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In Reply to: What are the most tube-like solid-state amps you have heard? posted by organofcorti on March 20, 2005 at 17:11:27:
Here is Lavardin Technology's explaination of the difference between Solid State and Tube sound, it's called "Memory Distortion". Basically electrons flowing through a vacuum tube have nothing in their way, so they arrive at their destination in perfect phase. However, electrons travelling through Solid State material gets slowed down as the electrons bump into each other, smearing the image, and also leaving ghost images of themselves:
"TECHNICAL CORNER
What does memory distortion exactly mean?Memory distortion is a new concept for distortion process analysis. Usual concepts of distortion are based on a very simple distortion model which does not tally with the real behaviour of electronic circuits. In the classic theoretical model of distortion, distortion of a non selective circuit results from its band limitations for the linear distortion and from its non-linear transfer function for the non-linear distortion. This model is a good approximation for audio circuits. But for highest quality audio it is too simplistic. It results from a tonal approach of circuits for design and measurement. The tonal approach is very powerful and can be very accurate but it ignores the time. That means that it is critical only for time independent systems. Unfortunately, the main difference between noise and music IS their organisation in the time.
Audio circuits are not time independent. A detailed analysis of their behaviour for non-stationary signals reveals many changes of their characteristics. The amplitude of these change is generally low, and this change remain hidden by stationary signals. This is the reason why they cannot be detected with classic (and tonal) measuring systems and are thus ignored by audio designers. The amplitude of this change is often high enough to be easily audible in high quality audio systems. That is the reason why listening tests of these systems do not tally with present measurements. This measurement are not able to characterise the behaviour of the circuits for all the signals. They aim to measure THE transfer function, they only measure ONE of the transfer functions corresponding to stationary signals. Most audio system are designed to be perfect for sine waves which are a very limited part of real audio signals.Audio circuits are not time independent. A detailed analysis of their behaviour for non-stationary signals reveals many changes of their characteristics. The amplitude of these change is generally low, and this change remain hidden by stationary signals. This is the reason why they cannot be detected with classic (and tonal) measuring systems and are thus ignored by audio designers. The amplitude of this change is often high enough to be easily audible in high quality audio systems. That is the reason why listening tests of these systems do not tally with present measurements. This measurement are not able to characterise the behaviour of the circuits for all the signals. They aim to measure THE transfer function, they only measure ONE of the transfer functions corresponding to stationary signals. Most audio system are designed to be perfect for sine waves which are a very limited part of real audio signals."
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Follow Ups
- Re: What are the most tube-like solid-state amps you have heard? - Tanvir Hafiz 03/21/0517:46:09 03/21/05 (1)
- Re: What are the most tube-like solid-state amps you have heard? - Ozzie 10:07:22 03/23/05 (0)
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