Audio valve amplifiers

Wizard

My first valve amp has now got me interested in valve amps for normal audio.

Look at this for a novel idea.
Old meets new:

aja

Somehow using an ipod defeats the purpose of having a high quality amp...

EDIT:

http://www.aeolian.co.za/

Friend of mine owns the company, not sure if he still operates. Amazing stuff. People used to buy R1mil systems from him. My favourite speakers of his were these:
http://www.aeolian.co.za/Avantgarde%20Acoustic.htm#Avantgarde

They were R500k for a pair, no cables or anything else. The cables he recommended using were priced at R40k ?

Gearhead

If you like this, you will have a blast at www.diyaudio.com in the tube amps section. The best site out there undoubtedly is John Broskie's www.tubecad.com, but it does take a bit of reading up. 8)

RobK

Wizard wrote My first valve amp has now got me interested in valve amps for normal audio.

Look at this for a novel idea.
Old meets new:

LOL, I have been having the same thoughts. I was actually thinking of eventually putting together a little tube amp for my iPod.

Something like - http://www.specimenproducts.com/amps/hifi_amp.html

aja

Gearhead wrote If you like this, you will have a blast at www.diyaudio.com in the tube amps section. The best site out there undoubtedly is John Broskie's www.tubecad.com, but it does take a bit of reading up. 8)

oooooooo awesome links, thanks!

Manfred-Klose

Karel mars also builds Hifi tube amps:
http://sites.google.com/site/marskarel/

Its a overkill i would say, id rather use the transformers and tubes to build a guitaramp that i could actually play and have fun with.

They were R500k for a pair, no cables or anything else. The cables he recommended using were priced at R40k

So how do i get in that line of business? ?

A friend at audio shure told me about a cable they got the other day that costs R600 a meter, with the test they took a mic with a normal cable stuck it infront of a monitor and got feedback, with the expensive cable there were no feedback at all.

Wizard

Manfred Klose wrote A friend at audio shure told me about a cable they got the other day that costs R600 a meter ...

Gets to the point where it may be cheaper to hire the band to play live in your lounge ...

AlanRatcliffe

Manfred Klose wrote A friend at audio shure told me about a cable they got the other day that costs R600 a meter, with the test they took a mic with a normal cable stuck it infront of a monitor and got feedback, with the expensive cable there were no feedback at all.

Uh-huh. BTW. I have a bridge if anyone is interested... ?

I have cables that stop feedback too. And when I get a chance, I'll fix them.

TomCat

Alan Ratcliffe wrote
Manfred Klose wrote A friend at audio shure told me about a cable they got the other day that costs R600 a meter, with the test they took a mic with a normal cable stuck it infront of a monitor and got feedback, with the expensive cable there were no feedback at all.
Uh-huh. BTW. I have a bridge if anyone is interested... ?

I have cables that stop feedback too. And when I get a chance, I'll fix them.

:roflmao: :roflmao:....Bwahahahahaha....my thoughts exactly.....Sorry Manfred but ALan's response is funny.....I was thinking the same thing..... ? ?

aja

Alan Ratcliffe wrote
Manfred Klose wrote A friend at audio shure told me about a cable they got the other day that costs R600 a meter, with the test they took a mic with a normal cable stuck it infront of a monitor and got feedback, with the expensive cable there were no feedback at all.
Uh-huh. BTW. I have a bridge if anyone is interested... ?

I have cables that stop feedback too. And when I get a chance, I'll fix them.

London bridge?

singemonkey

I fully agree that it's pointless getting a super high-quality amp for an ipod. Tossing pearls before swine. :?

But what does a tube amp do for your audio? Will it actually improve the sound? Or does it colour it significantly?

RobK

singemonkey wrote I fully agree that it's pointless getting a super high-quality amp for an ipod. Tossing pearls before swine. :?

But what does a tube amp do for your audio? Will it actually improve the sound? Or does it colour it significantly?

I don't think it's pointless for an ipod. Might not make much difference, but it won't make the sound quality any worse.

