Remembrances of vacuum tube days
As a young teenager, I developed a love for electronics which became a lifelong love affair. In those days vacuum tubes were the norm and solid state devices such as transistors weren't in usage then....
Forum Discussion
Gdetrailer wrote:mr. ed wrote:delwhjr wrote:
Started at a very young age by helping my grandfather and then my father repair electronics (TVs, radios and early HiFi rigs. I liked to build Dynaco stereos and loved my McIntosh stereo equipment. I still think the old tube type equipment has a better sound. I worked for many different electronics shops and went into teaching electronics after closing my own shop. I was always sought out by the local hobbyists to fix their Heathkits when they messed up. Eventually I got into computers and networking. When the students quit taking electronics classes(math was too hard :B), I changed to computers and networking classes. Retired from teaching at the Community college after teaching high school for many years.
Yes, I've heard the same thing about tube amplifiers having a "cleaner" sound. I doubt most people, except true audiophiles, could notice the difference compared to solid state. You mentioned Heathkits. I've built several in my youth along with many Knight kits. Included were ham radio receiver and xmitter, stereo amps and tuners, plus various test equipment (VTVM, oscilloscope, capacitor checker, tube checker, etc.)
Common misconception that tube amps are "cleaner", in reality they are not. What you do get is a slightly DIFFERENT sound sonically, some would say a "warmer" or "fuller" sound that what transistors give. Hard to describe..
Some folks say transistor outputs as being "sterile" compared to tube outputs.
Back to the "cleaner sound" for a second, tubes by nature inject considerable amount of noise into the audio signal. This happens as the filament heater gives off electrons, some of those electrons affect/interact the plates and grids electrons in the process.
Additionally, most tube amps the filament heaters are powered with a AC voltage which if you listen with a good set of headphones you will be able to hear a slight AC 60hz hum in the background with no signal. With good headphones you can also literally hear the electrons hitting the grids and plates in a form of white noise in the background with no signal. Add that background noise to your music and it gives the 1950's "HiFi" sound that you and your parents grew up with.
There are simulators you can add to your system that can add in a simulation of a tube amp if you like.. They also make tube preamps if you like..
tube amps tend to go into limit on max signal more gradually than solid state amps, and the harmonics generated are IIRC even order vs. odd order for solid state. Even order harmonics are less intrusive to the ear. And lots of the early transistor amps would not only hard limit, but oscillate and do really wierd things when overdriven, all of which gave rather anoying sound,
I had an early Scott transistor amp, when driven to near output limit it would start oscillating in the audio range and coming out of limits had real bad transient recovery problems.
Listening to music it was vey easy to hear when it was being overdriven.
Todays transistor stuff is much much better.
