Author Topic: Valve Vs Solid State amplifiers  (Read 3558 times)

Offline vitavoxdude

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Valve Vs Solid State amplifiers
« 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
We all like different things so lets all agree to disagree and if any common ground is found then worship it.  Mine is the KD hence being present on this forum.

Offline zenelectro

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Re: Valve Vs Solid State amplifiers
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2017, 11:10:02 AM »
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

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