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Originally Posted by
ProampFan 
Grandarf,
I was a fan of pro amps a few years ago. I had 2 Crown XLS 602D's in my main system driving Polk Audio SDA SRS 1.2TL's and thought they sounded good. Keep in mind I had nothing to compare the Crown's to and to me they sounded good. Pro amps are very powerful, no doubt. Relatively inexpensive, too. I bought 2 of them because my speakers are rated at 50 to 1000 watts per channel and I thought they needed 1000 watts of power to sound good. A friend of mine also has Polk Audio SRS 1.2 TL's but his are driven by a Carver TFM 35 rated at 250 wpc. His speakers sounded so much better than mine in every way. More midrange, bass, highs, everything. Well after hearing how much better his system sounded, I bought a Carver and sold the proamps. Got rid of the fan noise too.
Would have been interesting to see measurements of those two amps to see what was wrong with the Crowns...
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Originally Posted by
ProampFan
It didn't matter what the specs of the amps were, I was listening to the amps connected to the speakers, I wasn't listening to the specs.
You know I haven't heard anybody yet who actually listen to an amp's specs instead of the amp connected to the speakers... But again, an amplifier simply amplifies a signal... No magic here! I guess there's two camps, those who shun science and physics, those people are sometimes known as creationists, audiophiles, astrologists, fortune tellers, etc., and then you have people who actually accept that they live in a world where most things are quantifiable, measurable and that the same 'science' which brought us teh internets, cars, planes, ipods, viagra, etc. really does work!
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The Carver TFM 35 sounded better in every way so I got rid of the proamps. Don't ask me why the Carver sounded better than the Crown but it did without a doubt.
It's absolutely possible that the Carver and the Crown sound different, but to do so, one has to do quite a botchy job for it to be audible... You're certainly not hearing a difference of 0.01% THD nor a 0.1dB deviation in the FR... It would be really interesting to measure both and see why one sounds poorly compared to the other... Amps don't do anything special, they're not supposed to act like an EQ, or add/remove anything, they should
only amplify the signal...
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I swapped out the Carver with the Yaqin and talk about a revelation. More bass, midrange clarity, highs. The speakers sounded better than I ever heard before. Sold the Carver TFM 25.
So it added bass? Like if you took an EQ and added 5dB <200hz? :\\ That's not really the job of an amp... Again, to me tube amps are more an effect than an actual amplifier... Like if you stuck a distortion pedal between a guitar and an amp. Sure, the pedal will change the sound, but that's just that, it just changed the sound...
wiki on sound of ss vs tube:
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Audible differences
The sound of a tube amplifier is partly a function of the circuit topologies typically used with tubes versus the topologies typically used with transistors, as much as the gain devices themselves. Beyond circuit design, there are other differences such as the electronic characteristics of a triode and MOSFET, or a tetrode and a bipolar transistor.
Some sonic qualities are easy to explain objectively based on an analysis of the distortion characteristics of the gain device and/or the circuit topology.[citation needed] For example, the triode SE gain stage produces a stereotypical monotonically decaying harmonic distortion spectrum that is dominated by significant second-order harmonics making the sound seem "rich" or even "fat", while each higher order harmonic is smaller than the nearest lower order harmonic.[5] Some audio professionals[who?] regard the effects of the use of tubes as distortion - which can be used creatively in certain scenarios.
In tube amplifiers high frequencies have been somewhat rolled off. Historically this was often the case due to limitations in capacitor performance.[citation needed] Modern audiophile-grade tube amplifiers however, using modern and high quality capacitors can have frequency response that are essentially flat to octaves beyond the audio range: −3 dB above 85 kHz is quite common (though of arguable utility).[citation needed]
The low frequency roll-off can be explained by many tube amplifiers having high output impedance compared to transistor designs, due to the combination of both higher device impedance itself and typically reduced feedback margins (more feedback results in a lower output impedance).
A hypothetical amplifier design in two otherwise equal variants with just different amounts of feedback, might result in the higher feedback version having a "drier" mid-range (due to reduced second-order harmonics due to greater reduction of distortion) but a "tighter" bass due to lower output impedance might result.[citation needed] The speaker impedance divided by the Z out is sometimes referred to as the "damping factor"the amplifier's ability to control the mechanical movement of the speaker.
In general terms, the sound from a tube amplifier will typically have a softer attack[citation needed] and the bass frequencies will be more prominent, giving a warmer and less "harsh" sound.[citation needed] Instruments such as pianos and vocals sound softer and fatter when compared against transistor amplifiers. The reasons for these effects are not simply related to the gain device type; today an amplifier designer using either technology may make synergistic design compromise choices. Sonic differences are less stereotyped than they used to be as a result.
Again, thing is a SS amp will have much less distortion than tubes... for 300$ you get 300 watts of power, and as advertised THD should be below 0.05%, that's a tenth of half a percent of distortion... tube amps costing significantly more will still have significantly less power (50 watts?) and so will distort a lot faster than SS, and will distort a lot more; a tube using its 50 watts will have like 1% distortion or even more, while a 300 watt using 50 watts won't break a sweat and will have much less than 0.1% distortion...
So the question is, does the tube amp which
distorts significantly more than SS really has better 'clarity', or is it more like the distortion is perceived as such? Again, if it's the tube distortion, could be reproduced somewhere else in the chain, like I said using DSP or something, not really necessary to have it permanently in your amplifier... Well, anyway, that's my take.
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Could the Yaqin possibly sound good on the big boy 1.2 TL's. Well the 1.2TL's power ratings go from 50 to 1000 watts per channel so what the heck, let's see how the Yaqin sounds on the 1.2TL's. WOW. Great!!! Bass so deep and powerful, sweet midrange, highs perfect. Ok let's turn up the volume.house shaking, chest thumping bass without any distortion. The Yaqin never ran out of steam at 116 db and that is plenty loud for me.
Wow that's pretty cool, no distortion!
And I can do armless pushups!
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Enter the Yaqin MS-20Lsounds great just like the MC-10L, plus it has a remote.
So how can a 50 wpc integrated tube amp sound better than the SS gear I had in my system? I don't have the answer, but what I do know is that it does, and that's all that matters to me.
Well I'm quite interested in the why and so far my best explanation is that for the better or worse, people enjoy distortion!
That's why I said it would be an amazing test to compare a tube amp vs SS with a tube emulator, and see if people can really tell it apart or if they really just like the added distortion added by tube amps...
Anyhow, sorry of sidetrack. I like tube amps too, cool effect, almost purchased a couple of <1000$ tubes on a couple of occasions and really liked the sound of Conrad Johnson amps I've heard, just for practicality and all so far haven't made the jump.. Might happen one day who knows! And then I could do the test of the SS + tube emulation vs real tube amp lmao
