Interesting... analysis of "valve sound"

**mick** · November 8th 04, 09:18 PM posted to uk.rec.audio

http://www.milbert.com/

"Tubes Vs. Transistors - Is There An Audible Difference?"

I don't want to rerun the old "valve versus transistor" arguments, but
this caught my eye as it is from the point of view of a recording engineer.

Apologies to those of you who have seen it before.

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

**Ian Bell** · November 8th 04, 09:22 PM posted to uk.rec.audio

mick wrote:

http://www.milbert.com/

"Tubes Vs. Transistors - Is There An Audible Difference?"

I don't want to rerun the old "valve versus transistor" arguments, but
this caught my eye as it is from the point of view of a recording
engineer.

Apologies to those of you who have seen it before.

Old news, old chap.

Ian
--
Ian Bell

**mick** · November 8th 04, 09:50 PM posted to uk.rec.audio

On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:22:54 +0000, Ian Bell wrote:

mick wrote:

http://www.milbert.com/

"Tubes Vs. Transistors - Is There An Audible Difference?"

I don't want to rerun the old "valve versus transistor" arguments, but
this caught my eye as it is from the point of view of a recording
engineer.

Apologies to those of you who have seen it before.

Old news, old chap.

No problem - it was just something that I came across while looking for
something else! :-)

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

**Andy Evans** · November 8th 04, 09:55 PM posted to uk.rec.audio

Thanks - I hadn't seen it before. Jim was discussing this on another thread,
i.e. the relevance of harmonics to the overall sound, with reference to the
article by Hiraga in HiFi News which was quite a while ago (?70s). Typical
harmonic profiles of several common valves can be seen he
http://www.enteract.com/~joepage/tubelist.htm
Look, for instance, at the harmonic spectrum of the 6P5GT - nice!
http://users.rcn.com/joepage/6P5GT.jpg

=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

**mick** · November 8th 04, 10:09 PM posted to uk.rec.audio

On Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:55:05 +0000, Andy Evans wrote:

Thanks - I hadn't seen it before. Jim was discussing this on another
thread, i.e. the relevance of harmonics to the overall sound, with
reference to the article by Hiraga in HiFi News which was quite a while
ago (?70s). Typical harmonic profiles of several common valves can be seen
he http://www.enteract.com/~joepage/tubelist.htm Look, for instance, at
the harmonic spectrum of the 6P5GT - nice!
http://users.rcn.com/joepage/6P5GT.jpg

Now that's impressive. I want to try one now! Those are nice plots.

=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com Audio, music and health
pages and interesting links.
--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

**Andy Evans** · November 9th 04, 08:21 AM posted to uk.rec.audio

the harmonic spectrum of the 6P5GT - nice!
http://users.rcn.com/joepage/6P5GT.jpg

Now that's impressive. I want to try one now! Those are nice plots.

I have a few amongst my collection of 6J5 types, and they are indeed very
neutral sounding. A very nice valve. Hard to get these days, and creeping up
from £10 to £20 and beyond. Triodes like this and the 6J5G types like CV1932
are vanishing into the hands of collectors. Fortunately the 7193 (2C22) is
plentiful, and it's arguably the best of the lot - extremely clear and
detailed. Be prepared for two top caps!
http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaa0163.htm

=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.

**Jim Lesurf** · November 9th 04, 08:27 AM posted to uk.rec.audio

In article , mick
wrote:
http://www.milbert.com/

"Tubes Vs. Transistors - Is There An Audible Difference?"

I don't want to rerun the old "valve versus transistor" arguments, but
this caught my eye as it is from the point of view of a recording
engineer.

Apologies to those of you who have seen it before.

First saw this over a year ago. The paper basically reports on:

1) looking at low/no feedback amps when driven heavily into clipping.

2) It notes differences in the waveform/spectrum in clupping for different
amps/gain devices.

3) The implication is drawn that these differences mean differences in
sound.

The snags are;

1) The amps considered don't really have much in common with those used as
valve power amps. (Unless you assume that all valve amps behave and sound
the same irrespective of design or application.)

2) Ideally, you should not be clipping signals with your amplifiers at all
if your concern is hearing the input waveform rather than enjoying
clipping. I doubt/hope that the valve pre-amps some people use in domestic
audio are clipping like this in normal use. If they are, my recommendation
would be to change the preamp or the use to avoid this excessive and
unnecessary clipping. Given the high bias voltages available for such amps
I can't see clipping being difficult to avoid. Indeed, the designs I've
seen reviewed seem to be well clear of this problem.

3) No real evidence is presented that allows the actual evidence in the
paper to lead to a conclusion that valve amps sound 'better' as a result of
adding particular types of distortion.

Thus I'd say that all the (quite old, now) paper does is warn us that
clipping may affect the sound. I doubt anyone would find that surprising.
Nor do the circumstances of use in the paper seem directly relevant to
domestic audio.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

**Dave H.** · November 9th 04, 05:56 PM posted to uk.rec.audio

Also featuring a piece of spyware that tries to load when you try to open
the article pages.....

Dave H.
(The engineer formerly known as Homeless)
"mick" wrote in message
news

http://www.milbert.com/

"Tubes Vs. Transistors - Is There An Audible Difference?"

I don't want to rerun the old "valve versus transistor" arguments, but
this caught my eye as it is from the point of view of a recording
engineer.

Apologies to those of you who have seen it before.

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

**mick** · November 9th 04, 07:41 PM posted to uk.rec.audio

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 18:56:35 +0000, Dave H. wrote:

Also featuring a piece of spyware that tries to load when you try to open
the article pages.....

Does it? Sorry, but I've been running Linux for a while now and I usually
run with popups switched off and without java or javascript. Consequently
I don't get top see the fun that can be had with M$ software! ;-)

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info

**Jim Lesurf** · November 10th 04, 07:49 AM posted to uk.rec.audio

In article , mick
wrote:
On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 18:56:35 +0000, Dave H. wrote:

Also featuring a piece of spyware that tries to load when you try to
open the article pages.....

Does it? Sorry, but I've been running Linux for a while now and I
usually run with popups switched off and without java or javascript.
Consequently I don't get top see the fun that can be had with M$
software! ;-)

This must have passed me by as well for similar reasons...

Didn't know that actually opening a PDF *could* do this, though. How does
it do that? Or were you referring to the HTML version which I didn't try?

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html