the 1880s about the superiority of DC-delivered electricity?

Yeah, so? and? what? who cares?

[emorphien]

Better for whom? The average listener won't be able to tell the difference, this is like how theres a few nutbags such as myself that still enjoy listening to vinyl. It can just sound better sometimes.

Also how relevant is this? 30 years ago, we've got all kinds of DSP going on now and very efficient transistor amps putting out a boatload of power before they become strained.

The problem with the louder-is-better issue is the albums themselves. They're mixed horribly. You can play them on a cheap boombox or a system costing thousands of dollars. You'll just hear the garbled shit more clearly on the multi-thousand dollar system.

Re:Of course...

[Metropolitan]

This discussion is a valid one to have, regardless of how many time's it's been brought up, because the aspects of what makes sound pleasing or interesting have little to do with a list of output-section distortion numbers.

It also has little to do with dollar-for-dollar comparisons of circuit cost. If an amplifier makes noises that sound better to the listener, then they are a better solution the one which has a less good sound quality.

Unless you're talking about car audio. Then, apparently, 43,000-watt amplifiers are only $200 at the local Car Audio Mart, and the buyers care little about output quality.

Overloaded = shouldn't happen

[PurpleFloyd]

At least in listening situations, overloading of your amp should never happen. The goal in listening is to get the best sound reproduction possible; thus, any distortion (which happens when any amp is overloaded) has a negative impact on the goal - a perfect recording-to-ears interface.

The only real place where this has any impact is in recording and performance; amps are frequently overdriven to provide a "fuzzy" effect - guitarists will know exactly what I'm talking about here. There, tubes and transistors sound quite different, and tubes do sound quite a bit nicer.

I'm sick of all the "audiophiles" who claim that a non-overdriven tube amp provides a better reproduction of any given sound than a similar, transistor-based amp. The fact of the matter is, transistors provide a better sound reproduction, as there's less interference from things like the tube's heater or outside magnetic fields. Whether it sounds better or not is up to you, but don't try to tell me that it's a better reproduction.

Re:Overloaded = shouldn't happen

[JGski]

Actually overloading happens stochastically with nearly all audio reproduction depending on the source material (most recorded & mixed poorly) and/or the inappropriate volume level given the capabilities/performance of equipment. Yes, the world would be beautiful and ideal if everything were linear (which is what you are implying is doable and obligatory) but the reality is that electronic devices are generally so profoundly nonlinear it makes more sense to simply define "how badly nonlinear".

If this makes me sound like a Tube-a-phile, let me mention I'm an analog circuit designer and my profession and personal opinion that >90% of most tube-a-philes are ignorant fools. There are a handful of exceptions. Norman Koren, though he is out of the audio hobby, knows what he's talking about. His writings should be required reading and required baseline knowledge for anyone who wants to mindlessly spout off about tubes being better over transistors. He's pro-Tube, BTW. His analysis is some of the only cogent and technically correct writing I've seen on the subject. AFAIHS, most pro-Tube audiophile magazine articles are written by people without actually knowledge of or experience in analog circuit design (building one or two tube amplifiers in your garage doesn't count) so I'm always dubious but I'm open to qualified and valid arguments, either way. This question of Tube-vs.-Transistor is usually irrelevent with bad circuit design: transistor amplifiers can be as good as the best tube amplifiers and tube amplifiers can be as bad as the worst transistor amplifiers. Device technology is not some magic bullet and claiming such only demonstrates one's stupidity and ignorance.

That said, one need only look at the rise of MP3 to see that most of the population can't hear the difference if there ever was one. This is something that the RIAA complete missed. It's also something that SuperCD and AudioDVD format promoters seem to have fatally overlooked (from an MBA sense, the market cap for such formats are far smaller than they claim or seem to believe). Most environments in which we listen to music are noisy (car, office and even home), and further most of us can't hear well enough or have the ear training to discern bad from good even with moderate quality equipment. The available "channel capacity" between our audio sources and our ears is generally far less than the 16-bits dynamic range/44.1 KHz data rate due to this ambient noise floor. Add to that the channel capacity limits between our ears and brain: I had my hearing checked when I was 19 and even then I had no significant perception over 16 KHz (which is statistically "normal" for 19 yo males). I'm in my 40s now and I've noticed my hearing getting worse since that! My iPod and its MP3 are certainly lower quality than the ideal but I get to take my entire audio collection with me anywhere in the world - nothing like sitting on the beach in Nusa Dua, Bali and feeling a particularly obscure recording from your collection would be appropriate for the moment and just playing it! That and hearing fidelity limitations tends to trump the quality argument in most cases.

Golden Ear performance is a requirement for only a tiny and limited market of audiophiles and historical archival use. The claim that overload handling differences is real and potentially relevant. Mr. Koren's analysis shows (from the pro-Tube camp) distortion is often an artifact of bad circuit design rather than necessarily a device technology issue (esp read his article on negative feedback) - bad design pervades both the Tube and Transistor sides of the audio industry. Most people won't be able to tell the difference anyway, which, from an economic-forces-driving-technology-options-and-dev elopment point of view, that's all the matters in the long run. Hence most audio is IC transistor-based, and increasingly, computer/synthesizer-based anyway.

JG

Tubes = distortion

[rabtech]

Any unintended (i.e. can't shut it off if you want to) effect on the audio is distortion. Period.

Some distortion sounds better than other types. But in the end, you are still getting a signal that is not reproduced faithfully.

(As an aside, modern MOFSETs produce even-order harmonics in an overload situation, just like tubes. This is opposite earlier IC-based gear that produced odd-order harmonics, which are much harder on the human ear. I think this is what the linked talk is going on about. I might also note that audio technology has grown by leaps and bounds since the 70s.)

