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What SS do you think comes closest to tubes?

bare said:
What ever makes one happy :-) However I retain *serious doubts* re a Chinese Ebay 'amp'
Been there .. was fully Fooled although in fairness I received Exactly the quality I paid for.. Very little to none.
Buy Cheap - buy twice, or even worse: Repeatedly
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Don't judge "Class A" by your Lepai experience.

Buy a TPA3116 add a linear PS and see for yourself. It's one of the most popular threads on AK for a reason.
 
Bill Ashton said:
In jest I will say a Thomas Organ/Vox amplifier... =) The FET transistors did a pretty good job of simulating a tube (guitar) amp...if they managed not to go up in flames... =O

Though, Tom Petty still does use them...
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I have an amp made by their Warwick division that is probably a good example of better tube sound on a smaller scale. [emoji16]



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JoeESP9 said:
The Levinson ML-2 is a Class A SS amp. I believe the amp that Carver based the mods and subsequent T series amps on was a Conrad Johnson Premier.
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Oh.. Is it? Guess I've had it wrong all this time! Thanks for the clarification.


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From my side as a designer:

The easy part of the reply: There is no inherent reason for SS and tube amps not to 'sound' the same. That is to say: Both topologies can be designed such that they produce inaudible amounts of artifacts.

But in practice this is often wanting. Tube amplifiers boasting 'low thd' of very audible levels, and ss amplifers competing for the highest number of zero's to the right of the decimal point. But the analyses of uneven harmonics remain undisclosed, and the stridency of particularly 7th, 9th and 11th orders of original harmonics or intermodulation products is never touched on, neither the figures revealed. Result: Listener fatigue and such.

Then the more unpopular part of the picture: The meaningless formula for Damping Factor. It excludes the by far highest resistance in the damping circuit: the voice coil resistance/impedance. [I will accept that members know about this; the real DF having an effect on performance can be no more than about 1,6 for the current voice coil systems. That is why DFs higher than some 5-8 (accorcing to the 'classic' definition) has little effect on performance, audible or measurable.] Thus in reality tube amplifier DFs of over say 20 - easily achieved - is more than sufficient. But entrenched convictions .......

Not to expound on the above and risk boredom; all is well explained somewhere on the internet. Thus there are many recorded demonstrations where amplifiers operating correctly (Hirsh) exhibits no audible differences in blind tests. (Or if some prefer: Undetectable audible differences - same difference!) ... as well as that amplifers can also exhibit quite audible differences - the design is the yardstick, not the type.
 
High DF might enter insofar as if achieving it puts significant room sound return from the speakers back into the input end of the amp.
In theory, all amps of any type with global negative FB loops could do this to some extent.

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As Galileo said "And yet it moves". Well, to my ears they sound different. I don't care about ABX testing or any of that. Using what I call the LTLT (long term listening test) tubed amplifiers make me want to listen more than SS amps do.
 
Belo said:
I have read many articles that mention that the Sansui AU-555A has a tube sound.
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Out of all my Sansui amps it is the one amp I keep returning to...
To look at...to polish the wood with wax...heck to even play my music...
555A my audio surfboard through the tube to waves of aural bliss...:)
 
Sansui's circuit design 'goal' was to always strive to make their SS amps sound as close to tube amps as possible.
 
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