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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 8, 10:39*pm, Tabby wrote:
On May 8, 12:32*pm, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.

wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:


Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


Age doesn't determine quality, it more determines price. There are
still some very good amplifiers from the 1950s about, like Quad II and
similar.


IMHO, Quad-II has a quite parsimonious amount amount of "very good" in
it. It is one of the poorest mass made amplifiers ever foisted upon
the public. But so were many others from 1950, Most mass makers were
reluctant to make gear which compares well to what we can do with
tubes now. The car industry also produced attrocious cars in 1950.
nearly everything you bought was butcherd quality, or quality watered
down. In 1955, everyone complained about cars rusting from the inside
out while also wearing out rather too soon.

Peter Walker didn't get famous because of his amps. He became famous
for his electrostatic speakers.

The Chinese make Quad amps now and has tried to make them better, but
the Quad 40 has many shortcomings; they just don't get it.

Things have not changed, the vast majority of stuff for sale is what I
never want to own. And the fact that slave labour in China makes it
for almost nothing so that when its sold in Oz after rapacious shop
owners here sell it at 20 times the Chinese factory gate price, I
still don't want it. The Chinese can make good underpants
and plastic reader glasses, but not tube amps. I also get many solid
state amps coming in for repairs, and made badly.


There are differences between valve and transistor amps' sound

quality, both have their pros and cons, and some people much prefer
valve.


Indeed. Both forms of amps should measure well at normal listening
levels. I've heard some tube amps which don't, and they don't sound so
good, and often its because the makers have NO IDEA about how to
design anything. I have had to totally re-wire a lot of brandname amps
because of the ignorance of the makers. Much tube gear is complete
rubbish and the prooduct of minds that were merely greedy, and they
peddle crap in an entrepreneuring effort which is a complete con job.
Many people have more money than good sense let alone any ability to
tell what really sounds well and slick promotion efforts get sales of
rubbsh. Some people woud gladly eat a **** sandwich if they are told
how ****in marvellous the sandwich is and shown how wonderful the
sandwich looks.

But I raise my hat to the **** producers of the world.

I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.

NT


Patrick Turner.