Besides, it doesn't have to be built only for the ipod. You could plug a decent CD player or maybe even a turntable.

I have no idea what it would do to the sound, but they really look cool ?

AlanRatcliffe

aja wrote London bridge?

That's one of them, but if you're seriously interested, I have one on the Tyne that's all mine too. I have one in the US, but unfortunately that's over troubled water. Purveyor of fine bridges, that's me... ?

RobK

Alan Ratcliffe wrote
aja wrote London bridge?
That's one of them, but if you're seriously interested, I have one on the Tyne that's all mine too. I have one in the US, but unfortunately that's over troubled water. Purveyor of fine bridges, that's me... ?

Would you consider a swap for a couple thousand acres of prime land on Mars?

aja

RobK wrote
Alan Ratcliffe wrote
aja wrote London bridge?
That's one of them, but if you're seriously interested, I have one on the Tyne that's all mine too. I have one in the US, but unfortunately that's over troubled water. Purveyor of fine bridges, that's me... ?
Would you consider a swap for a couple thousand acres of prime land on Mars?

Hmm, what's the view like from up there?

Wizard

It was perhaps a bad idea to use an iPod example.
I'm actually interested in insights on valve amplifiers being used for hi-fi.
I've read that scientific measurement can't distinguish between solid state and valve when run within tolerance.
People report that valves are "quieter" between notes than solid state ... and suggests that this is something that hasn't been measured appropriately by the scientific measures.
This is possibly a class A / crossover distortion thing.

General wisdom is that valves overdrive in a way which is much more human ear friendly than solid state - a feature obviously used for active effect in overdriven guitar amplifiers.

So ... are valve hi-fi amps available? At reasonable price? And what are they like?
How hard are they to build?

singemonkey

Wizard wrote People report that valves are "quieter" between notes than solid state ... and suggests that this is something that hasn't been measured appropriately by the scientific measures.

Or that people are hearing stuff that isn't there ? There's the old excuse much beloved by the lucrative alternative medicine industry: "If you found no effect, it's because you were doing the test wrong."

Wizard wrote General wisdom is that valves overdrive in a way which is much more human ear friendly than solid state - a feature obviously used for active effect in overdriven guitar amplifiers.

Mmm... I love that creamy distortion on Vivaldi's Four Seasons when I crank up the volume ?

CDee

Wizard wrote So ... are valve hi-fi amps available? At reasonable price? And what are they like?
How hard are they to build?

Something like this? http://diyaudioprojects.com/Tubes/6T9-Tube-Amp-Kit/

Gearhead

As a proud 300B audio amp owner I can say that most people do hear the difference when they hear my setup (my speakers aren't bad either, speakers are more important than amp). The thing mentioned most is that the sound is more direct or transparent.
In essence the thing about not being able to measure difference between amps is absolute nonsense. If you measure a small sine signal maybe, but audio is much more than that. The biggest difference between sand and vacuum is that the linearity of tubes is much better and for a larger range. This leads to two things: for starters the harmonics produced are nasty high order for transistors versus low order 'musical' for valves. If you don't turn up the volume too much the distortion is not going to be enough to hear this, but then we don't always play everything at volume 1, now do we? The second result is that audio designers know this and apply negative feedback to compensate. The feedback used will be roughly as much as or more than the input signal. Theoretically this should give you the 'perfect' output signal, if it weren't for the fact that there is a time delay between the feedback and the original signal. The amp is always too late to completely compensate for its own mistakes, a phenomenon called tim (transient intermodulation distortion). And that is what you hear. The feedback also eats away at the maximum signal you get from a given output power - one of the reasons why you need a lot more power in transistor amps.

I herewith challenge anyone to bring a solid state amp to my place so we can A/B compare in a double blind test. If we agree which amp sounds better and it turns out to be yours, you can pick any one of my guitars to take home.

@Wizard: don't worry about the Ipod, there are seriously audiophile upgrades for it 8)

Wizard

@ Gearhead: So what does this uber valve amp arrangement cost?