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croakjob t1_j9yfdz2 wrote

I do not understand the tech on this sub at all.. how do the light bulbs increase audio quality? What is this contraption?

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PharaoRamsesII OP t1_j9ygd4o wrote

The tubea are the predecessor of the transistor which is nowadays used to amplify signals. They glow not for the purpose of glowing. Its just a byproduct

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croakjob t1_j9ygujf wrote

Sounds very retro, dope.

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Lithominium t1_j9yw24i wrote

It also sounds good

Maybe not better, thats up for debate, but it sounds good

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SarcasticOptimist t1_j9zdebh wrote

It's why they're in guitar amps. Nice even harmonic distortions make "warm" sounds if done right.

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GeckoDeLimon t1_ja0le9y wrote

A very different thing in a guitar amp. There, the preamp tubes, power tubes, power supply and speaker are all an extension of the electric guitar, much in the same way a bell mute does to a brass instrument.

If our goal in playback is pure reproduction of the recorded signal with as little distortion of that signal as possible (either linear or non-linear), then solid state is where it's at. The likes of Sansui & Yamaha had that pretty much sealed by the early 80s.

If you like the look and/or sound of tubes, that's perfectly fine. They do look hella cool and that can be enough, but we ought not kid ourselves that a tube playback stage is a step toward greater accuracy. Very, very, few are.

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Silver-Ad8136 t1_ja0sanp wrote

Accuracy isn't always what you're after. I wouldn't want to have a dinner date under 2000 lumens of 6500k light @95 CRI.

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Kawai_Oppai t1_ja2d31k wrote

But I would expect the restaurant to have provided a good ambiance that I don’t need to alter and change to enjoy.

When my food is plated and brought out I expect it to be good and ready to eat. I shouldn’t need to call the waiter over and re-season the meal or get different condiments or anything like that.

And a tube amp is exactly that. The artist has created sound and ‘perfected it’ to their vision and then people distort this sound through an imperfect amplification process.

Solid state plays back that experience the artist created.

Then if I’m being really honest on the subject, a tube amp isn’t necessary at all with a good DAC with different filter options. Sharp, slow, nos etc type of playback.

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thms0 t1_ja31tha wrote

>Solid state plays back that experience the artist created.

The sound engineer created.
And sometimes they don't even think about it and use low tier recording material. Or have bad engineers.

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Silver-Ad8136 t1_ja3qhje wrote

It's sort of hard to second guess the engineer studio. All the EQ in the world and the HE1 won't turn old recordings of The Great Gildersleeve into Avatar 2 in Atmos

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thms0 t1_ja6ncxd wrote

Well I meen the "master" then. The guy that puts all different records into one.

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Silver-Ad8136 t1_ja3rusu wrote

I guess I see it more as...you went over to Guga's and he made you one of his A5s, and you whip out a bottle of HP sauce. So, sure...it's "wrong" but it's also pretty delicious.

I'd also note, you hear partially with your eyes and 100% with your mind, so if glowing tubes and a VU meter and more boxes and cables, that hot, static smell...appeal, no you can't get that with software.

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SarcasticOptimist t1_ja0r191 wrote

Definitely. It's why my setup is solid state and largely clinical (and tbh most of the time I'm using studio monitors).

But if you want warmth rather than analytical you don't mind certain kinds of distortion being added.

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Silver-Ad8136 t1_ja0sihw wrote

Indeed, you seek out a sort of AM radio sound. That's more-or-less what "warm" means

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9vjunkie t1_ja2v6iu wrote

You should see the back of my Mesa when it’s hot!

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SarcasticOptimist t1_ja869sq wrote

Man those pre Gibson Mesas are historic in a good way. Hope you never need to sell them.

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BGBobRob t1_j9zdr71 wrote

All I do is take pictures of mine in low light conditions, with long exposure.

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Jontun189 t1_j9zx6tn wrote

Not necessarily even good; 'different' I'd say. I never did vibe much with my Bottlehead Crack + Sennheiser 6XX which are almost universally lauded among those who have tried the combo as being a pairing bestowed upon the audiophile community by God himself (of course I'm exaggerating but really, they came highly recommended).

I much prefer the sound of solid state, but undeniably there is a difference between the two; not bad, not necessarily good, just not to my taste. Weirdly though I can totally understand why people like the pairing.

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thms0 t1_ja31xuq wrote

Did you try without the "Crack" ? Cuz IIRC the crack is meant to make it sound less tubey?

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Jontun189 t1_ja32r3s wrote

Made it stock crack first, stuck with that for a while and then did the speedball upgrade after. IMO the speedball upgrade strips all of what I like about the 6XX away and makes it pretty clinical. Cool if that's what people are into but I'd rather buy specific headphones for that application.

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therealsteelydan t1_j9yjye9 wrote

i didn't even know they glowed

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kvthai t1_j9zg1dc wrote

Yup! There’s literally a heater inside of it that is used to make it function. That heater will glow orange/red.

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MM1ck t1_j9zj3xv wrote

Room lights down low, close up of one of my 6SN7GT tubes

https://imgur.com/a/Xj1kgsn

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PharaoRamsesII OP t1_ja7q8cl wrote

https://imgur.com/a/aikp0hF

​

Here is the very amplifier you see broken up there - before it broke.

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MM1ck t1_ja82oqt wrote

Got to admit, for technology that's 100 or so years old it still looks amazing.

