Rock only good on SS stuff?

millerdog

The Mod Squad
Does the tube sound contribute or detract from the rock and roll sound? I was listening to Bush and Matchbox 20 through my Fisher and thought the sound was muffled by the mids. On my SS stuff, it sounds cool. Seems that tubes are just a little slow. I just wasn't hearing any attack!
Any thoughts?
thanks
 
Thank God, I quite possibly am not nuts after all.
Aside from using a tube pre amp, which I DO think makes a difference, I really can't hear what tubies rave about.
Of course at the volume I like to listen to music, I could never afford that much tube power.

I isn't a matter of detail, it is like you say, speed, or attack. And so far nothing satisfies the headbanger in me like SS amps.

I once bi-amped a pair of Klipshorns with MC 240 on top and an Aragon 2004 on the bottom. I forget the xover frequency. But the result was not as satisfying as I expected. I ended up running the Khorns with just the Aragon amp and didn't feel a bit deprived.

I listen to nothing but rock.
I suppose if I was one of those weirdos that can jam on violin or cello solos I MIGHT have another opinion.
 
I've always thought so too. Tubes may for the most part be a more "natural" sound for natural instruments, but rock is made with amps, effects pedals, synthesizers, you name it. All of which are solid state! So, for music made with solid state gear, it only stands to reason that it only sounds natural on solid state gear.

My Fisher 500 would make the Altecs absolutely sing with jazz and classical, but it would seem to fall flat on its face when it came to something like Nirvana or anything that's woofer heavy.

My McIntosh MC2105 is the only amp I've ever heard that does both equally well with no compromises.
 
My preferences were set long ago. My first stereo was a tube console (CRS what brand, given to me by the father of family friends). That was at a time when the local IGA had a big stock of tubes for TVs, radios, what-have-you.
The whole world was beginning to switch over to solid state.
Was I ever ready! When I was able to afford my first solid state gear, I never have felt the need or desire to look back.
That said, I have discovered in my little PCR800 MOSFET amps the most sweet sound that just does right by classical and unamplified music, as well as cool jazz, all the while providing the power and timbre for hot jazz, RnB and rock. Capable of authoritative output below 2 ohms, combined with large, efficient and high-power-handling JBLs (and their rather easy 8 ohm nominal load) that system delivers the goods with every form of music my eclectic tastes have given 'em.
Mebbe I'm just a Neanderthal.
 
:grnbounce Hey all,:beer:

I've been out of commisision for a while and found a good thread, first time back.:huge:

I played music of many varieties for about 25 years, and oddly enough, most of the guitar players that I worked with preferred tube amps ala Fender Twin Reverb and Mesa Boogie.:headscrat Those who liked SS amps tended to gravitate to tube preamps.

Gotta agree about the McIntosh amps. I have a couple of friends who swear by them and IMHO, they surely do sound just as good with Deep Purple as Dave Brubeck. Go figure.:yikes:

For playback, I guess I lean more towards the SS gear, since that's what I own, but for great guitar sound (especially with lots of distortion), I hafta go with tubes.

Happy Listening

:D George:cool:
 
As far as my main system, they contribute.
I bi-amp with SS for bass and the rest tubes. I mostly listen to hard rock and using 2 SS amps does work real well though I am totally sold on tube pre for anything if your going to use one.


Carl
 
I think whether tube or SS does it best for you on rock depends entirely on what kind of speakers you are using.

Since tube power is dear and doesn't come with the huge NFB derived damping factors that accompany abundantly cheap power in sand amps, tubes, especially of modest power, tend to work better into self damping speakers of high efficiency like horns.

Given the average lower efficiency of most speakers out there you are probably going to get more slam from SS as a generalization if rock is your jones.

If I were off to party place to make the house shake with rock and roll and didn't know what speakers were there and I was supposed to bring the amp and the beer, I'd take a 120 watt/ch or larger SS amp and malt liquor brew. But then if the purpose is to make your ears ring while you get zombied, sound quality doesn't matter as much. :) Oh, and used to been there...done that...lots.

I cannot listen to the high SPL's anymore and sound quality is now everything IMO. I have to pass on the high octane too. :( Excuse the babble. My point was covered in the first sentence. :)

Rob
 
Very Interesting Thread!!

