Dave, I respectfully disagree. The idea of damping factor is mostly mythology. If you hear a differece between an amp with a 'damping factor' of 1000 and one with 50, its likely due to other things than 'damping factor'. More likely the differences you hear are due to the amounts of negative feedback required to make a 'damping factor' that high.
One would be severely challenged to actually be able to define a sonic artifact and point to 'damping factor' as its cause. Audio signals require that the power energizing the speaker diaphragm not only carry it to the limit of the signal's excursion, but also back again to zero. There are no audio signals that stop at the peak of the waveform and fall to zero instantaneously- even synthesizers don't do that.
This is not to say that the output impedance of the amplifier does not have an effect on the sound (damping factor is an expression of output impedance, BTW). For more on that see
http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html
Tube amplifiers can have excellent bass (given an appropriate load). The 'wooly' term at best is innuendo without a being a true statement of merit. There are tube amplifiers that can reproduce a 20Hz squarewave as well as transistor amps can. In the past there were older, lessor designs, but that says nothing about what is possible today.
One would be severely challenged to actually be able to define a sonic artifact and point to 'damping factor' as its cause. Audio signals require that the power energizing the speaker diaphragm not only carry it to the limit of the signal's excursion, but also back again to zero. There are no audio signals that stop at the peak of the waveform and fall to zero instantaneously- even synthesizers don't do that.
This is not to say that the output impedance of the amplifier does not have an effect on the sound (damping factor is an expression of output impedance, BTW). For more on that see
http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html
Tube amplifiers can have excellent bass (given an appropriate load). The 'wooly' term at best is innuendo without a being a true statement of merit. There are tube amplifiers that can reproduce a 20Hz squarewave as well as transistor amps can. In the past there were older, lessor designs, but that says nothing about what is possible today.