The magic of tubes

Congrats man ..... me planning a trip to bangi to listen to the heavenly musik :D

and post more close ups with lights off :p
 
Heh anish even I had the worry that the valve pre won't be fast enough and might muddy up the bass. But one listen and all my worries were a thing of the past ;).

Modern valve amps don't have the problem of being slow to respond to the signal if the rest of the passive parts are good, especially if the back end power output stage is solid state. This pre has some exotic parts in the output stage... BG caps, Kiwame resistors, oil in paper caps. The main power supply caps were supposed to be BG as well but the maker of the amp couldn't source them on time.
 
thebanik said:
huh...quite a cheap setup, :bleh: , can never think of owning such a setup, anyways congrats for the purchase, though i have no idea what exactly you have bought, :tongue: , but if you are impressed then it certainly would be good.
Click to expand...
he he when chaos is impressed then it would definitely be something worth:bleh:

i can just drooool :eek:hyeah:
anyways chaos have a good time:hap2:
 
Anish said:
Umm, nope I was actually wondering whether the valve pre-amp would let the rhythm down a bit.

I've heard the McCormack alone btw w/o the pre-amp and it has a great soundstage from the few minutes of listening I managed.
Click to expand...

That 'fear' is reserved for mostly power output stages, as tubes have a lower specified slew rate and current output capability than SS amps. Preamps usually drive much lower loads and are mostly free of this problem. The reason tubes do so well as preamps is that their distortion profile is totally different from SS.

They may measure worse, but their profile is skewed towards even order and the higher distortion products are much lower in magnitude than SS. Also there is no output transformer required for a tube preamp, so the biggest disadvantage of a tube amp is eliminated straight away.

I've heard some tube power amps that absolutely are up there with the best solid state amps with bass timing and rythm. Where they fall down a bit is the last bit of extension and oomph, but if you spend the price of a small flat on a couple of 90 watt tube amps and speakers, chances are you've figured out what you really want to listen to.

Anyway this is a show-off thread, so we'll leave the technical stuff for another discussion.
 
sangram said:
That 'fear' is reserved for mostly power output stages, as tubes have a lower specified slew rate and current output capability than SS amps. Preamps usually drive much lower loads and are mostly free of this problem. The reason tubes do so well as preamps is that their distortion profile is totally different from SS.

They may measure worse, but their profile is skewed towards even order and the higher distortion products are much lower in magnitude than SS. Also there is no output transformer required for a tube preamp, so the biggest disadvantage of a tube amp is eliminated straight away.
Click to expand...

Spot on! Thats exactly why tubes sound so much better than solid state in a preamp. The distortion characteristics of a tube are mainly second order unlike solid state which are third order and higher odd orders. Also in small signal tubes like the 6SN7 used for voltage amplification in a preamp, there's not much distortion in the first place. The tubes will never be driven beyond their limits as they are dealing with relatively low voltages and currents.

The human auditory system and brain sees this second order distortion as extra detail and can't really distinguish it from the original signal. The measured distortion in tubes might be significant and the noise floor would also be worse off than transistors, but because of this tubes sound more natural and relaxed. Once someone listens to tubes in a preamp, there's basically no going back to solid state.

Nothing wrong in a technical discussion :)
 
Chaos, quick question - are you using the Citypulse into the tube pre? Why would you need the pre - only for volume/buffer/headphone? Or is it a different setup for the DNA and the pre?
 
Yup the citypulse has two outputs. One is volume controlled and one isn't. Unsurprisingly the fixed out sounds much better than the variable out cos the volume control circuitry is not that great.

So basically the DAC fixed out feeds the preamp which then feeds the power amp. The output of the DAC can be fed directly into the power amp but that doesn't sound too good probably because the signal doesn't have enough amplification at the DAC level. There's no way to control the volume either then.

The gain of the pre is intentionally set to a pretty low level by the maker as the McCormack has an input sensitivity of 1 Volt rms.
 
Interesting. I would imagine the DAC then has no circuitry post the volume control pot, which would lead to problems if you're driving any length of cable.

Enjoy your toy!
 
This stuff is godly, take my word for it :D

Listening to Nightwish on the Senny HD650 thru the tube amp as i'm typing this :D:D :D
 
Congrats! hot!

My HD650 is a little delayed as the friend is now coming by march. The LD MT is here though.

I'm kicking myself for not picking up the benchmark DAC1, I was getting a second for 550 $, in very good condition.

I think I'll go with the headroom micro DAC, and Toslink coaxials.

lol. Zu Mobius upgrades await next december, vandy's got a raise :p.

When it's up you're welcome to a listen any time you're in Mumbai ;)
 
Back
Top