Home General Asylum

General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ General Asylum ]
[ Alert Moderator ] [ Edit ] [ Delete ]

Why tubes sound 'bigger'

The other day I hooked in my CJ PV9 which had been sitting on the sidelines owing to a bout of laziness and remote control fetishism. The sound from my Celestion 700s immediately became much bigger in comparison with my NAD receiver. I got to thinking about this, and what the cause was. Obviously, the CJ couldn't be changing the dispersion of the speakers. Nor was it adding deep bass, though it was probably adding some mid-bass. But the sound was bigger across the board, bigger in the sense of fleshier, not just more spacious, though it was that too -- and I came up with the theory that the slower decay of tube transients might be the cause. Solid-state gear might be over-damped -- I don't know if that makes sense electronically -- but tube gear probably has a slower decay on transients, and the result is more sound for a given peak level. Or that's a theory. I doubt there's any psycho-acoustic research related to 'bigness' of sound. Comments are welcome!


This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Kimber Kable  

Topic - Why tubes sound 'bigger' - peterh 15:01:34 08/11/06 (111)
You can not post to an archived thread.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]