Experience with tube versus solid state

New User

What are you experiences with Polk speakers being run off solid state versus tube amps?
I have a Onkyo Integra M588 and Rogue Audio M120 but don't know which speakers to sell to try some Polk.

thanks for your help

heiney9

New User wrote:

What are you experiences with Polk speakers being run off solid state versus tube amps?
I have a Onkyo Integra M588 and Rogue Audio M120 but don't know which speakers to sell to try some Polk.

thanks for your help

As a general rule any Polk speaker other than Lsi's sound great on Tubes. But really you haven't given enough info about your other equipment or what type of music you listen to. Lsi's can sound great (so I'm told) on tubes with the right components and synergy.

We still need a whole lot more info about listening habits, like and dislikes pertaining to music; experiences, etc.

Anything with the the sl1000, sl2000, sl2500, sl3000 tweeter will be "tamed" by running tubes. But that depends on if you like your music bright and "in your face" or mellow and laid back or neutral or crisp and sparkely.......I think you get my point there are many great combo's. Try it and see or tell us more specifics about the Polks you are thinking about getting or selling.

H9

jakelm

Not to change the subject here. But what would be comperable in tube amp to a 100 watt SS amp? What is the wattage comparison?

I'm driving my vintage 7b's with my HK 635 right now (which sounds great). The HK is about 85-95 watts on the 6ohm 7b's. What would be a comparible tube amp for those speakers?

Jake

mhardy6647

A watt is a watt :-)

Now, what 1 tube watt will do/sound like may differ than 1 ss watt. Plenty of posts here or at audioasylum.com or audiokarma.org on that topic :-)

Strictly speaking, if you think you need 100 watts, get a 100 watt amp. I would listen to something less powerful in terms of a tube amp before you decide you NEED 100 W continuous, though.

Try a Marantz 8B at 35 continuous watts per channel with a medium-efficiency Polk speaker (say, a Monitor 7) and see what you think.

Early B.

jakelm wrote:

Not to change the subject here. But what would be comperable in tube amp to a 100 watt SS amp? What is the wattage comparison?

One hundred SS watts is sort of like 50 tube watts.

At one time I had a 150 wpc SS amp (Odyssey Stratos) and replaced it with a 60 wpc tube amp. The tube amp had as much power as the SS amp, and it played a lot cleaner at high volumes.

jakelm

Thanks for the info.

So a 50watt tube amp would be ideal for my 7's

ND13

I ran my 7As with 20 tube wpc and it was beautiful.

I'm also running my LSi9s on a 40 wpc tube amp with excellent results.

jakelm

The reason I asked about the wattage is because I'm using the 7b's in a 7.1 HT system as well. I wanted to find an amp that would compare in power to the HK, without having to raise the gain on the HK too high. If my center was @ 0, I dont want to have to raise the left and right channel to +10 or so, to be at the same level.

jakelm

MRH.. How much would an amp like that run me? Or something similar on ebait?

ND13

That vintage Marantz would cost you an arm and a leg in that condition.

Midnite Mick

Couple of comments.

For a 60 watt tube amp to play cleaner than a 150 watt very highly regarded SS amp is definitely a testament to that tube amp.

I am using a 78 watt tube amp on the Lsi15's and it is outstanding. It plays louder than I would ever listen with no trouble. The only negative I ever noticed when I turned it up stupid loud was some bass control issues. This was just a test kind of thing as I would never listen that loudly. Also on a side note my little room is terrible for bass......traps are in my future.

Thanks,
Mike

SCompRacer

A watt is a measurement of power. It is the product of volts times amps. A tube amp produces high voltage wattage while most, but not all, solid state amps are high amperage and low voltage wattage. Folks say a watt is watt but I say listen and choose the one you like the best. I prefer high voltage wattage over high current wattage. Like the old motorcycle ad, different strokes for different folks. Listen and decide what you like best. Quality is the key with a tube amp. Good circuit design and output transformers is the key. They handle musical transients well and can exceed their rated output momentarily until the tube ceases to output.

I've run Polk SDA SRS 2's with a 75WPC tube amp and preferred the sonics over several solid state amps I tried. A friend ran LSi-15's with a 75 watt tube amp and we preferred it over a 380WPC SS amp. I've never seen a formula that accurately equates tube power with SS power, but go along with what Early B said.

SCompRacer

Midnite Mick wrote:

......traps are in my future.

CP member Normanality has much experience with LSi-15's and bass traps in a small room. If your interested in hearing some of his experiences, drop him a PM.

rskarvan

PHYSICS 101

Yes, a Watt is a Watt. But, its also a J/S.

A Watt is a Joule (unit of power) per second. Power = Rate at which WORK is performed. Power = Work / Time

A Joule is the amount of work required to exert the force of 1 Newton over a distance of one meter. Work = Force x Distance

And, lastly, a Newton is a unit of force. Force = Mass x Acceleration.
Or, A Newton = 1 KG x 9.81 Meters/Sec^2.

mhardy6647

A tube amp produces high voltage wattage

Well, at the plate of the output tubes, yeah... but that's what the transformer is for. A Watt IS a Watt, as the previous physics lesson reinforces.

The difference in "tube watts" and "ss watts" is (typically) more related to the distortion spectrum of the two flavors of amplifiers, and due to the "soft clipping" tendency of a tube amp (more accurately, a tube amp's tendency to compress when driven into nonlinearity, rather than "flat-top" waveforms produced by hard clipping of a typical ss amp).

