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Posts from This Journal by “Tube Sound” Tag. Warm tube sound Warm tube sound

"At the request of the workers, I decided to shed some light on the topic of warm tube sound. I will not give graphs and other figures, all this will look like a scientific work, and not a review article.

This concept originated a long time ago, back in the days of semiconductors. Since transistors, in those days, were, to put it mildly, not of very high quality, and circuits on germanium devices were just beginning to appear, then, as a matter of course, a subject was formed. Plus, let's add here an incomplete understanding of the operation of the transistor, the lack of circuits and the high cost of the components themselves. Radio amateurs used transistors in the same circuit as lamps, but as you understand, nothing good came of it, either the circuit did not work or it worked very poorly. Also, don’t forget about the powerful output transistors, if anyone remembers, there were such P4E rare shit. Later, P213 and P214 appeared, which slightly improved the situation. Transistors MP14 were used in the preliminary stages, and subsequently MP40-41-42. There were also low-noise devices in this series, if I’m not mistaken, there were P28 and MP39B, which were in terrible short supply, and therefore if they managed to get one, they installed it first, which in principle is very correct. And do not forget that transistors of that time had a low gain, which led to an increase in the number of stages and the complexity of the circuit.

And as one of the factors you can add the psychological aspect of nutritional polarity. As is known, the first of the transistors had P-N-P transition, which meant that the scheme was turned upside down. How so, plus on the mass?! Radio amateurs were indignant and continued to use simple and reliable circuits using radio tubes.

But progress did not stand still, transistors began to become cheaper, it became fashionable to have a small radio with batteries, and the lack of warming up, instant switching on and efficiency are also not unimportant factors.

In fact, the concept of Paw Sound has survived to this day. Whereas at the beginning of the history of transistors there were simply no circuits, but there were parts of mediocre quality, now this is a phenomenon of redundancy, fashion and promotion of the concept of “Vintage”

Although, indeed, the sound of tube equipment differs from that of semiconductors. A simple example: if the average music lover turns on an old vacuum radio, he will be surprised. Yes, indeed, it does not sound like a transistor, somehow unusual, somehow special. After some time, the delight fades away and an understanding of the situation comes. It is known that transistor amplifiers have pronounced odd harmonics, while tube amplifiers have the opposite: even ones. Thus, tube amplifiers seem to mask an initially bad recording, giving it a tube coloration, so to speak. No, after all, high-quality semiconductor equipment significantly exceeds the parameters of tube counterparts. So what's the deal? Let's try to understand this interesting phenomenon of warm tube sound. So:

OOC. The absence of deep, or generally negative feedbacks in tube circuits. Of course, there is a rational grain in this, because lamps are characterized by higher linear characteristics than semiconductors. This is precisely why OOS is introduced. But let’s not pretend, often linear circuits without OOS can provide much less intermodulation distortion, which we all dislike so much.

And here we have do-it-yourselfers who don’t know what they’re doing, trying to make the coolest tube amplifier on their own. There is not enough knowledge to build a more or less decent device, and therefore circuits taken from radio hooligans are used, which the latter use as modulators for their AM transmitters. The circuit of such an amplifier is very simple; usually only a couple of lamps are used: 6N2P and 6P14P; the lamps themselves do not require many parts. And now the circuit is assembled, with a curly hanging installation and an ugly pile of trash lying on the table. If the circuit works from the first switch-on (why shouldn’t it work there?) then the magical selection of lamps into one or another cascade begins, and you can often see lamps in the pre-amplifier that were not designed for this at all; the author personally saw how a 6P13S lamp was used in first cascade. In advanced cases, the use of finger lamps is in no way allowed, but only with an octal base, because they are older, larger, more luminous and warmer. Most often this is a 6N8S double triode and everyone’s beloved legend, the 6P3S pentode. And all that remains of the original sound must be fed to speakers the size of a three-leaf cabinet, with one single wideband speaker. And all this abomination is fed to the speaker system through:

