New To Tubes

[Tony3d]

Hi, I have always been a solid state guy, but also fascinated by the glow of tubes. I have been curious enough that I finally broke down and ordered a cheap Val E10 headphone amp to go with a new AKG K701 headphone I just ordered. Never heard either just flying by the seat of my pants. I have no idea what to expect from tubes. I just hope the sound is not masked by noise, especially hum or buzz. I keep hearing how sweet tubes sound, well I'm about to find out. Like I said I'm basically a solid state guy, and would never think of using a tube amp to power my speakers, but thought the new headphones might be fun driven by tubes. I should have both in another six days. I'm not expecting much from the amp (it was only $270.00 shipped), but the phones I think will blow me away. I currently own Etymotic ER-4's. Any input on tubes would be great. Thanks.

 

[tubesaregood]

Like my user name suggests, tubes are good. The reason people like tubes is because of that "warm" quality to the sound. Awhile back I got a $140 stereo tube amp kit - it uses triode/pentode 11BM8 tubes in a push-pull for 8 watts per channel. As cheap as the whole thing is, even this amp has a certain sparkle p ) to it. The only problem with tubes is, of course, headroom. Tube amps cost far more per watt and most won't have more than about 50 watts per channel. I'm sure you'll like your tube headphone amp - maybe even more than you're expecting.

 

[billnchristy]

I got my first tube amp around new years, an Onix SP3. I love it. I recently swapped the stock 12ax7 with sovtek 5751...i like!!

Tube amps are cool because you can change their character by swapping tubes.

 

[audiofox]

I have a Bellari VP-129 phono stage that uses a 12AX7 tube, which has a great sound for my turntable and as a headphone amplifier. I did have to do a bit of "rolling" to find a tube I was happy with (I now have a Tung Sol 12AX7, which sounds great). The Bellari is the first and only tube component I have owned, having been a solid state man since I got into audio systems back in the early 70s. Many people, including myself, like a hybrid approach using tube preamplification and solid state power amplification. This approach can arguably give you the best of both worlds-a good, high power solid state amp will have sufficient linear response that it will reproduce the tube sound from your pre-driver amp stages. Another option is a tube 2 channel preamp (lots of nice tube preamps are available on the used market for reasonable cost) with some sort of HT bypass (you can also use the tape in/outs to achieve this), integrated with a SS receiver or pre/pro and a SS power amp-that will give you the tube sound for your 2 channel playback and hold down the costs a bit.