Tubes are also fundamentally far more linear amplification devices than are transistors. The latter are best suited to switching, and can tolerate relatively high amounts of current. Interestingly, tubes can make pretty good switches, too... vacuum tubes are used in hydrogen bombs to handle the immense current pulse (something like 50 kA, IIRC) used to start the fission explosion that "drives" the fusion reaction.

That vintage Marantz would cost you an arm and a leg in that condition.

Yup :-( I was fortunate enough to have been entrusted with the electrical restoration of the one in the photo... and (IMNSHO) it turned out great. One of the best sounding amps I have ever heard, and probably THE best I've heard in my own home, on my own equipment.

madmax

I've found a ratio of about 1:3 with tube power vs SS. For example 100W tube vs 300W SS. BUT, it depends upon the program material. Some material which is very dynamic with huge peaks can be very nice with tubes and seem even greater than 1:3. Material which has a very similar level throughout with no real dynamics (like Kiss and some other hard rock) seems to be closer to 1:1 power ratio. Very bass heavy music seems closer to 1:1 also. Nothing official here, just my opinions.
madmax

Joey_V

From what I know, the reason why you can get away with low power tubes whereas you might not with low power ss amps is because of the fact that a tube amp doesnt distort in the same way a ss amp distorts once you get near the max output of both amps.

Hence, you get the 1 tube watt is more than 1 ss watt.

And from what I know, a high voltage amp is better for speakers like electrostats moreso than conventional dynamic speakers.

My 2 cents.

mhardy6647

This is a funny discussion :-) at least in terms of high-voltage amps and high current amps. One watt IS 2.83 VAC into an 8 ohm load, and it's half that into a 4 ohm load. period.

But...

Part of the problem is that, thanks to the FTC (and not without some good, common-sense reasoning) we think of amplifier power specifications in a steady state environment (thus continuous watts, erroneously referred to by the FTC spec as "watts RMS"). The FTC spec is tested with sine waves, which are not at all dynamic in an audio sense (though plenty dynamic, if repetitive in terms of alternating current). Real music is exceptionally dynamic: the music waveforms are full of very fast transients, and even asymmetric (a quasi-DC component, if you think about it). The performance of a "100 watt RMS" amplifier (which will, by definition, deliver 283 VAC continuously into an 8 ohm load) with a real-world music waveform will depend greatly upon factors other than steady-state power output.

The other interesting part is that a real loudspeaker is not a simple, fixed impedance load, independent of frequency. That's where the ability of an amp to deliver voltage and/or current, as required by the waveform and the load, basically instantly becomes important.

But a watt is still a watt.

One horsepower equals 745.7 watts, by the way, so you can think of a Phase Linear 700B power amp as a 1 hp (almost) stereo amp, if you like...

SCompRacer

Joey_V wrote:

And from what I know, a high voltage amp is better for speakers like electrostats moreso than conventional dynamic speakers.

Like the Innersound ESL amp that runs cool to the touch? Roger Sanders has an interesting white paper on that subject.

pblanc

I'm not sure tube amps are "cleaner" but they sound that way because when they saturate and overload, they do so gradually and the distortion is harmonically pleasing instead of the sudden, and non-pleasing distortion that a SS amp puts out when overdriven. Guitar players, of course, deliberately overdive their amplifiers so commonly that the "creamy, fuzzy" sound of an overdriven guitar has become "normal". A lot of tube fans will deliberately select a lower power amp so that their tubes are near saturation at normal (loud) listening levels to get the same effect. Conversely, if you have a solid state amp, you need more headroom because you most decidedly don't want to hear it clip. I believe that is why people claim that you can generally get by with half the watts af an ss amp when switching to tubes.

I, by the way, have driven LSi9s with a Jolida 502B and thought they sounded quite good.

jakelm

I guess the same differences in tube amps can also be applied to class A. AB, D, DSP amps.

Joey_V

SCompRacer wrote:

Like the Innersound ESL amp that runs cool to the touch? Roger Sanders has an interesting white paper on that subject.

Rich,

What did he basically say? The high voltage with electrostat paradigm is one I got from the MLO forum as it's a commonly accepted idea there.

Thanks,
Joey

mhardy6647

well, in theory you could run an ESL panel straight from the plate of the output tubes; sans output transformer. AFAIK, all ESL's have step-up transformers to convert the low-voltage, high-current output of an amp to HV (micro-current) to "drive" the panels in the HV electrostatic field.

I guess the same differences in tube amps can also be applied to class A. AB, D, DSP amps.

??

jakelm

Hardy... I ment comparing the tube amp, is similar in comparing the different SS amps.

Normanality

Joey_V wrote:

Rich,

What did he basically say? The high voltage with electrostat paradigm is one I got from the MLO forum as it's a commonly accepted idea there.

Thanks,
Joey

The paper is pretty basic. Here's a link:

http://www.sanderssoundsystems.com/ESL%20Amp%20White%20Paper.htm

I own Roger's ESL amp and identical bass amp/crossover for my Innersounds and the performance is stellar. Continuous running at reference levels and the amp barely gets warm.

SCompRacer

Joey_V wrote:

Rich,

The high voltage with electrostat paradigm is one I got from the MLO forum as it's a commonly accepted idea there.

I'll have to do some reading then, thanks. The other amp I was curious about was the Sunfire with both current source and voltage source speaker outputs.

Joey_V

SCompRacer wrote:

I'll have to do some reading then, thanks. The other amp I was curious about was the Sunfire with both current source and voltage source speaker outputs.

I wonder too.. the Sunfire does have that neat feature. There are several Sunfire users on MLO. I will investigate this further over there when I have the time.

As usual, thanks Rich.

Joey