HAD on tubes vs solid state

[Luddy]

I am sure everyone has seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVTj08qTwGw

I am not qualified to judge the merits of his explanation of why tubes are better than solid state. Is what he says about the "crystal lattice" and so on meaningful?

[martin manning]

Possibly. See:

http://ampgarage.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

['67_Plexi]

I am sure everyone has seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVTj08qTwGw

I am not qualified to judge the merits of his explanation of why tubes are better than solid state. Is what he says about the "crystal lattice" and so on meaningful?

Maybe if you wanted to keep it in the physical realm.
There are a lot more meaningful ways of explaining it, but it involves boring math. This just keeps it in line with the marshmallow football fields and notes floating on clouds or whatever. Makes it all sound so much prettier.
To answer your question, there could be some merit in it, but it's very difficult to prove, so it's basically a theory. Unless someone knows any more.

[DonMoose]

A very long time ago, I read this article that tried to explain it in mathematical terms, and I think I understood it. (article long gone, google-fu lacking this morning)

In those days, everyone was still talking about the difference between solid-state and tubes in terms of even and odd harmonics - that SS made too many odd ones, and tubes only did even. We know that's not true because single-ended stages do evens and push-pull - most of our power amps - do odd.

These guys hooked up a spectrum analyzer and found that, while tubes made harmonics (2,3,4,5,...)- better defined as integer overtones - the SS stuff made NON-integer overtones (3.2, 5.1, 6.7 ...) (you can't call 'em harmonics if they're not integer).

Hope this helps!

[jelle]

Yes, I remember that article. It had graphs with the results as well. That was some years ago. I'll test myself that when I have access to my HP 3562A.

Jelle

[glasman]

It might be a little difficult to measure the exact frequency of the harmonic on a spectrum analyzer depending on the max frequency setting and the sample rate being used. Most older SA's were limited to a sample rate of 1024 or 2048 and on a 20Khz sweep this limits frequency resolution to 10 or 20 hz.

Gary

[talbany]

The main problem being transistors have no equivalent to grid current limiting and only hard clip the signal..As a result, transistors produce mainly high order harmonics which gives it that fuzzy type distortion we all love ..(square wave) this IMHO is why it's impossible to create a convincing valve sound using transistors..So really harmonics do survive in a crystal lattice their just not the right ones IMO..JFET's are a bit better because they show a fall of in input impedance but still very sudden and still results in hard clipping..My .02 cents..

Tony

[Bob-I]

I was told that SS technology is getting very close to duplicating the sound of tubes...

That was in 1966 and it was a salesman trying to sell me a Thomas Organ Vox amp claiming it would sound as good as a Twin... I bought the Twin.

[Billion81]

FYI-

This post was made over @ TGP about 6 months ago as a total troll/bait to get mudslinging and the Dumble folks out on the case.

one of the mods pm'd me that a post on Harmony Central was linked in a thread to purposely start a dust up and see how long they could keep the post going.

With 2 posts as of this OP it is a tad suspect.

Hope I'm wrong.

Ted

[talbany]

I was told that SS technology is getting very close to duplicating the sound of tubes...

That was in 1966 and it was a salesman trying to sell me a Thomas Organ Vox amp claiming it would sound as good as a Twin... I bought the Twin. :roll:

Unfortunately I bought into the sales talk over at Washington Music where the salesman pushed one of those Peavey MRK 2 amps dual channel transistor with the graphic EQ... Worst POS amp I ever owned IMO.. I have nothing against Peavey now but I don't know how those salesmen slept at night as I remember him telling me nah you don't want a Marshall these sound much better!!.. Unsuspecting 15 year old..

Tony

[Billion81]

Bill Brooks (Veneman's) sold me on the JC120 though his jazz runs were pretty crazy.

Good old Chuck Levin's WMC. always such commotion in there. I used to ride my bike from Montgomery Village all the way to Chucks when I was a kid. Viers Mill Road on a bike was like taking your life in your hands.

[talbany]

LOL!!.. Driving the beltway to Chucks from VA was scary enough.. I could imagine the Viers Mill Road run.. Remember the back room at Zavarellas..Hairr-able Looked like a swap meet blew up in there Sanford and Son Music we called it..!!

Tony

[vibratoking]

With all due respect, I call BS on the crystal lattice comment regarding harmonics. I have done some studies in Solid State physics and can think of no reason why this could be true. If high order harmonics can't survive in the lattice then this implies a frequency limitation in the semiconductor. But we know that semiconductors can transmit frequencies well into the GHz range, which is orders of magnitude higher than any audible frequency. IMO, this is pure garbage.

The Fourier series states that any signal can be formed by a composition of weighted integers (harmonics) of a specific frequency. This is mathematically true and it does not involve non-integer frequencies. Although, I am open to any further explanations to help enlighten me. There are actually some interesting animations on Wiki that illustrate this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_series
Here is an applet that I found that is fun to play with if you are unfamiliar with the Fourier series.
http://www.falstad.com/fourier/
If you study it, you will see a lot of application to audio. Put it in log view. You can see that a square wave is all odd harmonics with pretty high amplitudes. Most of us don't percieve this as good tone.

I agree with the grid current limiting theory. I find it to be the most plausible argument for the differences between SS and tubes. There are circuits around that can approximate grid current limiting in SS devices. I have never tried any. I should put it on the to-do list.

[phsyconoodler]

Ok,now put that into terms us non-audiophiles can understand.
There are plenty of solid state amps out there that do sound pretty good and if you own one you can delude youself into believing they actually do sound good.
Then you put your buddy's Hot Rod Deluxe beside it and it's all over but the crying.
Tubes are better.Period.Whether it's the vacuum or lack of grid limiting current in SS devices,the tube amp will sound better to the human ear.
I like light bulb lighting better than LED's.It's the vacuum.

[M Fowler]

My friend and I are both going to be 55 very soon. My bud finally decided after playing through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe last week that he needs a tube amp. His last tube amp was in the 1970's during a rock band he was in.

I never thought he would come around.