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What Solid State Gear Sounds Most Like Tubes?

The first thing to address is what tube sound are you referring to? The really is no such thing that is a standard. A Dyna ST70 sounds entirely different from a Dyna ST35 that sounds different form a classic Fisher that sounds different from a classic Scott and all of the sound entirely different from a tube Marantz, McIntosh, or modern tube amps such as those from ARC, Cary, etc. My classic ARC D76a amps had not similarity to any of the vintage tune amps I've owned nor any SS equipment I've had. However they were easy to identify in listening as tube amps.

If discussing generic vintage tube amp sound as perceived by many, then probably the closest would be the 1st and 2nd gen McIntosh as Frank was careful in voicing these amps to come as close as possible to Mc tube amps. Other companies tried but were less successful and others did not try to voice thinking the ss sound must be more realistic than a ss amp voiced (talk about a disaster).

As a group, I have found the early Sony receivers seem to have similar favorable attributes for me. I tend to have a low threshold for listener fatigue and my ear training was with vintage tubes and 1st gen McIntosh SS. The Sony 6060FW is really the only receiver I've heard that I can play for hours without a problem. Even later Sonys will fatigue me after some time but not as fast as others. The Mc 1700 (actualy a hybrid) and the 1900 also do well in this way.

Some companies have a darker liquidy sound such as Sansui and Marantz and some think it is tubelike but it is more of a smearing of detail and what appears to be a slight frequancy bias in the lower range rather than actually voicing. Either of these brands are okay but, I'd suggest the Sonys such as the STR 60x5 as a strting place for the vintage generic sound if that is what you are referring to.
 
Bowtie, there is nothing inherently wrong with germanium transistors other than they are the earliest inovation and tend to breakdown over the years and finding replacements are all but impossible I understand. There were used in some nice 1st units from early adoptors but even at the time it seemed engineers knew there were some limitations as the move to silicon based was very rapid and much made of it even at a time when the average person had not experienced transistor units. I have a Fisher amp, tuner and receiver all 1st gen using germanium and there is no probelm with them. Nice sounding units and when they 1st came out forecasted what could be done with a good ss design. Sadly, many following companies put out terible sounding product and did not do the engineering and evaluation that Fisher did.
 
jcmjrt said:
If you'd like to have a great tube tuner too, the Mcintosh MX-110 is very hard to beat.
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I like that idea and maybe pair it up with a Sansui BA-2000/3000 amp. I bet that would sound sweet.

OP, so what was the magic combo last night?
 
I started out with tubes, cuz that's all there was when I was a kid, then moved to solid state. My observation is that some amps can produce a lot of power into low impedance loads. That effects the sound, not something that can be called good or bad, the just do. Those amps are all by my experience solid state.

Tubes have in wine tasting terms "tight bass", meaning it's there, just that the amps isn't produciing 175% of it's rated power at the impedance of the woofer.

Some not all solid state, McIntosh with thier autoformers, old Marantz, some Luxman don't push as hard when impedance values drop.

That to me is what people think of, or at least I do, when it comes to amp sound.

Other than that, an amp shouldn't have "a sound", just a reaction to a load.
 
Duffinator said:
I like that idea and maybe pair it up with a Sansui BA-2000/3000 amp. I bet that would sound sweet.

OP, so what was the magic combo last night?
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The magic combo was a lot of tweeking for starters. Started off with a Marantz Quad 4140 amp. Thiels CS-1.2 up front and ADS L-780s for rears. Diana Krall on a Yamaha CD player.

I didn't set up the speakers in a typical quad array but more like 2 channel, but not quite. I put the amp in 4 channel Vari-Matrix. This gives me control of the spatial dimension. Really cool stuff. You can get it to sound like an empty and echoy concert hall up in the balcony or the front seat in a small intimate cafe. The Marantz gives me quite a lattitude for mixing. And not just the tone controls. I dropped the volume on the ADS. Gave the speakers an extra bit of treble and dropped the bass a tiny bit. And dropped the dimension which brought Diana's voice closer to the front.

This is not like having 4 speakers with both A and B speakers on. The second set are rears which have different sound than the fronts. So I was getting more musical information out. Essentially I just blended the sound characteristics of two different sounding speakers.

Is it real? Heck if I know. Does it sound like tubes? More than anything else I have. Was if fun? Hell ya and it sounded great!

Cheers
 
Holst, sadly I don't think it is really known whan an amp is actually not influencing sound in some way. We must start with the understanding that things like speakers and front end sources probably have the greatest influencel; then we add the fact that we really have no idea what th original source material actually sounds like as the only way to hear it is to reproduce it through something. Possibly the only way to minimize this is with a direct to disc (vinyl) recording and playback through the same unit such as was the case with E.H. Scott units. Not the best fidelity but possibly the closest representation of both the recording and reproduction. The only other thing maybe the original Edison cylinder recorder with mechanical playback and miking from it through the reproduction system. Then the mic would have to be factored in the equation.

While live to tape, etc also would work but, I think from experience not as well as we suspect given the electronics in the preamps in playback and the difference in the playback vs record heads. But a somewhat realistic alternative.

Then the search would need to start to find the speakers that regardless of amp come closest to reproducing the music (this is something we've been wrestling with since the first, correction, 2nd speaker was introduced), then the amp would come into play. So while I agree in theory, we actually have no way of actually knowing if such an amp actually exists in reality.
 
70's Sherwood receivers were engineered to provide a degree of tubiness--none of it high powered but IMO the most pleasing marriage of SS and tube sound that also happens to be wallet friendly. Fatique free compared to the sound of my other vintage Marantz, Sansui, or HK stuff that supposedly has an air of tubiness.

