3 Jaw-dropping Hi-Fi Tube Amplifiers That Made My Audiophile Home Sound System Sing ! 

Hi Jay, nice vid again! And yes, i 'd like to see more vid's on the tube amps, if you could. I'm also a big fan of the tubes, singing angels as i call them, but for daily radio duties i use a T+A receiver R1220R. For the 'serious' listening i use my own DIY 2A3SE tube poweramp with a direct feed from the streamer/dac/cd-player. The speakers i use are DIY modified KEF104aB-Ref's and sometimes a BIG set of Tannoy 12" dual concentrics in a DIY portloaded box. Overall, the tube amp gives so much more spaciousness, deeper and wider stereo imaging in the holografic soundcloud. It's tantalizing fluidity is almost like dreaming with your ears! Eargasms are the goal here:-)🤩

Sansui vintage 15" speakers very soft and sense.😊

A two year wait for the ZMA. At. My age, there is a better chance of grandkids hearing it than I.

That combo seems amazing!! Wow.

@@hershbagelstein545 Really, two years??

@@hershbagelstein545 ..and you won't be hearing those shimmering highs!

Unfortunately, your explanation of why tube and solid state amplifiers sound different is not quite technically correct. Below is the correct explanation. When the emitter junction and collector junction of a transistor are both forward biased, the transistor's region of operation is called the saturation region wherein the transistor acts like a short circuit (aka a closed switch). When the emitter junction and collector junction are both reversed biased, the transistor's region of operation is called the cutoff region wherein the transistor acts like an open circuit (aka an open switch). A transistor is operated as a switch when the bias voltage is changed between forward and reverse bias on both the emitter junction and the collector junction. However, when the emitter junction of a transistor is forward biased and the collector junction is reverse biased, the transistor's region of operation is called the active region wherein the current from collector to emitter is proportional to the current flowing into the base. The large portion of the active region in which the current from the collector to the emitter is highly linearly proportional to the current flowing into the base is called the linear region. This is the region in which the transistor acts best as a linear amplifier. The generation of harmonics is a result of nonlinearity in the amplification. The fact that most transistors generate much lower levels of harmonic distortion than most tubes when both are operated in their linear regions indicates that most transistors are more linear than most tubes within their respective linear regions. The audible differences between tubes and transistors is mainly due to what happens as they transition outside the linear region at high signal levels approaching saturation where the amplification deviates from being linear and thereby generates appreciable levels of harmonics and intermodulation distortion. It is important to note that the vacuum tube triode does not have as wide a linear region as a bipolar transistor. Hamm examined the harmonic distortion characteristics of several solid-state and vacuum-tube preamplifier stages under overload conditions. His experiments used single-tone sine-wave test signals, and his paper does not discuss the intermodulation distortion differences between the amplifiers. He demonstrated that vacuum-tube amplifiers under overload conditions cause a shift in the duty cycle of the output signal. Where the input sine wave is positive during exactly half of its period and negative during the other half, the distorted output waveform has less than half of its period on one side of zero and more than half of its period on the other side. For sine-wave inputs this duty-cycle shift results in more even harmonic distortion components than solid-state amplifiers, which have a symmetric duty cycle in their distorted output waveforms. Rutt examined the characteristics of grid current flow in a vacuum tube triode. He states that grid limiting occurs when the grid circuit becomes forward biased, causing a grid current flow induced voltage drop across the grid circuit source resistance. This is a soft-limiting effect which has no parallel in most solid-state amplifier designs. Even under heavy overload conditions, vacuum-tube triode amplifiers have much of their overload operation in the soft-limit region. Triode amplifiers have a duty-cycle shift as the signal is driven into overload. It is this duty cycle shift which is responsible for the predominance of even harmonic distortion components when driven by a sine wave. Rutt further states that solid-state amplifiers have most of their overload operation in a hard-limit region. Transistor amplifiers are usually biased for symmetric distortion to maximize output level, and as a result they produce predominantly odd harmonic distortion components when driven by a sine wave. Transistor amplifiers can be designed to produce even harmonic distortion by shifting their bias points, but they still will not sound like vacuum-tube amplifiers because in overdrive transistor amplifiers always have hard limiting on both sides of the modulating waveform. In his conclusion, Rutt states that a soft limiting amplifier such as a vacuum-tube triode lets more of the weak signals through the amplifier at high signal levels. Most solid-state amplifiers have symmetric "brick wall" hard limits on both sides of the output waveform. This symmetry causes a predominance of odd-harmonic distortion components, while the hard limiting produces undesirable intermodulation distortion effects. Furthermore, Rutt states that the voltage drop across the grid circuit source resistance, caused by grid current flow, is known as grid limiting and is responsible for the soft limiting effects of tube amplifiers. Emulation of the grid limit effect using solid-state diode circuits will not produce the same results as a vacuum tube because tube grid currents follow a power function relationship with voltage but solid-state devices follow an exponential relationship. The exponential relationship in solid state devices causes a faster transition into a hard limit region of operation than the power function relationship found in tube circuits. Hamm, Russel O. "Tubes vs Transistors - Is there an Audible Difference?" Journal AES, May 1973, Vol 21 No. 4. Rutt, T. E. "Vacuum Tube Triode Nonlinearity as Part of The Electric Guitar Sound" Presented at the 76th Convention of Audio Engineering Society, 0ctober 8-11, 1984, New York (Preprint 2141 F-5).

You can use single stage amp just for bass. Because bass doesn't need stereo. And all power for mid and high range you can use your main amp for best result.😊

OTL - yes and they are great but I’ll save that for another video;)

I own two amps from Transcendent Sound, the T 16 monblocs and the first version of the Mini Beast. Used to build Audio Amateur/Old Colony, versions of the Lang Amp, but modified from the article, as per Nelson Pass and J Peter Moncreiff's published work, to give more output. MOSFETS run Class A. Bruce's products are superior in every way, and illustrate that tubes in the correct Topology can surpass any product commercially available, at pennies on the dollar.

Also try the Graaf 20 valve power amplifier

Thanks! I will look into it

@@Jayiyagi Cool man- keep up the great work, you’re doing a really nice job with your reviews and we appreciate it.

@@Jayiyagi Oh, this will help- Mark Sousa of “Well Pleased Audio” is the North American distributor. I worked with him with an issue and he was awesome getting it resolved. I’m not a dealer, just a very satisfied Audio Hungary customer and fan boy. Good luck

Never heard the pre amp. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks! Not sure about the tori but I have a full video on the zma here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JTh4uyV5sBs.html

Well honestly the marantz 8b with my JBLs seemed to do all music equally as well but mostly shined with jazzy music

Kt88 the most "transistor" sounding tube.

Perhaps in another video ;)

Amazing how little advancement there has been in tube technology for almost 100 years. The Korg NuTube is the only new-tech tube I can think of. We also don't really have made much advance when it comes to making speakers more efficient, so we mostly need to rely on tech developed 100 years ago (horns) to use our SET amps! ..and still the single ended triode is the purest form of amplification.

Nope