Did Pioneer engineers try to make their 70s receivers sound like tubes?

[kramden]

100% rcs. And, would you listen to compact discs using a tube amp?

 

[rcs16]

And, would you listen to compact discs using a tube amp?

yes, as long as it is not noticeably distorted.

 

[kevzep]

I don't think they did, I don't think Sansui did either, I think they were designing amplifiers for absolute optimum performance using the best designs they could come up with it at the time, when they were designing these amps, tubes were on the way out, they wanted to sell the newest and most accurately performing amplifiers....
All my opinion of course.......

 

[rcs16]

People talk about old tube and transistor designs but things have come along way since then, there are new designs these days, building off old ideas. Check out this one
https://www.vzaudio.com/tubsumo
This is a 12au7 tube or jfet input stage, sansui diamond differential gain stage, Renesas lateral fet op stage, a thing of beauty, bias leds and all.

 

[SaturationPt]

When companies were designing and prototyping their new transistor designs they spent a good deal of time auditioning their many iterations. They used everything that they could at the time to measure accuracy, including listening A/B with their current/successful products, and studio standard products. Fact is that much studio and legacy standards at the time were tube, ... so it stands to reason that the sound produced could lean toward reproducing the tube standards.

I do not believe however that the Engineers (I was one a decade later) set out to create circuitry that had the same distortion characteristics as tubes, they would have designed to create as accurate an input-output comparison as distortion-free as possible, and improved from there.