RapidRonnie wrote:

Mr.T wrote:

"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
roups.com...

Obviously, the best thing to do with tubed amps is to not listen to them
very often.

Only if you don't care for the superior sound quality.

Yes, many people prefer the accuracy of solid state sound to the "superior
sound quality" of tubes.
(The idea that they may in fact be inferior is a concept too awful to
contemplate if it shatters your self delusion)


The idea that there are tube amps that actually measure well as well
as sound good is a concept too awful for transistor bigots to
contemplate.

Don't be silly. We transistor bigots know that there were jolly decent
valve amps
forty years ago, that sounded and measured well, before all this
single-ended nonsense.

--
Eiron

I have no spirit to play with you; your dearth of judgment renders you
tedious - Ben Jonson.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
If I did a straight-wire bypass test comparing a ST-70 to the amp section
of
a Best Buy $79.95 100 wpc stereo receiver, with my standard speaker load,
which amp's outputs would most resemble the input?

You should know by now that accuracy is not their desired goal. Euphonic
distortion is.
That costs a *lot* more to achieve apparently.

MrT.

"RapidRonnie" wrote in message
oups.com...
Yes, many people prefer the accuracy of solid state sound to the
"superior
sound quality" of tubes.
(The idea that they may in fact be inferior is a concept too awful to
contemplate if it shatters your self delusion)

The idea that there are tube amps that actually measure well as well
as sound good is a concept too awful for transistor bigots to
contemplate.

Nope, they sure do exist, but cost many times the price of a similar
performance transistor amp. So I see no need to also put up with the
maintenance issues.
You get to make your own choice though.

BTW, most valve bigots do not like tube amps that measure well. They sound
just like a transistor amp, which is *not* what they want.

MrT.

"RapidRonnie" wrote in message
oups.com...
If I did a straight-wire bypass test comparing a ST-70 to the amp
section of
a Best Buy $79.95 100 wpc stereo receiver, with my standard speaker
load,
which amp's outputs would most resemble the input?

A stock ST70? Probably the Best Buy receiver. But let's run the test
in 2046 just to be sure.

What's the point, neither of them will work by then, without repair.

MrT.

In article .com,
"RapidRonnie" wrote:

Mr.T wrote:
"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
ups.com...
Obviously, the best thing to do with tubed amps is to not listen to them
very often.

Only if you don't care for the superior sound quality.

Yes, many people prefer the accuracy of solid state sound to the "superior
sound quality" of tubes.
(The idea that they may in fact be inferior is a concept too awful to
contemplate if it shatters your self delusion)

The idea that there are tube amps that actually measure well as well
as sound good is a concept too awful for transistor bigots to
contemplate.

There's not a tube amp ever built that measures as well as a Hafler
DH-200, and that's an *old* solid-state amp.

Whether an amp needs to measure that good to sound good, is a different
discussion.

Isaac

"RapidRonnie" wrote in message
oups.com...

Mr.T wrote:
"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
ups.com...
Obviously, the best thing to do with tubed amps is to not listen to
them
very often.

Only if you don't care for the superior sound quality.

Yes, many people prefer the accuracy of solid state sound to the
"superior
sound quality" of tubes.
(The idea that they may in fact be inferior is a concept too awful to
contemplate if it shatters your self delusion)

The idea that there are tube amps that actually measure well as well
as sound good is a concept too awful for transistor bigots to
contemplate.

Umm, those good tube amps measure mediocre but still can sound good.

"RapidRonnie" wrote in message
oups.com...

Mr.T wrote:
"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
ups.com...
Obviously, the best thing to do with tubed amps is to not listen to
them
very often.

Only if you don't care for the superior sound quality.

Yes, many people prefer the accuracy of solid state sound to the
"superior
sound quality" of tubes.
(The idea that they may in fact be inferior is a concept too awful to
contemplate if it shatters your self delusion)

The idea that there are tube amps that actually measure well as well
as sound good is a concept too awful for transistor bigots to
contemplate.

Not at all, it's just that the amps that have tubes and sound as good as SS
ones, tend to be cost prohibitive, so what's the point?

If I can get all the wattage I might ever need, and spend 2/3 to 1/10th the
price of a properly functioing tube amp, there's not much to think about,
besides it the fact that so many tube amps do not sound as good as SS that
makes them attractive to tube lovers. They want the inferior performance.

wrote:
snip

Not at all, it's just that the amps that have tubes and sound as good as SS
ones, tend to be cost prohibitive, so what's the point?

If I can get all the wattage I might ever need, and spend 2/3 to 1/10th the
price of a properly functioing tube amp, there's not much to think about,
besides it the fact that so many tube amps do not sound as good as SS that
makes them attractive to tube lovers. They want the inferior performance.

Some do, but then again there are solid state designs that don't
measure well and cost a lot. A priori opposition to tubes on that
ground is triventriliquation.

Most commercially available high end amplifiers are underbuilt and
overpriced, whether or not they have tubes. Commercial products such as
Crown, Crest, QSC and other brands are well made and priced
semi-reasonably from a build point of view but are simply sonically
poorly suited to home use. Simply put they sound mediocre or poor at
very low levels, which is irrelevant for sound reinforcement but of the
essence to audiophiles, unless they have palatial houses and/or are
headbangers with existing partial hearing loss.

Good solid state amplifiers are cheaper to build than good tube
amplifiers, but not radically so, and the tubes do have a certain
esthetic value all their own. I would posit that well designed tube
amplifiers have much longer tube life than is common to many of today's
poor designs, also. I would further posit that if more people bought
tube amps and some R&D were put into better tubes the tubes would
perform even better and last even longer!