Transformer Output. Funny thing indeed. Has a pumped up and very important skill: “ Cutoff of high frequencies that arose due to self-excitation as a result of the installation described above» Has a large weight and dimensions comparable to a power transformer. A high-quality output transformer costs approximately the price of a Russian-made car of average shabbyness. But there is no money for such purchases, and therefore TVZ from tube TVs and radiograms are used. In the end, our hero understands that this transformer is no longer enough and needs to be replaced. But for what? Of course, to a power transformer, where its primary winding is connected to the anode of the lamp, and the filament to the speakers. Having thus received “oversaturated bass,” the transformer is rewound countless times. And it doesn’t matter that not all the plates are assembled back into the package, and it doesn’t matter that all this disgrace begins to ring and irritate the ears with a nasty rattling in time with the music. But, nevertheless, the transformer is very well suited for matching the high output impedance of tube stages with a low-impedance load. And at the very beginning of the era of germanium semiconductors, transformers were also used in transistor circuits.

Next is a new discipline with power transformers. Initially, they are removed from outdated equipment and used in their designs without any modification. But one day, a young lover of Warm Tube, collects a second channel and this is where the problems begin. There is not enough anode current and under double the load the voltage sags very slightly, which does not have the best effect on the sound quality. The filament voltage also sags, and the lamps begin to work out of order. (By the way, from excessive and insufficient voltage, both in the anode circuit and in the filament circuit, the lamp wears out very quickly, although it continues to work.) In this case, our heroes either rewind the transformers, which does not help significantly, because the transformer is higher will not provide the required power, or install two power transformer, which, coupled with two sound units, makes the unit stationary and immovable.

But it also happens that the author read an article about how a person assembled a tube amplifier using a very good circuit, but it didn’t work out with the power supply. He did not have the funds left to purchase a two-kilowatt transformer, and the size and weight characteristics exceeded all reasonable limits. And then it dawned on the man: “Switching power supply.” Despite all the prejudices and forum protests, the power supply was built. And of course it gave excellent results, no voltage drop under load and, despite the crap that we call electricity in our sockets. But, in the end, having discovered high-quality semiconductor ULFs, the lamps were over.

Connoisseurs of Warm Tube Sound recognize only wall-mounted installation. More than once the author has noticed statements that fiberglass spoils the sound, I don’t know about you, but I can’t even imagine this. Printed wiring is evil, it does not breathe and has no soul, and it is also advisable to solder copper, as it was implemented in battery-powered tube radios. Although some logic can be traced here, soldering with ordinary solder has a high contact resistance, which is tens and sometimes hundreds of times higher than the resistance of the printed conductor. So, in essence, soldering with copper is not as such, it is rather welding, the fusion of metals.

So what can we take away from our conversation? Lamps are of course good, they glow beautifully in the dark, they will warm you with real, physical warmth and, in the end, it’s fashionable, cool and, in our time, unusual. In no case will I dissuade you from building a lamp apparatus; on the contrary, it is very interesting and educational. Just remember, there is HIGH VOLTAGE at the anodes of the lamps! It happens that it is much higher than in the electrical network; do not forget to discharge the capacitors in the anode voltage circuit. Also, do not forget about the temperature of vacuum devices, it is high enough to cause burns. But from a practical point of view, for daily home listening, I don’t think this is advisable.

March 6th, 2011 , 09:10 pm

TLZ. As if the devices show that transistor amplifiers are better. But audiophiles praise tube ones.

I once read in one forum that supposedly a considerable part of the TLZ feature is that in tube amplifiers bad connection with speakers on voltage, and more on current. That, supposedly, if you take “tube” speakers and connect them to a transistor amplifier through a ballast of several ohms, you will get a good approximation of TLZ.

If the speaker is driven by current, the inside and outside of the speaker will be more acoustically coupled. In this case, external sounds will be able to resonate with the insides of the speaker, as if it were completely disconnected from the amplifier, but internal reflections will just as easily come out instead of accumulating.

It is clear that in reality there is something in between.

