A great example of advanced amplifier design today is the David Berning Z amplifers. High tech stuff and sounds great, does not sound like tubey tube amps or SS gear they sound more like the tonality of tubes with the bass and clarity of the better SS. This stuff uses quite an advance switching power supply amongst some other really interesting features. Berning has always been decades ahead of the pack technology wise. Tubes are his specialty and its obvious he wants to try and take advantage of them to the utmost extent. I'll be very interested to see how much better digital sources will become in the next few years, I hope we can get analog performance from the digits some day. Maybe I'm just a dreamer :)
What is the future of amp technolgy?
As digital technology makes strides toward the future, amp technology seems to returning to its roots of pre-1960. Tube amps are experiencing a large increase in popularity, and SS amps are generally moving to a more "tube like" sound. Then there is this new digital amp technology, that I don't know much about. Are tube amps the wave of the future, or a dinosaur from the past? Will SS amps finally reach a point when there is no reason to buy a tube amp? Will Digital amps eclipse both tube and SS amps, and become the best of all worlds? Your thoughts?
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I am really not sure anyone is trying to make solid state sound like tubes, (except for the guys at Conrad Johnson). The goal should be to make it sound real. What is new are people like Gilbert Yeung at Blue Circle, who are taking a fresh approach and designing gear using their ears, instead of a bunch of electronic measuring equipment (helps to have great hearing). Many audio reviewers are perplexed by some Blue Circle gear, because when they hook it up to all their testing equipment, it does not spec out well on paper; which really means it does not measure against the "established norm". So they cannot not explain in a technical sense why Blue Circle gear sounds so good. This calls into question whether the "established norm" matters, or is there a better benchmark. I have read that Gilbert Yeung has said that he could make his amplifers have a quieter background, but not without sacrificing the amps musical qualities. I guess we now call this "thinking outside the box". |
Spectron seems to be doing interesting things with digital class D amplifiers. Some people seem to love it. I personally have only heard it on a low-fi system at CES and did not and do not have the expertise it would take to isolate the 'potentially great sounding amplifier' from the many 'weakest links' of the overall system. Here is the link: Spectron From my perspective as a software geek, this is the future. Oversampling in the multi-Mhz range, 128bit word lengths... The technology to archive and reproduce music will be perfect. The only problems will be the analog to digital on the front end (microphones, etc.) and D to A on the back end (amplifier output stage and speakers). We will get there in time... |
Purely an opinion of course, but I really think that all three types of amps (and hybrids) will continue to co-exist for a long time-- of course just in the high end community. A select sub-group of audiophiles will always swear by a pure tube approach for example, and innovative/imaginative designers will continue to experiment with all new technologies. It wouldn't surprise me to eventually see disagreements between SS "analog" amp owners and digital amp owners. I usually agree with most of Tim's opinions, but on this we disagree on much. I love my HQ digital system and have gone to great lengths to make it musical. I use a tube pre-amp and solid state amp, and love the synergy-- the SS amp is smooth, fast, and powerful with excellent bass control, and the tube pre-amp adds-- well, some of the "magic" of tubes. Cheers. Craig |
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