General HIFI > Amplification (Pre/Power)

Valve Vs Solid State amplifiers

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vitavoxdude:
Well I can remember back to when I was a wee one and listening to the old record player with its 5 inch speaker and tiny valve amp and wondering quite how it was possible to get so much sound from such a small box.  A lot of water has passed beneath the bridge since then and yet I still wondered at how big old boxes(usually reflex loaded) with modest valve amps could produce what I considered a much better sound than solid state amps driving expensive smaller box speakers.

Now having read the following piece (reference to another web site) I can begin to understand a little bit more about a thing called for want of a better title POWER RESPONSE. Please read the link as it helps explains a lot of the mystery's surrounding the whole subject.

http://education.lenardaudio.com/en/14_valve_amps_7.html

I like his reference to musicians preferring the valve sound and agree's with his musings.
V

zenelectro:

--- Quote from: vitavoxdude on December 19, 2017, 03:15:53 PM ---Well I can remember back to when I was a wee one and listening to the old record player with its 5 inch speaker and tiny valve amp and wondering quite how it was possible to get so much sound from such a small box.  A lot of water has passed beneath the bridge since then and yet I still wondered at how big old boxes(usually reflex loaded) with modest valve amps could produce what I considered a much better sound than solid state amps driving expensive smaller box speakers.

Now having read the following piece (reference to another web site) I can begin to understand a little bit more about a thing called for want of a better title POWER RESPONSE. Please read the link as it helps explains a lot of the mystery's surrounding the whole subject.

http://education.lenardaudio.com/en/14_valve_amps_7.html

I like his reference to musicians preferring the valve sound and agree's with his musings.
V

--- End quote ---

There's a mix of good info and well, not so good.

The transformer section is worth a read:
http://education.lenardaudio.com/en/14_valve_amps_5.html

If you scroll down a bit past half way there is a Pi wound OP tranny used on a KT88 amp. A company I worked at
many years ago actually made that transformer. I remember the sections were individually wound and then
assembled on to the C Core.

Very Trick OP transformer.

I've still got a copy of that amp schematic kicking around somewhere.

The 'semi Pi' winding arrangement shown just above that is done with a combination of split bobbin (2 vert sections) and many horiz sections
is a very nice design, inherently balanced - appears to be copied by EHT amps....

John Burnett is a smart guy for sure. Apparently he was also involved in a precurser to what became AES (with Tom Misner). 

Funny little industry this.

T

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