HAD on tubes vs solid state

[Billion81]

That SS Wreck amp that Lance Keltner demo'd is about the closest I've heard to copping the tube thing.

I want to hear this thing in person- A question for the other forum, but is it true that the DAG crew have the retro wreck on hold for the time being?

Is anyone consider a staged/cascaded gain ODS type amp?

I would like to have a Good headphone rig for late night practice so the AxeFX or HD series might be in my future. The DSP rigs are certainly getting close....harmonic squashing and eliminating aside.

[daydreamer]

I wish the same effort were just put into making better new production tubes

There is no shortage of new tubes, but it would seem that there are still heaps of NOS around too, which is probably the issue, the 'vintage is better' marketing will keep that market alive, not unlike the oil industry!

ALL the new ones can't be that bad though, surely? I've never owned NOS tubes to find out. i guess once you start you can't stop?

[badtweed]

Fact is, he is wearing a doo rag

FYI, HAD is wearing a badana, which is definitely not a doo rag...................I certainly would know.

I suppose you mean bandana.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... =doo%20rag

Looks great on his large head either way.

[David Root]

Power tubes: there are only a few current production that seem to be generally agreed by people that use lots of them (ie pro amp builders) to be adequate to very good compared with NOS.

1) Tungsol RI 5881
2) Winged C 6L6GC
3) JJ 6V6S
4) JJKT88

EL34-None, all short life/unreliable/fireworks time. NOS RFT work nicely and won't bankrupt you. Some older Svetlanas are OK, apparently.

In preamp tubes, let's just look at 12AX7s.

Pro amp builders tend to like:

1) JJ 12AX7S
2) Sovtek 12AX7 LPS

Mixed opinions on Tungsol RI 12AX7, EH 12AX7.

In NOS 12AX7s the baseline is the RCA '60s short gray plate.

Next step up the earlier '50s long black plates, especially RCA and Raytheon. These have more harmonic emphasis than the later gray plates, which emphasize the fundamental and seem relatively closed/one dimensional, however they do overdrive very well. Black plates also overdrive, a little smoother I think, and closer to the European 12 AX7s. Early 60s Tungsol long gray plates are nice too.

My personal favorites in the Euro tubes are Amperex, especially 7025s, Mazda/Radio Technique, pre-70 Mullards. Telefunken in V1, or the PI if the circuit doesn't overdrive the PI, but not distortion stages. If you haven't tried an NOS Amperex in V1, you are in for a treat! This is not an inclusive review by any means, check out www.audiotubes.com and Thetubeking's discussion below.

The pro builders I know would not I think disagree much with the above. Oh, and I have to include Dogears in this group, although he doesn't build. There are good reasons his handle is Dogears!

[thyx]

Try injecting a 27th-order harmonic into your tone and see what it does for it.

According to the Fourier modulation theorem nothing audible will happen. If I mix a 1kHz signal and a 27kHz signal, I will get sum and difference frequencies. This will result in a 26kHz and a 28kHz signal. Neither of which will be audible. Some power will be spent in the amplifier to generate these frequencies, but they will not be audible.

And a full-on clip squares off the signal which produce all those nasty 27th and 33rd order harmonics that sound like fingernails across the chalkboard.

I don't believe they are audible

I was attempting to make a point rather than give you an engineering analysis. That point was supposed to be that upper-order harmonics are generally not very pleasing as compared to lower-order harmonics.

The end result is that tube-amps, when set up right, can make your tone sound 3-dimensional...and almost alive. With solid-state, you're stuck in 2 dimensions...and there's nothing you can do about it.

I don't understand the 2 and 3 dimension comment. For me, the 3rd dimension of sound is something time based, like reverb, delay, chorus, etc... I agree a good tube amp has a more pleasing tone and feel than SS.

Not everything that occurs in nature is explainable...even though many are certainly observable (or, in this case, audible). Just because it's not explainable doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Acknowledge it and work with it as best you can...or don't, and lose out.

Now...regarding the survival of harmonics, what happens when you get higher order harmonics and mix them with phase-shifting at higher frequencies? You can get at least a partial cancellation of some of the lower order harmonics...which is what I believe those strange integers on the frequency analyzer are all about

What phase shifting are you speaking about?

Any phase shifting...could be because of speaker interactions with the circuit, tube characteristics...and lets not forget what happens to phase when a signal goes through either a low-pass (treble-bleed) or high-pass (coupling) circuit. Doesn't matter, for sake of the argument, where it comes from...only that it exists and needs to be considered.

I agree there is cancellation happening, but why is it due to phase shift? How does that result in strange integers? Integers are integers, what is strange about them?

I was referencing an earlier post.

Do harmonics survive in solid-state? I believe the answer is: sometimes they do not.

And what is your reason for this?

See above.

[Luddy]

FYI-

This post was made over @ TGP about 6 months ago as a total troll/bait to get mudslinging and the Dumble folks out on the case.

one of the mods pm'd me that a post on Harmony Central was linked in a thread to purposely start a dust up and see how long they could keep the post going.

With 2 posts as of this OP it is a tad suspect.

Hope I'm wrong.

Ted

Ted,

Oh no, no. I have become very attached to my Ceriatone OTS and have been exploring the world of Dumble. When I read on another forum, not Harmony Central, that many people thought the HAD explanation was BS, I wanted to hear from people with the ability to understand the physics whether that statement made any sense.

[Structo]

Hehehe, so what's your verdict?