Going tubes...

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oemcar said:
then why do those 'dark' options still exist?
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There are "dark" opinions that the earth is flat, that water broken into hydrogen with less energy than the resulting hydrogen can produce (a special circuit electricity with the right magnets are required but the energy companies are hiding it from the general public). Also, there are cures for many diseases but the pharmaceutical companies don't want the general public to know, and special carburetors have been invented in the 1960s that allow cars to get 100mpg but, again, the energy companies don't want the general public to know. Those people who are "in the know" are quite special and by no means want to be told their specialness does not exist. So, be special, spend your money, enjoy listening to your big band music or recordings of 1940s baseball games, just please, please, please, stop telling me how much better it sounds.

Note) if tubes really sound so much better than SS, tube thumpers sure spend a lot of time away from their tube amps telling non-believers how much better tubes are than SS. Seems like tube-speak is more of a religion or an exclusive country club than fact.
 
oemcar said:
I'm not telling you... I'm asking you... to keep an open mind
That is all
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It's like my wife asking me where I want to go on vacation, beach or mountains? I say, let's go to the mountains and hike, enjoy the views and cool temperatures.
She spends the next 3-months telling me how nice the beach is, what a great deal exists on this island or that resort. Why ask if you already have an opinion that You don't want changed!

I think we all agree that you will not be happy until you buy a Macintosh. Maybe you can buy the Macintosh amp that was used as a prop in the movie, Knives Out. It kind of proves the point that tubes must be the best, because rich families buy tube amps. Go get 'em Tiger!
 
oemcar said:
If prevailing winds of opinions here are right, then why do those 'dark' options still exist?
Accordingly- the tube amp industry should have failed long ago.. right?

But it hasn't-
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It hadn't failed - it just died a natural death decades ago.

The current minor fad is simply a nostalgia trip for those too young to be there the first time, and stupid enough to blow huge sums on relatively low quality audio equipment - although the higher end stuff is really nicely made (as you would expect).
 
BobW said:
I think an even bigger problem was transient IM distortion.
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it turned out that was caused by slew rate limiting, and wasn't difficult to solve.
oemcar said:
And if nostalgia were the only prop, then why are those still spending upwards of $20k on a pure or hybrid design?
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A) because they can, and B) because the manufacturers of this stuff know they can get away with charging so much. there is a media "echo chamber" that does listening tests of the most esoteric of the high end stuff. they don't however test distortion or noise, IMD or anything that can be measured with instrumentation. McIntosh does publish their noise, distortion, and damping factor specs, and they don't make only tube amps, they make some very nice transistor amps as well.
oemcar said:
the tube amp industry should have failed long ago.. right?
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for a long time it was the guitar amplifier industry that kept tube amps from disappearing.
 
The late Siegfried Linkwitz, who co-invented the Linkwitz–Riley filter used in most good quality speaker systems and was one of the world's foremost music audio experts, designed some very excellent speaker systems with multiple amplifiers to drive each speaker separately, so the signal to the speaker could be precisely tailored to what that particular speaker needs to reproduce the most accurate sound.
His goal was to reproduce as accurately as possible, the sound of live music in its original setting by minimizing the effects of the room where the speakers are located.

He used only high-quality solid-amps for all his designs.
I'm quite sure he would have used tube amps if they gave a better sound.

If interested, there's some interesting discussions about his designs on his website here.
 
Nigel Goodwin said:
Stupid enough to blow huge sums on relatively low quality audio equipment -
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"Stupid" is a derogatory adjective that, perhaps, this successful 'High End Established Marketer' might take you to task with...

**broken link removed**

And since,
Youre a moderator here, respectfully-
Please show us the financial background from which you base your opinions on, that, are proven to make-

[/QUOTE]
 
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I have noticed that geetar players in bands blow huge sums on stupid high end cars, large yaughts and on vacuum tube amplifiers.
 

Umm... where did any financial or financial-related words or phrases enter Nigels post that cause you ask for "financial background"? I see the phrase, "low quality" but that doesn't imply inexpensive or unprofitable (or even excessively profitable). I'm beginning to think the word "stupid" was used appropriately.

Also, just because someone is a moderator at this site doesn't mean they lose all rights to express opinions here. You must have this site's rules confused with those of another site. Please stop making up rules to change moderators' actions. They are not paid, the only compensation they get is opportunities like this thread.

Buying preferences are quite unique to each individual, so it all comes down to opinions. If you want a $20k amplifier made with old-school technology, go for it. If you need validation from complete strangers before you go for it, please know that I approve of your spending crazy amounts of money on your mid-life crisis.

If you do go for a high-end McIntosh system, be sure to buy the McIntosh LB100 "Light box" as well. That way, your elderly friends and family with poor eyesight can clearly see the brand of your system and they can be impressed. Oddly, it is illuminated by LEDs instead of "tubes" with filaments.

From the manufacturer...
Let this visual statement piece — and sure-to-be conversation starter — accompany your other McIntosh components in your equipment rack, or proudly display it on its own. It can even turn on automatically with your other McIntosh gear thanks to a rear-panel Power Control input and output.

Unfortunately for me, the manufacturer of my audio system doesn't offer a "light box" so I'll just write "Denon" on a piece of scrap paper with a blue Sharpie and tape it to my system.

Not to change the subject, but, I know someone that paid $30k for a hand built gazebo using no nails and no pressure treated lumber. He got what he wanted and the joy of explaining why his gazebo squeaks & shifts when you walk on it, why the entrance looks like a parallelogram, and endless stories about stains made with natural oils that he applies each season. It's all about what makes you happy. Spend, Jim, spend.
 
 
In the era of rampant social media where everyone has a keyboard and an opinion...
What then, sets us apart?

Lets go deeper-
For those that have established businesses in this industry, that sell products associated w/ topic, please post your experiences here per se- regarding sales, and feedback of products sold-

Please,
All feedback welcome
 
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All audio opamps have their slew rate shown so you can see if they can produce high frequencies at high frequencies without producing distortion. I think the output transformer in a vacuum tube amplifier produces a poor slew rate.
 
oemcar said:
Lets go deeper-
For those that have established businesses in this industry, that sell products associated w/ topic, please post your experiences here per se- regarding sales, and feedback of products sold-
Click to expand...
Your expectations of people who disagree with you are a bit unrealistic.
 
gophert said:
Your expectations of people who disagree with you are a bit unrealistic.
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Why?

Because, perhaps, in the void of hard audio eval data... I turn to revenue generated to evaluate?

If not that , then what? keyboard opinion?? Please assign factual monetary value to that then...or other, as to why...

again facts, not opinions, are what should sway
 
audioguru said:
All audio opamps have their slew rate shown so you can see if they can produce high frequencies at high frequencies without producing distortion. I think the output transformer in a vacuum tube amplifier produces a poor slew rate.
Click to expand...

I relegate this, perhaps, agreeable fact to previous 1st and 3rd harmonic(s) discussed earlier- even tho I've never seen a 741 hooked to an output transformer in design.. But the result should be better on the graph, theoretically
 
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