In general, speakers are usually designed on the basis that they will be controlled by voltage, not current. But, on the other hand, if we control the speakers with current, then, although we will get harmonic distortion on the electric filters and the dynamic head, we will reduce the influence of re-reflections, which, in theory, can greatly spoil the impulse response, and even add nonlinearities.

Has anyone looked into this issue? Have you tried driving the speakers with current? Or include a resistor in the circuit, as some advise? How does the sound change?

UPD: “Tube” speakers are speakers intended for use with tube amplifiers, they differ in the type of dependence of the complex electrical resistance on frequency, I don’t remember what exactly the difference is.

UPD2: I took a 3-way speaker and tried to tap the mid-range speaker with the circuit shorted and open. The sound is different. When the circuit is short-circuited, the sound is sharp and elastic, as if knocking on plastic or a tightly stretched rigid film. When open, the sound is also elastic, but soft and lubricated, as if knocking on a tight sofa or hanging carpet.

What will my “author’s column” be about? Yes, about everything related, albeit indirectly, to the world of audio. The word “audiophile”, included in the name of the column, has acquired a clearly abusive connotation in the vastness of the Russian Federation. So to speak, it immediately classifies the holder of such a “title” as a certain minority. Personally, I prefer to use the term “music lover” in relation to myself, but this does not save me from periodic distortions into audiophilia. So, I hope, we will talk about forum celestials, and about warming up interconnect cables, and about the meaning of audiophilia as a phenomenon - perhaps with the involvement of experts (of course, world-famous, and no less) on these issues.

Let’s start a series of revealing materials with a typically “audiophile” topic, namely, with the term “warm tube sound” that has stuck in our teeth, fortunately, these days are hot. Why the sound - I think there is no question. But not everyone understands why it’s warm, and especially why it’s warm. Also, the considerable price tags for equipment with glowing bulbs contribute to the confusion about the warm and (of course) tube sound.

I do not pretend to fully cover this issue, but I hope that readers will glean at least some interesting information from the material.

Let's first turn to an area directly related to music, namely, its recording. It is no secret for musicians that, thanks to various “tube” gadgets, extremely interesting effects can be obtained when these same gadgets are overloaded. But at the final stage they are unlikely to install a lamp - fortunately, recently (about 20 years ago) the recording has been mixed on absolutely soulless computers and along the way it has been run through no less insipid-sounding mixing consoles.

Thus, tubes are used when recording music to introduce some “pleasant” distortion. Let's remember this fact.

However, recorded music must be played back somehow. Let's leave issues of digital-to-analog conversion outside the scope of this material, although it should be noted that some DACs (for example, MHDT Havana) use tubes at the output. Let's look at amplifiers with glowing bulbs. For example, Woo Audio WES for 5 thousand US dollars.

There is no doubt this is a great amplifier. Great amount positive reviews do not allow me to doubt this, and I will not play “tear the covers off”, I will simply recommend looking at the picture. In my opinion, it's a beautiful thing. By the way, the connectors on it are designed for Stax and Sennheiser Orpheus headphones, which cost comparable and big money. You can also purchase various upgrades for this engineering marvel, for example, the right capacitors ($1,280) and 50-year lamps (4 pieces for $520, one-year warranty).

Why is all this needed, and most importantly, how are such wonderful lamps found that should sound good and at the same time cost as much as a good mp3 player? In the article about the GAME card amplifier, I wrote that the music lover’s movement essentially has no end - you can always change something in your system, and thanks to the wide selection of components in the low, mid, high, and for what in general there is so much money” segments – the range is very wide.

I hope the attentive reader follows my thoughts. So, the fact that lamps introduce distortion, and this is used in the recording process, is an obvious fact. Also, software and hardware solutions based on transistors that are comparable in cost do not provide such color.

