Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicolas
I've got both tube and transistor amps and heard plenty more than I own. Believe me, in the "high-end" area you can get (modern or vintage) tube amps and transistor amps to sound pretty much identical. So as long as the source is OK, you don't NEED tubes to get a good sound, it can be achieved just as well with transistors. It that sense, there is no such thing as "tube sound". Besides, when not talking about distortion such as in guitar amps, the "tube sound" actually mainly is the sound of the output transformers used in tube amps. OTOH, if the source is bad, it will sound bad no matter what amplifier is used on it  .
About vinyl vs the rest: in my opinion a proper vinyl setup sound different from other (also proper quality) systems, but not better or worse. Just, different. And not even that different in some cases.
@mak: I think you're doing just great, especially with finding styli that touch areas not yet worn out. If you've got a good 45 table, it may be a better option than a lesser quality 78 table.
If you want good quality 78 at a more or less reasonable price: there is a mod for the Technics SL-1200 mkII to make it run at 78. |
In double blind listening tests, any reasonably good quality amplifier is indistinguishable from any other, provided they are not clipping and have sufficient power for the speakers (the ones I saw tested were from a $200 Pioneer to a $12k tube from some specialty manufacturer, all 2 channel power amps driven by a separate preamp). So any claims of a tube amp sounding different from a transistor amp given the same source material are simply not the case. Now, a record will sound different from a CD, though I actually prefer the CD sound (the record has more distortion in it), though it is somewhat ruined with the modern dynamic compression that is so common on CD's.