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Re: -And that tube thing?

We've known this since the 1960s, when General Electric did all their tests: Humans are very sensitive to odd-ordered harmonics in vanishingly small amounts. In fact, we use the odd-ordered harmonic content as a loudness cue.

We cannot chose how our ears hear- only that they do.

ergo: tubes don't make nearly the odd-ordered harmonic content that transistors do (thus the 'smoothness' of tubes vs. the 'harshness' of transistors). This fact is very well known and its implication is that tubes are better for audio than transistors because they follow the rules that we humans use to hear by better.

Another clue to the same is guitar amps. All the good ones are tube. There are no good transistor guitar amps. This is due to the overdrive character of tubes; IOW even in overdrive the odd-ordered harmonic content is less than that of transistors.

Another clue: measure the clipping character of a transistor amplifier and compare to that of a tube amp. You will see the odd-ordered harmincs show up immediately.

Tubes just do audio better, plain and simple.


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