[west]

If you could only have either a tube preamp or a tube Power Amp, which would
you choose for that warm tube sound and why? Which ever one you choose to be
tube, the other has to be solid state. I know this question is somewhat
sophomoric, but try to indulge me, if you will. Thanks.

Cordially,
west
Professor Turner need not answer, because he never misses an opportunity to
remind me how little I know about tubes compared to him.

[Iain Churches]

"west" wrote in message
news:wB8Lg.1971$xh4.604@trnddc04...
If you could only have either a tube preamp or a tube Power Amp, which
would
you choose for that warm tube sound and why? Which ever one you choose to
be
tube, the other has to be solid state. I know this question is somewhat
sophomoric, but try to indulge me, if you will. Thanks.

Cordially,
west



Hi West.

To quote Morgan Jones, "No preamp is better than any preamp"

I reached that conclusion years ago, and built a valve power amp with a
stepped
attenuator on each input. With high-level sources such as CD, and an input
sensitivity of 1V, no preamp (valve or SS) is required.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/iain.churches...-30%20SA01.jpg


Regards to all
Iain

[Andre Jute]

west wrote:
If you could only have either a tube preamp or a tube Power Amp, which would
you choose for that warm tube sound and why?

Both in one box. If your source is CD, your player puts out at last 1V
and usually 2Vrms. That obviates the need for a preamp. Build an
integrated linestage stereo power amp with stereo stepped attenuator (I
use DACT because they're not only the best but reasonably priced as
well). There is no case for monoblocs except if you need to split up
excessive weight.

Which ever one you choose to be
tube, the other has to be solid state. I know this question is somewhat
sophomoric, but try to indulge me, if you will. Thanks.

The only reason for a pre-amp is if you play vinyl. In that case the
received wisdom on the Joenet, usually a pretty authoritative source,
was that a tube pre is the right thing if you can have only one tubed
unit. Make sure to ask Sander de Waal for an opinion: he swears by
hybrid constructions.

If there is no need for a pre, don't build it just because fashion
victims do. All that wiring costs quality in your sound. Quality cannot
be added to sound, it can only be substracted. Tube DIY is about
subtracting the least amount of quality to leave the most for your
ears. In this scheme of things, pre-amps are an unnecessary evil.

Cordially,
west

Good luck.

Andre Jute
Habit is the nursery of errors. -- Victor Hugo

[Patrick Turner]

Iain Churches wrote:

"west" wrote in message
news:wB8Lg.1971$xh4.604@trnddc04...
If you could only have either a tube preamp or a tube Power Amp, which
would
you choose for that warm tube sound and why? Which ever one you choose to
be
tube, the other has to be solid state. I know this question is somewhat
sophomoric, but try to indulge me, if you will. Thanks.

Cordially,
west

Hi West.

To quote Morgan Jones, "No preamp is better than any preamp"

I reached that conclusion years ago, and built a valve power amp with a
stepped
attenuator on each input. With high-level sources such as CD, and an input
sensitivity of 1V, no preamp (valve or SS) is required.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/iain.churches...-30%20SA01.jpg

Regards to all
Iain

I'd agree with Morgan, even though I am banned from this thread by Professor
West.

Good tube gear preserves the natural warmth of well recorded music and
should not make music all euphonic and gushy and syrupy.
I compare what I hear from replay systems to what I hear at live concerts
without any amps or speakers.
Much real music IS warm because the instruments have evolved over centuries of
incremental
development to have a natural warm sound. Not many string instruments now made
are considered more pleasant to hear than those made by the old Italian
masters.
I know little of instrument making. Those old time guys knew much about music,
and the preferences of their wealthy patrons.
I just don't want a system to reduce the sound of an old violin to that of a
Suzuki trainer
worth $50.

If one must have a preamp then a well done triode type makes little difference
when added in front of a tube power amp.
But better than having a solid state preamp in front of anything.
I've always found the full tube set up is more tolerant of female vocals.
Leak used to make all their amps sensitive to 0.1Vrms, but almost everyone
bought
an integrating preamp with the Leak power amps because they
offered a tone control stage and a phono amp. These functions were
achieved with a pair of EF86, one for the phono amp and one for the tone
control.
The tone control was unity gain with FB and the phono amp was usually RIAA FB
eq.
When wanting to use a line level source from a radio then the preamp had unity
gain
but with tone control.
So the tube preamp sound wasn't triode sound but pentode + loop FB sound.
Many of the greatest tube era recordings made were done using
bags of NFB around pentode signal tubes; the EF86 was a king tube.

I regularly listen with the signal going to the volume attenuator then to a
cathode follower buffer
and without any gain. But I can switch in a gain stage to give about 12dB and
the sound timbre
does not seem to change detectably. Ditto the triode tone control stages when
set flat.
The schematics for all this are in my preamp pages. No pentodes are to be seen.