If you like the "warmness" of a tube, then grab a tube preamp and a modern amp and you can now have the best of both worlds.

The "Audiophile" business is chock full of snake oil, even moreso than many others. $1000/ft "de-ionized oxygen-free" cables? LOL.

strings, amps, true differences

[ghostlibrary]

I love reports that tell us what is musically "better". It reminds me of the debate over, of all things, guitar strings.

Some people (Angus Young of AC/DC, for example) swear by using new guitar strings, replacing them as soon as they get a bit worn. Others (e.g. Neil Young) won't use 'new' ones and actually have roadies break their strings in before they will play them.

(Angus also likes to use no effects pedals, while Neil loves effects. Just picking those 2 at random 'cuz I read up on them. Which is better-- straight guitar or with effects?)

Which is "better"? The answer is 'whatever gives you _your_ sound'. You like tubes, go for it! Solid state give you what you want, more power to you!

With amps, people get distracted by engineering gobblygook, but the truth is: to get 'killer tone', you need to choose your own mix. Guitar choice, strings, amps, heads, effects, EQ, there's a fucking reason you can buy a million and one of each-- there is no one right path!

You can't define sound. It's experiential*. There's no one right set of gear. There's no one best type of music. There's no one best musician. There's no best album of all time.

Freebird! Freebird!

*(sonically, you can usually define 'sucky' due to poor audio quality, but when you get into 'good' you start getting into taste as much as specs)

Re:Of course...

[rco3]

Parent poster is correct. Several products exist which attempt to use DSP to mimic the sound of tube amplifiers, almost all of them in the guitar effects realm. None of them are yet there. They sound a lot LIKE a tube amp, but they don't capture it all. CAN they? Probably someday. But not yet.

I base this opinion (yes, opinion) on: several years as a professional audio engineer; several years as a guitar amplifier repair technician; several years as a semi-professional guitarist; and two degrees (working on a third) in Electrical Engineering.

Sibling posters who believe that DSP can do anything are correct up to a point: DSP can achieve any given transfer function, up to a desired level of accuracy. You need more accuracy? Increase the bit depth and sample rate, tweak the processing. However, the bug stumbling block is this: you gotta know what transfer function you want to emulate first.

The only thing you really need to know...

[Kjella]

...is that we have achieved amplifiers based on transistors that are more accurate than human hearing. Once you achieve that, there is no point in having anything else.

Any effect, such as that of a tube amp, a vinyl player, or whatever else makes music better for you, can be emulated. Any distortion, clipping, overloading, whatever.

Audiophiles live in a reality distortion field which makes Steve Jobs (Apple) look like a kindergarten magician.

Call me when TV has the same luxury problem. "This here looks completely real, but some people claim they can see the difference between this and reality. Those videophiles are crazy!". It'll take a lot more than HDTV to do that... and in 3D of course :)

Kjella

Nomination for Troll of the Week

[WaltFrench]

On a day when the real-world news is rife with examples of how faulty information processing has lead to multiple thousands of deaths, Slashdot dredges up issues with studios' technology from the 70's and claims they apply to consumer choices of today. Of course, in the fine print, NONE of the boundary conditions that are pushed, accidentally or intentionally, are similar.

Clueless, disingenuous or manipulative? I couldn't tell. But it's not exactly helpful in forming a well-considered mindset about audio design.

Here's my 3-bullet take on the weird juxtaposition:

* The older paper (as well as others quickly linked to) talks about how studios risked distortion by pushing amplifiers past design limits in order to escape tiresome, easily-heard tape hiss. In the 30 years since, the dynamic range of amplifiers has improved (less likelihood for over-the-edge conditions); metering and sound checks have gotten easier and faster, leading to fewer mistakes; and (analog) tape hiss, when it's an issue at all, has also dropped further down the list of concerns. Why is this archive paper relevant without those differences mentioned?

* The second-linked article vents frustrations that even live music is intentionally garbaged up by the creators. The sound is intentionally manipulated to sound "louder" which also makes it SOUND AS IF it was produced by over-driven equipment. That's the artists' prerogative, and the critic's job to carp about. Nothing to see here, folks, except that it interestingly links to ...

* a previous in-depth analysis of the Dark Side of the Moon SACD that details differences between formats that must have been driven by perceived preferences of listeners, not the formats themselves. Implicitly, some engineers seem to believe that CD listeners prefer LOUD while SACD listeners like "clean," because that's how they manipulated the two formats differently. For CD listeners, they clipped the sound INTENTIONALLY, and differently from any faults of the electronics, in a way that's unnecessary for the CD format. Clipping produces ugly noise on loud spots, but makes the recording sound "louder."

One might guess that engineers aim for the "cleaner" effect on vinyl, too. (Not too many vinyl fanatics risk installing their systems in cars, so they can groove while cruising along I-5, and probably not very many SACD systems, either.) And it's also not too much of a guess to assume that vinyl listeners are about 10X to 100X more likely to use tube equipment, which the owners have selected because it sounds (to them) more the way THEY prefer.

So this attempt at stoking flames under the War of the Formats (Audio Division) can be seen as having nothing to do with "Tubes vs Transistors," as titled. Rather, it oughta be, "my format Rools and yours Sux" or something more appropriate to the information that it provides to the topic. Absent the 2+2=17 faulty logic, the articles actually seem to show that engineering allows whatever "sound" the seller wants to feed the consumer, without any objective "quality" standard at all.

I propose "Troll of the Week" balloting to allow us to heap opprobrium on such posts. This shouldn't even make it on a slow news day. I'm all for vigorous discussion on "stuff that matters" but articles that encourage senseless flame wars don't exactly further that goal.