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Tube Sound: Pre-Amp or Power Amp

mozcho

mozcho

Well-Known Member
In my quest to look for a pre-amp for my MC2205, a new question popped up in my mind:

Which is more important in producing the tube sound? The pre-amp, or the power amp?

The 2205 is currently fed by the pre-amp section of Marantz 1060, just because I have a Rega Planer 3 TT, or else I'd just connect my digital sources direct to the 2205.

I have never used a tube amp before, and I would like to try one (currently there is a Sansui AU-70 for sale near me). I don't know what to look for, any advice?
 
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depends on the speakers you chose. Tube amps have a very low damping factor and there fore you can experience what is called tube bloom. My speakers are very sensitive to damping factor so I use SS direct coupled amps. Tube bloom is an un-natural emphasis from about 220 hz down to 50 HZ. And because of low damping factors tube amps don't perform that well below 40 HZ with a lot of speakers. If the speakers are critically damped like MAC ML and XR series speakers the low damping of tube amps is of no concern, Other speakers like AR, KLH and others with sealed small enclosures work well with tube amps with in limits. So by using a tube pre-amp you can get the staging you want and the extra colorization and not the exaggerated amounts you would get with some tube amplifiers. Most tube amps also have much higher distortion on the lowest octaves further warming up the sound. High frequency signals can seem more congested too. It' Only been lately where tube units are being built with great signal to noise performance. So do your home work twice and then again before buying tubes. Tube amps are always needing new tubes to maintain the best performance. $$$$$$$$
 
Also depends on what you think "tube sound" is, as I have read an interview with Charlie Randall where he says McIntosh do not subscribe to "voicing" or "tube sound", he went on to say that they only manufacture tube equipment because there is a demand for it, and that they strive for perfect reproduction, not particular sound adjectives banded around the audio scene.
 
kevzep said:
Also depends on what you think "tube sound" is. . .
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Well OP posed that very question in a thread he started over in the General Audio forum. I actually read the first 152 posts in that thread (stuck in the house because of dangerously smokey air and CV19 so lots of free time) and I saw very many opinions but I did not see a trend toward any particular answer let alone a consensus. Seems a hard question to answer and so that makes it hard to answer OP's question in this thread.

Sorry, I don't know but since you have a pretty good amp, you might want to try a nice tube preamp and see if you like it. I guess by definition, you'll get tube sound from a tube preamp and the MC2205 is (so I've read in this forum) a pretty neutral sounding amp that will let you hear how the preamp sounds.

If you do buy a tube preamp (or power amp) that's more than 20- or 25-years old, you should budget for one that has been correctly electrically restored (seller should provide a complete explanation of the work done with preferable receipts and test data) or plan to have it restored after you buy it.
 
Pairing my 2105 with a C20 has definitely provided more tubey presentation then using the very early C24 preamp did. And that C24/2105 combo was a very warm, very listenable combo to begin with.
 
Isn't part of the 'tube sound' due to the output transformers in the amplifier? Could this be why some prefer Mac SS amps with output transformers over those without? Personally, I'm happy with my SS preamp and tube power amp, though I currently have it configured with a SS power amp for the woofers and a tube power amp for the mids and tweeters 200Hz and up.
 
I think that tube sound in tube amps largely goes away when corrective negative feedback is correctly used to 'fix things up'. Tube sound shines in those single ended amplifiers (300B and similar) that have no negative feedback at all. In those designs, you get to hear the transfer function, warts & all.
 
TSmith8605 said:
Well OP posed that very question in a thread he started over in the General Audio forum. I actually read the first 152 posts in that thread (stuck in the house because of dangerously smokey air and CV19 so lots of free time) and I saw very many opinions but I did not see a trend toward any particular answer let alone a consensus. Seems a hard question to answer and so that makes it hard to answer OP's question in this thread.

Sorry, I don't know but since you have a pretty good amp, you might want to try a nice tube preamp and see if you like it. I guess by definition, you'll get tube sound from a tube preamp and the MC2205 is (so I've read in this forum) a pretty neutral sounding amp that will let you hear how the preamp sounds.

If you do buy a tube preamp (or power amp) that's more than 20- or 25-years old, you should budget for one that has been correctly electrically restored (seller should provide a complete explanation of the work done with preferable receipts and test data) or plan to have it restored after you buy it.
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Yeah, that thread has become a battlefield, terminologies used are getting incomprehensible, and the level of discourse is more and more philosophical...... I didn't expect it when all I asked was a simple question :(
 
kirk57 said:
My take:
The faults of tube technology are more apparent in tube amplifiers.
The virtues of tube technology are more apparent in tube preamplifiers.
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But a solid-state amplifier has different distortion characteristics, both when driven at very low gain and when driven to clipping. In either case I prefer tubes and in either case the amplifier is most likely to be driven into clipping and most likely to be driven at very low gain.

I don’t have any desire to own tube preamps (or ever use what I have), but I do love the sound of some of my tube amplifiers (as well as SS amplifiers).

In an amplifier, it really only needs to amplify, one input, and in many cases the gains will be set and forget. In a preamp I want lots of capability and flexibility, some of which isn’t available in vintage amplifiers and I’m not willing to pay the price for a modern tube preamp with digital inputs, remote control, phono-preamp, etc.

I feel that you find the most accurate and capable preamp you can afford, the best amplifier you can (whether tube or solid-state), and color the sound with the speaker technology. The speakers have by far the biggest influence on the sound character and just need to be fed good clean power from a quality source.

Amplifiers of both technologies are good > better > best, period.
 
mozcho said:
Yeah, that thread has become a battlefield, terminologies used are getting incomprehensible, and the level of discourse is more and more philosophical...... I didn't expect it when all I asked was a simple question :(
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Well tubes v. transistor audio is maybe the oldest running "religious" war in audiophile land. I believe it started as soon as manufactures started selling SS in the mid-'60s and continues to this day.

The digital v. analog war started when Telarc released their first digitally-mastered LPs in the early '80s, a couple years before CDs and CD players appeared. Many were promoting the new technology's great sound, but not Harry Pearson (founder and then editor of The Absolute Sound) who did not like the sound at all. And so it started. That one is also still going on.

Expensive vs. normal cables - that war is relatively more recent but still active.

So whenever a newbie asks "which is better?" or "why is this better than that?" type question about any of these topics on an audio forum, expect a battlefield to erupt. In many cases a moderator has to step in.
 
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I agree that the speakers and interaction with the speakers are likely the factor in the sound you will achieve with a tube amp or across different sets of tubes, especially in the McIntosh ultra-linear amplifiers where any coloration due to distortion into a resistive load is designed to be so small it's not discernible. Personally, I like the tube amps because of the ambience they provide - they're pretty to look at, feel warm, and smell good. My collection of tube gear of all sorts keeps growing.
 
Maybe with S.S. amps, the reason that small amounts of feedback are difficult to use is because the circuits have such large amounts of open loop gain that feedback is as necessary to bring the gain down to useable levels as it is to reduce distortion in the audible band.
 
kevzep said:
Also depends on what you think "tube sound" is, as I have read an interview with Charlie Randall where he says McIntosh do not subscribe to "voicing" or "tube sound", he went on to say that they only manufacture tube equipment because there is a demand for it, and that they strive for perfect reproduction, not particular sound adjectives banded around the audio scene.
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Careful there - reciting facts presented by the manufacturer in regards to design and engineering parameters is never popular... ;)
 
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