The Leak amps made perhaps 15 watts from 0.1Vrms input.
If the speakers are 8 ohms, there is 11v output and voltage gain = 111.
Today we may have 1V input for 100W output in a modern amp with gain = 28.3.
With 0.1V input to the modern amp, there is 2.83V output modern amp for a watt
and enough for all the folks I know.
0.32V input would give 10 watts.
So you really don't need any preamp gain for a high powered amp unless you are
a headbanger.
And in the old days when speakers like Tannoys were 96dB efficient, it
made the sensivity of the older amps almost excessive,
an the SNR was a threatened.
Quad II had a more sensible 1.4V input for 22watts output,
The Williamson had 2V input for 16 watts using low µ triodes throughout.
CD use today means a preamp isn't needed.
And a highish gain phono amp is easily built so that for MC carts
with 0.3mV input the output level can easily be 0.5V.

....my non professorial 2c worth.

Patrick Turner.

[Iain Churches]

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


I know little of instrument making. Those old time guys knew much about
music,
and the preferences of their wealthy patrons.
I just don't want a system to reduce the sound of an old violin to that of
a
Suzuki trainer
worth $50.




Hello Patrick.

So you know little of instrument making? :-))

May I then offer you a genuine see-thu acrylic baroque cello dated 1672.
It is the deluxe model, lit internally with a pink flourescent tube. It has
a Barcus Berry pickup, and a personal headphone socket.

Too good to miss at US$ 99.99 :-)))

Iain

[Eeyore]

Iain Churches wrote:

May I then offer you a genuine see-thu acrylic baroque cello dated 1672.
It is the deluxe model, lit internally with a pink flourescent tube. It has
a Barcus Berry pickup, and a personal headphone socket.

Too good to miss at US$ 99.99 :-)))

Nitwit.

[PhattyMo]

west wrote:
If you could only have either a tube preamp or a tube Power Amp, which would
you choose for that warm tube sound and why? Which ever one you choose to be
tube, the other has to be solid state. I know this question is somewhat
sophomoric, but try to indulge me, if you will. Thanks.

Cordially,
west
Professor Turner need not answer, because he never misses an opportunity to
remind me how little I know about tubes compared to him.




Mmmmm....I'll go with tube Power Amp.
My little 6V6 PP sounds great through my Sansui AU-7900's preamp stage.

[Andre Jute]

Iain Churches wrote:
"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


I know little of instrument making. Those old time guys knew much about
music,
and the preferences of their wealthy patrons.
I just don't want a system to reduce the sound of an old violin to that of
a
Suzuki trainer
worth $50.




Hello Patrick.

So you know little of instrument making? :-))

May I then offer you a genuine see-thu acrylic baroque cello dated 1672.
It is the deluxe model, lit internally with a pink flourescent tube. It has
a Barcus Berry pickup, and a personal headphone socket.

Too good to miss at US$ 99.99 :-)))

Iain

I really wonder about the dating of the cello to 1672, Iain. The
fluorescent tube makes me wonder if that isn't a typo for 1772, which
is just about possible for a rococo instrument with pink neon. I say
just about because by 1772 the rococo had given way to the classical
period by a couple of years at least. I suppose some distant provincial
luthier might not have heard that the shortlived rococo was done and
gone (1), and made this instrument as late as 1772 but of course a lot
of dates ascribed to instruments are pretty approximate. Since the most
generous estimate of the rococo is that it lasted forty years from 1730
-- I don't agree, I like the firm cutoff date for the baroque of the
death of Bach in 1750, and the same year as the beginning of a rococo
period of only two decades -- and since the rococo type of music was
generally suited to baroque instruments so that only a very small
number of exceptional instruments were built particularly in the rococo
(artistic) style and to suit the rococo musical style of this very
short period, that would make it a very rare instrument indeed. You'll
want at least a dozen Guarneri/Stradivar/Goffriller of the most superb
provenance in exchange.

Furthermore, if it was in built in 1772, it would most likely be in
very good condition today, because it would have seen very little use
as just about that time the more modern temper or scale started to be
used extensively, so that even when new your "baroque" but more likely
really rococo cello would have been very old-fashioned, a sort of a
just-produced New Old Stock rococo cello, something like a Quad II
built in Huntingdon in say 1992 or a Sanction II DB4 Zagato built at
Newport Pagnell in 1992...

Congratulations on your rare and *wonderful* find!

Andre Jute
The Anacronics of Nylon 66

(1) Case in point: Dieter Ennemoser sent me one of his pink violins
which I in turn lent to the music school for a year. (It's now in the
Staatsmuseum in Vienna if you're passing.) We had a guest day to which
we also invited the local luthiers, and without exception they told me
how much better they could have done with Ennemoser's resources (which
they did not appear to know started out far less than theirs...). I
heard one of the naysayers mutter that if only Ennemoser would use pink
neon rather than pink lacquer, but another condemned pink neon as
irredeemably old-fashioned. Sounded to me like they just heard the
rococo was done and dusted...