I have tried many, many permutations of SS, tube, biamping, triamping, etc. and must concur that SS has it's place. I think as someone said, it has a lot to do with how the recording is mixed to begin with.

HOWEVER, that being said, my son's friend had a graduation party this past June and, unbeknownst to me when he asked to borrow a big, powerful amp for the party, he has a pair of VOT's. The 100 watt/channel SS amp I lent him sounded like crap. I ran home and got my Pilot 240 6bq5 amp and hooked it up to the Altecs and WOW! You coulda heard this thing across the river in Wisconsin.

It was absolutely the loudest, yet easiest to listen to, outside system I ever heard.

Gosh, ain't audio fun!

Lee
 
Lee,

Thanx for the confirmation. Horns and tubes! WadidItellya? :)

I built a large pair of full-range exponential, bi-radial horns for my home theater downstairs. When I put my Sansui 9090 on them (highly touted SS, ~110W/ch receiver) they sound like total crap. Switch to a 14 watt/ch P-P triode tube amp and I'm in audio heaven.

Rob
 
OK,not to get on the bad side of the 'tubies' or get flamed,but if the sound is muffled or missing with Rock would it not be true to say you may be missing or losing something with other music as well with tubes? :dunno:
I am just a Rocker so I am just asking.

I too could never afford enough tube power to Rock out like I like to. :guitar: :rockon:
 
I would have thought music was music.

If an amp had trouble with rock then it would also have trouble with any other genre (?).

System compatibility does come into it though.

My Jadis sounds great with rock and the ProAcs but is a bit too polite when matched with the Maggies.

On the other hand the little Krell sounds a much better match with the Maggies and rocks/swings with any type of music.

Too many factors come into play to generalise.

:dunno:

cheerio
 
Not necessarily so...

Music is music, but music reproduction is another matter.

I've had Maggies and I miss them.......sometimes. Very sweet!

Musical reproduction is a chain and only as good as it's weakest link.

Generalizing can be fun.............

Lee
 
Originally posted by Rob
Lee,

Thanx for the confirmation. Horns and tubes! WadidItellya? :)

I built a large pair of full-range exponential, bi-radial horns for my home theater downstairs. When I put my Sansui 9090 on them (highly touted SS, ~110W/ch receiver) they sound like total crap. Switch to a 14 watt/ch P-P triode tube amp and I'm in audio heaven.

Rob

You even admitted that the 9090 sounded pretty darn good on some of those speakers that I gave you....besides which, you're one of those weirdos that sets their tone controls flat ;)
 
Originally posted by Kamakiri
You even admitted that the 9090 sounded pretty darn good on some of those speakers that I gave you....besides which, you're one of those weirdos that sets their tone controls flat ;)

Tim,

Sure, OK, I'll admit the new large speakers that I've built (still secret to the public but you know about them) sound pretty fine on the 9090. Yes, also sound pretty good on some of the speakers you gave me. You have to turn the bass and treble up though to get a boom-tish sound to make the Sansui sound good though....but you know this. ;)

On the other hand they sound absolutely so much better on my 14 watt tube amp, and with less tone boost that I cannot find the superlatives to describe it! As long as I have this tube amp there's no way I'll be listening to the 9090 on these fine, detail revealing speakers. I've found these new speakers on this P-P triode amp go easily 10 dB deeper into the subtle layers of detail than anything else I have in the house, except maybe those huge front horns of which they are still more revealing, but not by as much as 10dB. They have a midrange clarity that is absolutely amazing. The Sansui 9090 covers over this fine detail with a kind of pink noise, that isn't random noise. It follows the modulation. It is probably TIM or some other form of distortion which the tube amps don't have that makes tubes sound so much better in some instances. I cannot describe it very well, but my ears can sure hear when it is gone! It is like the pressure on your ears in an elevator in a way. It is there also on that Technics SA-700 receiver I got from you. When you are shaking the house with head banging rock and roll you don't notice it, but when you sit down in an acoustically treated listening room, let your ears get dark adapted, and then play something like Diana Krall, you can really hear when this 'fuzz' is present or not. I like the tube amps, cause I don't get the fuzz. The sound is clear like crystal is transparent.

