1. Home
  2. amps-preamps
  3. 1386256823

To Tube or not to Tube......

For quite some time now I've been thinking about switching from a solid state to a tube power amp. My Threshold T-100 has been real good to me and I do like it, but it's really the only "high-end" amp I've ever owned, so it's all I know. I'm intrigued by the "warm" sound of tubes and do have a tubed phono amp and CD player, but I am by no means well-versed in the sound of tube power amps having never really auditioned one. I know that goes against the prevailing wisdom and I should listen before I buy, but I don't think I will have the luxury of doing that.

That being said, I've gone through about 20 pages of this forum reading about the benefits and detriments of tubed power amps but nothing I've read has swayed me either way. The posts I've read have been informative re: bias issues, reliability, blowing fuses or whatever else might blow up or go wrong with the tubs, etc. So, if I were to go the tube route, I would not want deal with too much of that hassle. At lease I know that the amp I have doesn't have any such issues. That's why I was leaning toward amps like BAT with their auto biasing (I also need balanced inputs), and would want at least 60-100 wpc. I would be willing to deal with adjusting bias so long as it was a relatively simple process.

I figured I would pose my main question to the exerts here (and this I did learn for this forum): given what I already have in my system, what tube amp would be a good match for me? My pre-amp is a SS Threshold, JM Lab speakers with a "minimum impedance of 4 Ohms," EAR 834P phono stage, & Unison tube cd player.
Much appreciated.
ebuzz
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
6,996 posts
 
Ebuzz,
That question has been debated countless times on this forum and there's simply no "right" answer. I believe that the tube amplifier contributes more of a tube character to a system than the preamp (still lmportant however).
If given one choice, I'd go SS pre( must be a good one) with tube amp rather than tube pre with SS amp. In all honesty you can have exceptional sound quality with either combination ( there's a lot of good components available). Tube pre with SS amplifier is the more popular route, so I'm in the minority. My ideal preference, tube pre and amplifier.
Charles,
ebuzz OP
104 posts
 
Thanks Charles, the tube preamp will have to wait for a bit.
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,502 posts
 
Hi Ebuzz

My uncle has a ARC Tube preamp mated with Threshold SA amps and the music from his system sounds wonderful. I'd ask some ARC experts like Bifwynne or Hifigeek1 for their thoughts on ARC house sound.

With my Jolida amp I've used it with SS preamps mostly. From an Accuphase C200 to a Kavent S33 preamp I've had no issues with sound quality.
mechans
2,999 posts
 
The sound you get with an SS pre and a tube amp is in my opinion much better than the ubiquitous tube pre and SS power amp. I agree most decidedly with Charles1dad about this, although there is a strong belief that the tubed pre signal is only amplified by an SS amp. In my experience the sound gets flattened by the SS amp from highly 3D sound tubes make.
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,132 posts
 
Ebuzz- There is no right or wrong answer but IMO, you need tubes fore and aft (pre and power) to make reproduced sound as close to "real" music as you can. It will never get there, but....
More to discover