[Max]

"west" wrote in message
news:wB8Lg.1971$xh4.604@trnddc04...
If you could only have either a tube preamp or a tube Power Amp, which
would
you choose for that warm tube sound and why? Which ever one you choose to
be
tube, the other has to be solid state. I know this question is somewhat
sophomoric, but try to indulge me, if you will. Thanks.

Cordially,
west
Professor Turner need not answer, because he never misses an opportunity
to
remind me how little I know about tubes compared to him.



Power amp, any day. It has more influence on the sound, due to the fact that
a preamp contains one gain stage, or at least not many, versus the power amp
which has the output transformer, power output tubes, and highish output
impedance which form part of the "tube sound". That said, if you have low
eff. speakers (magnepan?), you'd be better off with a high powered SS amp
than a low powered tube amp, in the same price range.

In my system, a tube line stage, for some reason, seems to really help the
sound quality, compared with several solid state preamps I have tried. It
seems like the whole systems falls flat on its face when I substitute a
solid state preamp. I don't know why, because the solid state preamps I
have tried have very good specs, and theoretically shouldn't harm the sound.
My phono preamp is a transistor design, and sounds great. (only solid state
part of the system)

[Patrick Turner]

Iain Churches wrote:

"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


I know little of instrument making. Those old time guys knew much about
music,
and the preferences of their wealthy patrons.
I just don't want a system to reduce the sound of an old violin to that of
a
Suzuki trainer
worth $50.



Hello Patrick.

So you know little of instrument making? :-))

May I then offer you a genuine see-thu acrylic baroque cello dated 1672.
It is the deluxe model, lit internally with a pink flourescent tube. It has
a Barcus Berry pickup, and a personal headphone socket.

Too good to miss at US$ 99.99 :-)))

Iain

I have an 18 string guitar I built when aged 20 instead of watching TV.
Its suffered rather bad timber work failures because the tension of
18 steel strings at about 20 lbs each was too much, but it fascinated me and my
audiences
greatly for while, and that unique Leadbelly sound was something I built on.
Alas my career and study of building construction at night school in my 20s
meant I had no time for continued developments of MkII and MkIII etc of guitars.

I also had a strong hand to hold down 3 strings at a time.
So I know from my failings and experiments that I am no expert.
But what a trip!

And no thanks, you can keep your 1672 fukkin plastic cello with flashing
flouros.

Patrick Turner.

[Sander deWaal]

"west" said:

If you could only have either a tube preamp or a tube Power Amp, which would
you choose for that warm tube sound and why? Which ever one you choose to be
tube, the other has to be solid state. I know this question is somewhat
sophomoric, but try to indulge me, if you will. Thanks.

Cordially,
west
Professor Turner need not answer, because he never misses an opportunity to
remind me how little I know about tubes compared to him.


Hi West,

As Andre Jute already said, I have some experience with building
hybrid power amps.
They're fairly easy to build, and leave enough room to "tune" when the
output MOSFETs are biased in or near class A.

Having said that, a preamp, at least to me, is an unneccessary item,
unless (as I do) one builds a RIAA pre together with a source switch,
a volume pot and a buffer circuit into one case.

In my designs, both the RIAA stage and the buffer circuit consist of
tube circuits.
My MC pre-pre, however, is a SMT solid state design with a quiet opamp
and some metalfilm resistors and polyprop caps, bult into the plinth
of the turntable.

When you're dealing with line sources such as a tuner,a cassettedeck,
tapedeck etc., the buffer stage after the volume pot or stepped
attenuator may be designed to have some gain, usually not more than 10
times.

When dealing with CD (compatible) sources, the maximum RMS output
voltage is 2 V rms (digital brickwall), so in that case, just a volume
pot and a short cable is needed, or, as suggested by others, integrate
the volume pot into the power amp.

The "warm" tube sound, as often described by people who don't
understand why people use tubes in the first place, is as far as I am
concerned, a myth. They usually refer to the dark brown sound from a
'50s Grundig radio.

A tube stage can sound as transparent as any good solid state design,
but for me, the fun is in altering the circuit just a bit to fit my
personal preference.

That's not "HiFi", that's "MyFi".
It can mean something else for you, hence the plethora of different
circuits available, each with their own, distinctive sound.

That's not a direct answer to your question , though.
I think both topologies can sound good, and each has its own
strengths.
I enjoy immensely my powerful hybrids, but I can also enjoy my feeble
2A3 PP amps, with suitable speakers.

Your question is bound to generate reports of personal experiences and
preferences, there is no absolute truth as far as I am concerned.

The "engineering school of thought" will obviously disagree, they're
stating that accuracy to the signal on the source disk" is the only
way to go.

Maybe they're right, but *to me*, that's not always the most
pleasening way to do it.


This isn't helpful at all, is it? ;-)

--
"Due knot trussed yore spell chequer two fined awl miss steaks."