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

Why is it you continually obfuscate?

In the first place, neither theaudiohobby nor the quoted text from TAC imply that every SS amp is better than every tube amp. Nor is there any implication that there may not be good and poor examples of each.

As Aristotle pointed out long ago, "good" is one of those terms which has many meanings.

There is no implication that systems containing tube amps cannot sound good. That is not Aczel's position, and it doesn't become his just because you have formed the impression that it is.

Soundstage and Stereophile have done measurements of the distortion characteristics of quite a number of SS and tube amps. Perhaps you should check them out before buying the nonsense about the distortion from tube amps being less audible than that of SS amps. It's not a good generalization. A number of good solid state amps have far lower distortion than most tube amps. And that's one standard for being better.

Many tube amps have a relatively high output impedance, so that their frequency response curve is often quite uneven into many speaker loads--again, all you have to do is read some of the relevant reviews on the Stereophile and Soundstage sites to find this out. It may be that some speakers sound better that way (it's hard for consumers to predict which ones)--I can think of some that do not. So, that's another standard for being better--but unfortunately, some wish to generalize that because such and such a tube amp sounds better with some particular speakers, that tube amps will sound better with every speaker--which is certainly not so.

Then there is reliability. Bryston has a 20 year guarantee for their electronics. How many tube amps have a guarantee like that? Anyway, reliability is another standard for goodness.

So when good and bad are talked about, one has to determine just what characteristics are being evaluated. You don't seem to be very good about that, but then I don't think you try.


____________________________________________________________
"Nature loves to hide."
---Heraclitus of Ephesus (trans. Wheelwright)


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