I've noticed when playing wrap music on the Sansui's FM tuner these classified speakers can punch more unnatural deep bass with the Sansui as it has almost 10 times the power output than my tube amp. They go really low, much lower than the big horns. Wrap music needs large power to reproduce the bass, so this is hardly a surprise. Since I don't listen to wrap music, this doesn't bother me. Like I said earlier, the most important thing for me now is sound quality, given a reasonably satisfactory quantity. I still like fairly loud music with fast bass and slam, so I'm sure I'd never be satisfied with a 45 or 2A3 SET amp, tone or not, but I'm getting it in the 14-20 watt range with these speakers I'm prototyping, the rear horns upstairs, the large front horns downstairs, and the classified secret speakers too. My R&D is growing good fruit these days! :)

Rob
 
I read the original post here then scanned over the rest of them. I guess all I have to say is my tubes reproduce rock just fine. It's really all speaker dependent I think. I have a vintage big watt Sansui G-9000. Its fun and all but, my tube system really reveals the music so much better to me. If anything is lacking I find that its when I throw SS amplification in my system. I enjoy my solid state systems just fine. Shoot in fact, it's all I ever listened to since SS equipment became main stream. But once I really made audio my hobby the ole ears perked up when I started listening to tubes again. It was weird but true. When its time to get serious, the tubes win every time with any music to my ears. :)
 
If you are using efficient speakers that have large drivers with paper cones and simple crossovers the speakers will not suck up all the extra power before the cones start to move. Making small drivers do the job of big ones because of style and marketing trends is the reason for slim tower speakers with medium to low efficiency. These speakers typically will not perform well at high SPLs using a tube amp. Other speakers were designed not only for SS but possibly specific brands and a Fisher tube integrated is very far from that. You might not catch it with certain styles of music or at lower volumes.
Another possability is that the recording just aint as good as you thought.
Real Rock & Roll was performed with tube amps, recorded on tubed tape decks by master technicians and SS wasn't seen in the studios as a controlling factor until Disco. Why? Because the tube gear was exellent, the engineers were comfortable with it and it lasted a long time.
The Bean Counters fired the master recording engineers, put in SS because it was easier to maintain and there were a lot of unworthy bands being promoted with the result being a general downward slide of recording quality.
When that Fisher was built you could get great sound out of any venue with any speaker of quality at basically any volume you wanted. You got to ask yourself what have been the most fundemental changes made since then.
I believe them to be in the recording studio and in speaker design. The SS played a great part and the speaker design followed the power SS offered.
When your Fisher was built the technology that ran it and the studios was at its peak for consumers. SS took a decade to get close, speakers have not surpassed and the studios are finally putting out a consistant product if you buy for sound by label.
A good recording for redbook CD today is every bit as good as the average record pressed 40 years ago.
 
I love both types of gear. My favorite rock combination is my 500-c and the Large Advents. Not what most would consider the best coupling, but they rock. Now with the Heresies it is a whole other world, crisp and clean and warm and slammin'. However, I love the Advents, so it is a matter of preference. Though when I just want some SS rocking for a party or listening outside when the system is indoors I go with the HK 930, so who knows which is better, they all have their place. So I guess the answer is as already stated, it is a matter of preference and also system synergy. I do hear a bit of pink noise as well with most of my SS gear, Concept 2.0 and the MCS and also when I had the G-22000, so I prefer the tubes for critical listening, unless it is the HK, which is a very smooth sounding sand system. Sorry to ramble, but I have been up all night and am still going through the day, though others are working today, so I just get to watch, a rare occurrence, Yippeeeeee :D
 
Ummmm I'm sorry but all the best "Rock" came after Disco, I ain't talking about 50's Happy Days rock or Hippy rock neither, though some of that is still good. And there was some good shit in the 70's, specially the late 70's, I believe the rock the thread is referring to is like stuff from the 80's to the present, AC/DC, Van Halen, Van Hagar, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Metallica, 80's hair bands and metal etc. and newer bands such as White Zombie, Live, Queens of the Stone age, etc. I believe this is the rock they are talking about.

And if you think "wrap" music needs some wattage for the bass try playing White Zombie's "Thunderkiss 69" , or System of a Down's "Toxicity" ( blew all the fuses in my Sansui G-7700 and AU-G77X one night playing that one too loud :p:)
 
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