"Ian Molton" wrote

Please, enough of that - Im not stupid and dont need to be talked down to.


Forgive me - your apostrophic deficiencies imply otherwise.... :-)



I *OWN* some valve gear. sadly its been damaged (cosmetically only) and I
dont use it anymore, but I did like its sound.


Well there you are then! (Makes me wonder what all the fuss is about!)


I certianly wouldnt have applied terms such as 'linear' or 'accurate' to
it though.


Fine, neither would I....


More 'warm' and 'coloured'.


If you like. If it makes you happy (and if that's all you've ever heard....
;-)....



Most valve amps (like most transistor amps) were mass market, and had a
good number of nonlinearities and other problems (not least of which
bursting into flames, on both 'sides'). The good ones were more linear and
had less distortion.


Few say so...



I'd bet that the *best* valve and transistor amps are sonically
indistinguishable, perhaps so much so as to be hard to tell apart on
equipment.


Very likely, I wouldn't know - I'm light years away from the 'best' of
either one.....!!



It's not easy to describe the
'difference' without resorting to subjective phrases like 'space', air',
'texture', 'vitality', 'musicality' or whatever.

Thats because phrases like 'musicality' belong nowhere near terms like
'accurate reproduction'.



Who TF gives a rat's arse about 'accurate reproduction' if it ain't
*musical*? - I'm in the business of entertaining myself, not supplying
myself with fekkin' laboratory data!



If you like the valve sound, you might as well be honest and admit you
like a good gob of distortion,


Be 'honest'??? What is it with all you SS 'purists'? You want us valvey
types to break down in some sort of confessional hysteria about our
'weaknesses'??? I got news for you - *all* hifi gear distorts to some
degree, compond that distortion with a bad mix of kit and you can easily
spend a lot of money to end up with summat that sounds a damn sight worse
than a Dixon's 'music centre'!!



because the 'valve sound' was characterised by the common valve amps, and
not the (more) linear ones.

The same happens in transistor amps too - people still like that 'valve
like sound' and even extremely expensive transistor amps seem to
deliberately cultivate high 2nd harmonic distortion levels.


Yup, 'valvelike' is one of the popular buzzwords in the hifi comix atm.



These phrases immediately draw a (usually hostile) reaction from the
unbelievers

No, they just make anyone interested in an accurate account of the 'valve
sound' cringe and look elsewhere.


If only they would - the reality is that they usually come full-on in some
sort of 'apocryphal' way trying desparately to make us see the 'error of our
ways'. (I think they feel threatened...)



You'd get far more converts if you just told people 'this gear makes the
sound good' instead of 'this gear reproduces it better'.


Who TF needs converts? If you had read any of my previous posts on the
subject of valves I think you will find I have said often that I prefer them
but I don't think they're for everybody (or somesuch). Put another way, I
would say if anyone doesn't like valves then they should avoid them, just
don't try telling me SS (amps) sound better because they don't AFAIAC!! OK?



and the strange phenomenon of valves and SS becoming antagonistic and
mutually exclusive
starts to appear.

Weird huh?


Yep! Happens all the time in here - we had it with vinyl a year ago. (Like
there's some law says you can't do both digital *and* analogue or summat!)


rest snipped - it's getting late


Cheshire, actually. I have a friend in St. Neots though... (no, Im not
carting my Radford Monitor ones down there - way too heavy to get on the
train...


And my brother in law lives in Cheshire - small world innit?

:-)