A little nostalgic for me though, as I remember my granddad putting on the "gram" and it not working right and him saying "got to roll them damn valves again"
Then going in to the back of the cabinet amongst the orange glow rolling them around in circles. The gram sprung back into life, like magic.
I was only 6 or 7 at the time and now 50 years later I still use them today ☺️

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mat-2018 t1_j9ym049 wrote

realistically, a modern solid state amplifier will always reproduce sound more faithfully to the original file than a tube amp. people use tube amps because tubes naturally color the sound giving it a more "warm" tone. or that's what audio enjoyers say at least, i've never had the chance to do a blind test in person

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PutPineappleOnPizza t1_j9yp0jx wrote

The biggest issue on here is that many people recommend these without ever having tried them or without knowing what they are talking about. From my understanding tube amps, just like solid state amps, can be very different from each other, from super clean to very warm sounding, depending on the circuitry or the way the tubes operate.

My Xduoo TA-26 is absolutely on the same level, if not better than my FiiO K5 pro and both sound very clean (I've also rolled a ton of tubes). The only difference could be a tad more bass and more midrange presence on tubes, but this is so minimal and also genre dependant that it's almost negligible.

I'm almost 100% sure that I could blindly make out a littledot from the TA-26 because it's supposedly smoother and less detailed, but I am not sure if I could spot a TA-26 in a blind test against a few solid state amps in a similiar price range.

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biolox t1_j9yr57t wrote

Yeah. I just got a little dot mk3 and Magni 3 and honestly can’t tell the difference on ZMF Aeolus 🤷‍♀️

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PutPineappleOnPizza t1_j9yudxs wrote

Welcome to tube amps lmao.. I too can almost not tell the difference. But it glows, feels and looks nice.

But it was quite a tough pill to swallow once I realized that I feel for audiophile overexaggeration.

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biolox t1_j9z6ekx wrote

Yeah, it’s sexy for sure; gonna try the other tubes that came with it but may just dump it for nice IEMs or closed to compliment the ZMFs

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Thugglebum t1_j9zsilg wrote

I've tube rolled the balls off a LD2 and it really doesn't do much for me. It's sat unused for a year and needs to go on eBay. Magni 3 is just better.

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InsanelyHandsomeQB t1_j9zjuf0 wrote

LOL I drank the snake oil too!

In reality if you want better sound, buy better headphones and speakers.

Great drivers + good amps > good drivers + great amps

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SolarFusion90 t1_j9zrujs wrote

Yeah, I posted this up top, they do look nice, pretty much guarantee if you try some headphones with these hooked up you are gonna hear some good quality audio equipment. It's more of a status thing imho

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coffeeshopslut t1_ja12wcn wrote

Because the little dot is a tube driver stage for a solid state output

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blorg t1_ja173nn wrote

Little Dot Mk3 is a OTL tube amp with tube output stage. Mk3 SE is a hybrid with solid state output. My understanding from Google, I don't own either (I have a TA-26).

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corporatemonkey t1_j9ywack wrote

I bought an Aune T1s 4th gen tube amp and honestly can't tell the difference from my Fiio K5 Pro.

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PutPineappleOnPizza t1_j9yxt1d wrote

Oh my.. guess you need to have golden ears to hear these differences.

I love my Xduoo TA-26, but it also taught me the lesson that many reviewers are full of shit. Being completely honest, to me the difference is neither good or bad, but it's very slim, like 5-10% different in comparison to the FiiO at best (using the FiiO's DAC on both devices).

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coffeeshopslut t1_ja139fx wrote

Lots of people also think they're listening to tube amps when it's just a tube input stage and a solid state output.

Also different tube topologies sound drastically different. Output transformer amps sound different from output transformer less. Cheap output transformers sound way different than expensive ones (and they get pricey...)

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c0ng0pr0 t1_j9yss4f wrote

Solid state everything… solid state cooling is blowing my mind currently

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moonra_zk t1_ja35wuw wrote

That's gonna be amazing for laptops.

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c0ng0pr0 t1_ja3ff7d wrote

My first thought was underwear where you’ll never have to sweat again… my fashion friend’s first thought was mattress cooling.

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moonra_zk t1_ja3km68 wrote

Ah, I'm thinking of a different kind of solid state cooling, this one, specially.

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c0ng0pr0 t1_ja4j6q6 wrote

We’re talking about the same tech but different applications of it.

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moonra_zk t1_ja4q997 wrote

How the heck are you gonna put that on a mattress or underwear and make it comfortable?

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InsanelyHandsomeQB t1_j9zj3e4 wrote

Honestly, it’s not that big of a difference. Like yeah, in a critical listening session I can tell but these days I just want to enjoy my music. After listening to a few songs I forget what hardware I’m plugged into anyway.

Tubes are cool for the novelty factor, but these days my headphones stay plugged into my solid state 99% of the time, mainly for the heat and power. You can also add the harmonics in software to simulate the warmth of tube amps, so there’s that.

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mattband t1_j9yxyco wrote

Telling us what is but that you never heard it. So typical of this sub.

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mat-2018 t1_j9yzogk wrote

yes, which is why i clearly stated that i never heard it so i can't say whether a tube amp sounds "better" (which is subjective anyways). i do think it's important to tell people that tubes aren't magic, they can't improve the original track, just modifiy the tonality a bit.

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Ogroat t1_j9ygjn9 wrote

It’s an amplifier. The “light bulbs” are vacuum tubes - a mid-century technology that has mostly fallen out of favor except for some audio applications.

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andysaurus_rex t1_j9yocrc wrote

They're basically the same as why some people used to call the TV the "tube". They're vacuum tubes.

Nowadays audio equipment is basically the only use for vacuum tubes and even then they are more of a niche product as most people use "solid state" amplifiers.

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Silver-Ad8136 t1_ja0rsg6 wrote

It's kind of like...a stick shift makes your car more fun to drive, even if you're unlikely to outwit an automatic transmission in a '24 car, really.

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SolarFusion90 t1_j9zrcxr wrote

It's just a novelty item to be honest. But I'm about to get flamed for this.

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