pfarrell Wrote: > :[color=blue] > > Humans have evolved for a long time to pay critical attention to phase > and frequency. It meant telling where the lion was. > > But audiophiles also love tube gear, which any engineer > knows has bad bandwidth (aka rolloff, aka warmth) and all sorts > of intermodulation distortions. > > I'd love a cite to some science or engineering about > the meaning of jitter at audio frequencies or redbook > data rates. > > > -- > Pat Farrell > http://www.pfarrell.com
Tube preamps can have flat frequency response when properly engineered. Tubes are inherently superior to transistors in some respects. See this series of interviews with the great (and slightly odd) Tim de Paravicini: http://www.ear-usa.com/timdeparavicini.htm > > YOU USE VACUUM TUBES IN MANY OF YOUR DESIGNS. SOME PEOPLE HAVE SAID > THAT TUBES HAVE EUPHONIC EVEN-ORDER HARMONIC DISTORTION. DO YOU RELY ON > THIS TUBE NONLINEARITY TO ACHIEVE THE SOUND OF YOUR MODS, OR DO YOU > ALWAYS RUN THE TUBES IN THEIR LINEAR REGION? > > I do not rely on tube nonlinearity. I don't want a sound in my > machines. What comes out must sound the same as what went in. > > The "warmth" in a lot of tube electronics is due to their dismal top > end, the bad transformers they use, and the loading down of their > high-impedance outputs. Because of the output transformer and the > feedback used, many tube circuits have a partial bass instability that > gives a bloated bass. Any warmth in the tube sound is a defect, but > listeners don't want to know that. > > I don't have to use tubes in my designs; I only do it for marketing > reasons. I've got an exact equivalent in solid state. I can make either > type do the same job, and I have no preference. People can't pick which > is which. And electrons have no memory of where they've been! The end > result is what counts. > > Most transistor-circuit architecture was different from tube-circuit > architecture, and that's what people were hearing, more than the device > itself. The main advantage of tubes is that an average tube has more > gain than an average transistor. Second, tubes don't have the enormous > storage times of transistors, so they are very fast. Tubes go to 100 > MHz without trying. > Andrew -- Andrew B. ========================================================= SB3-> Benchmark DAC1 -> EAR864 valve pre -> ATC SCM50ASL active speakers... nice! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andrew B.'s Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2619 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18116 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