Might be raking coals but my 2 cents anyway.
 
onepixel said:
I don't have much experience with tube gear. And I've been eye balling a number of vintage and new tube amps. But I'm not sure if I'm ready to go down that road just yet. Especially to do it right, it means way more stuff. I still have to thin out what I have.

So is there a combination of SS gear that will approximate the sound of tubes?

Thanks,
Carl
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No solid state amp will sound EXACTLY like a tube amp, except the amp I heard at Bob Carvers home in Washington State.
Stereophile challenged Bob Carver to make a solid state amp sound exactly like their reference Conrad Johnson.
Bob suceeded, but he can only do it on one set of speakers with a known set of speaker cables.

It turned out to be impossible to do it in production, because of the many variables different speaker/cable combo's present to an amp.

Bob would adjust his solid state amp to duplicate the tube amps transfer function.

I heard it for myself, and it worked.

Just not in production!

Now, for some tubey solid state amps, I agree that the old McIntosh amps are kinda tube like.

Another "sleeper" amp is a Luxman M 117.

The OLD B&K mosfet amps with the can type Mos Fets are warm and dark.

The NYAL Moscode 300 and Moscode 600 are very tubey, especially the Moscode 600.
But, they are hybrids.

Another great sounding amp is an Audionics CC 2 or maybe it is a CC 3 ?
Dick Olsher really likes this amp, and so do I.

Some digital amps can be almost tube like as well, depending on their chipset.

For a receiver, the JVC RX DP 9 and DP 10 are w/o glare, warm, and suprisingly 3 dimensional.

I have used one on my Von Schweikert Speakers, and believe it or not, it takes my best seperates to beat it!

I have tried to stay away from all tube amps.
I just do not like my signal going through miles of transformer wire, if you know what I mean ?

Plus, I live in Florida, and tube output stages de humidify the room, and dry out my face, not to mention the heat increase.

I am ugly enough as it is, w/o dry skin added to the uglyness ...

I use, and highly recommend the Moscode amps.
They are tube/mosfet hybrids, and the input tubes are inexpensive.
You can easily roll them, for an almost total change in sound.

I have many pairs of speakers, each liking a different amplifier "sound"

I can simply change the Moscode 600's input tubes, and have an almost totally different sounding amp to suit whatever speaker I have hooked up at the time.
 
Cool info!

Again I wasn't out to duplicate a tube sound with SS. That just kinda happened by accident. But doing so I figured might as well see if other members had any similiar experiences.

Thanks again!
Carl
 
onepixel said:
The magic combo was a lot of tweeking for starters. Started off with a Marantz Quad 4140 amp. Thiels CS-1.2 up front and ADS L-780s for rears. Diana Krall on a Yamaha CD player.

I didn't set up the speakers in a typical quad array but more like 2 channel, but not quite. I put the amp in 4 channel Vari-Matrix. This gives me control of the spatial dimension. Really cool stuff. You can get it to sound like an empty and echoy concert hall up in the balcony or the front seat in a small intimate cafe. The Marantz gives me quite a lattitude for mixing. And not just the tone controls. I dropped the volume on the ADS. Gave the speakers an extra bit of treble and dropped the bass a tiny bit. And dropped the dimension which brought Diana's voice closer to the front.

This is not like having 4 speakers with both A and B speakers on. The second set are rears which have different sound than the fronts. So I was getting more musical information out. Essentially I just blended the sound characteristics of two different sounding speakers.

Is it real? Heck if I know. Does it sound like tubes? More than anything else I have. Was if fun? Hell ya and it sounded great!

Cheers
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You are seriously making me want to put my L100s on a Marantz quad now!
 
I have to agree with the Marantz 2230.....Real close to the TUBE sound without the cost of Tube gear and its maintenance....
 
I've owned all sorts of SS, and years ago had some tube gear, Fisher and Scott. I now have a Mac C-33 pre and 2125 power in the living room and they sound pretty close to the tube sound I remember. In my basement system I run an Accuphase pre and a Revox amp and that sounds pretty smooth too.
 
onepixel said:
So why is it that the smaller Marantzes seem to have a tubey sound?
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I'll take a shot at it!

My unqualified belief is that higher powered SS has so much headroom that it's capacity and readiness to amp any slight pre-amp signal translates to the immediacy and edginess SS is known for at normal listening levels whereas low powered SS amp stages require amplification at a higher percentage of overall rated power at the same volume and this reduced headroom tempers the bass yet pushes the signal through the amp stage at a level that is most efficient and clean while rounding out the harsh corners--all based on circuit design and operating parameters of the individual circuit components (whew!). This is why many audiophiles are quite pleased with the sound of their low powered gear and many others who like volume--like their high-powered stuff. At high volumes--high powered gear sounds better and cleaner and as good as low-powered components at normal listening levels. So unless you have the bucks to own clean, true audiophile quality high-powered stuff--you can forget about getting that tube sound in power gear.

Basically . . good quality watt-weenies provide mids and highs at the peak of their game (normal listening levels) while providing tempered bass. Since the mids/highs are slightly colored by circuit capacity (in a positive more natural sounding way)--the combination of tempered bass and natural coloration of mids/highs lends itself to the tubey sound.
 
onepixel said:
So why is it that the smaller Marantzes seem to have a tubey sound?
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I never thought any of the Marantz had any kind of tube sound... I think people mistake warm sound for tubes. Most tube amps don't sound warm in the least. That's why bass horns work so well with tubes. At least, that's my opinion.
 
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eThink said:
because it was re-engineered to use tube-based technology! :scratch2:

I am still very happy with my solid-state h/k 930 receiver.
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Hey Thinky! Nice link to your interesting projects.

Couldn't help noticing your love of all H/K. I have a mint 930 and near mint 330 and really love them both. What's your take on the sound differences between high powered SS vs. tubes and low-powered SS vs. tubes since you seem to have a qualifying perspective?
 
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