Tubes anyone?

[Silver Supra]

Originally Posted by deacongreg

The heat generated from tubes is certainly a consideration. I hopefully will get to hear a good tube amplifier soon. But, I think I side with you on the amplifier, I don`t know if I could trust a tube amplifier to run my speakers. However, I would try it in the preamplifier area. Especially when it comes to home theater and the power demands, transients, and explosions that occur.

The only consideration to be aware of when integrating a tubed pre into a HT is that it will add some tube effects to any channels using the HT pass through.

In other words - your R/L channels will have some "tube sound" while your center/surrounds will not - since the R/L signals are going through the tubes (even at 0 dB gain). It wasn't really noticeable during movie watching, but I did experiment with music that the passthrough sounded better than just going directly from my 861 to the amps.

With all that said - get a tubed pre and don't look back!

[coppy]

One more thing... for those of you who are concerned about giving up amplifier power as you move to a tube amp... I think all who have used tubes will agree, a tube watt is more powerful than a solid state watt. Engineers can explain why, power supplies or something, but you do get more muscle from a give tube amplifier... not twice as much but noticably more. I moved from a concervatively designed solid state 350 wpc that tests to much more to a 140wpc tube amp and cannot tell the difference. In fact, as well regarded as the SS amp was, I think the low end actually sounds better. And, I'm driving not to easy loads... Wilson WP7s.

As they say, try it you may like what you hear.

All the best..

[deacongreg]

I certainly will have to investigate this further and hopefully get a good demo. Thanks for the all the input guys.

[Mcintosh Man]

As a matter of fact your not alone to enjoy 1950's technology.
I grew-up in my dad's TV Repair Shop (my bedroom) that was filled with tubes.

My first amplifier output was with 6V6GT that I built from my father's spare parts.
I had all sort of Tube Amps like, Leak Point One, Quad II, Harman-Kardon Citation II, Marantz and McIntosh (MC 30, MC 60 Monoblocks).
I had to sell my MC 60 because of my kids (to hot for their small hands) about 20 years ago
and replace them by Solid State McIntosh. Even with the AutoFormers the Solid State McIntosh they didn't sound as good as tubes.

Today, I have two systems a HT and my "Hi-Fi" and when I really want to please myself, I power up my McIntosh Tube system.
It's incredible how clean and loud a McIntosh MC 2102 (100W.P.C) can be.

[Brian]

I still enjoy tubes in my two channel system. Both my current Conrad Johnson and my most recent past preamplifier, McIntosh, are tubed. While the best solid state designs are excellent in their own right and in some areas better than tubes, they haven't yet captured the magic of the tube. Its been a long time since I have had a tubed amplifier in my system but I don't recall ever having any problems with it not being powerful enough to get the job done although I did need to crank up the AC.
Brian