Now let's combine all of the above. If the recording may already have warmth and tube-like quality, is it worth further distorting the sound? At first glance, definitely not, because it is widely known that the so-called. “Audiophiles” do not strive for stronger distortion, but, on the contrary, for higher fidelity (hence the well-known and vulgarized abbreviation hi-fi by marketers). But let’s not lie – there can’t be so many on the market various devices, each providing the best sound quality. Yes, various discussions are possible here about what exactly is considered the “best” quality, and what, on the contrary, is a stronger embellishment. The emotional aspect is often put at the forefront, namely, so that a lovingly selected combination of audio components brings joy and positive vibrations when listening to your favorite music. If you don’t go deep into replacing interconnect wires, modifying headphones and acoustics, correct phasing of the plug, power conditioners, then the easiest way is to change the amplifier or its components.

Yes, you can also change your headphones (or speakers). The question is - why do this if the sound as a whole is satisfactory, but the current sound style is somewhat boring? So to speak, you can paint your life with new colors. Of course, the inquisitive reader will say, you can use VST plug-ins that programmatically “decorate” the sound even in a gray-brown-crimson color. But what should people do who do not want to use a computer as the main source and buy licensed discs the old fashioned way, listening to them on expensive audio players (for example, Accuphase DP-510 for 6 thousand US dollars)? And let’s not forget that a lamp is an analog element, which is difficult to emulate in software and not very promising.

But even if you are not yet “ripe” before purchasing a high-quality sound source, you can always connect the amplifier to a laptop or built-in sound card. You don’t need any special headphones; inexpensive “Fishers” and some “Sennheisers” will do.

So all that remains is to choose a tube amplifier and the right set of tubes for it; fortunately, some models allow you to replace them without much difficulty. Let's say, the inexpensive (only $200) Laconic HA-06 is quite suitable for experiments:

By the way, this is a Russian development that is also being promoted on the Western market, seemingly with some success, and this is encouraging.

Yes, all these amplifiers produce distortion in the sound. Let's take a break. There is such a wonderful science called “psychoacoustics”, the tasks of which, among other things, are to create more and more advanced algorithms for masking artifacts in compressed recordings. Simply put, the difference between MP3-like recordings and CDs is gradually disappearing. Yes, now records that were once described as being of CD quality are no longer perceived so well. And modern codecs, say, AAC, no longer allow more and more respondents to distinguish CDs from MP3s in blind tests. And here the psychological factor comes to the rescue; I have repeatedly read and observed from my own experience that long-term listening to MP3 is more tiring than listening to a CD. Although, I repeat, with a fleeting comparison the difference may not be noticeable.

Do you think this could happen with “cold transistor” sound? Why not? But a simple argument comes to the aid of “digital” apologists - they say, the lamp “smears the sound.” You can’t argue against this, the transistor is “faster”. However, by choosing the right amplifier, you can “touch up” the sound without losing much in dynamics. Expensive models are almost completely free from the disease of “stringy” sound. Let's say the author of this article had the opportunity to compare a tube and transistor amplifier from STAX. Yes, the “tube” plays a little less “fast”, but in combination with the “fast” STAX headphones you hardly notice this. Therefore, I don’t have any prejudices regarding the “warm tube sound”, everyone selects the sound they want to get and does it the way they want to do it.

Of course, we should not forget about the possible placebo effect. Believing that there are changes, especially if they are noticeable only over a long period of time, is not so difficult. But sometimes it’s more pleasant to see a carrot in front of your nose and trail behind it than to be kicked by a boot and move in the right direction. So dreams of the “right” sound probably help many people somehow escape from life’s troubles and immerse themselves in an illusory world. But don’t all one hundred percent of the world’s population do this?

I would also like to add that in my materials I do not focus the reader’s attention on subtle nuances, as well as on details that I am not sure about. What is important, in my opinion, are those moments that are heard almost immediately. Some details emerge during prolonged listening and form the final assessment, but I won’t risk listening to, say, the results of the warm-up - the gap between listening is too long, it’s easy to make a mistake in the assessment.

So don’t worry, I won’t overload my articles with subtle matters. As for the “warm tube sound”, this is far from the monster it is portrayed as on various sites. But I wouldn’t recommend buying some hand-assembled “lamp” from a shaggy year of manufacture and drawing conclusions from it about all products with lamps inside. Ruin the whole impression for yourself. These are toys for those who know why they should play.

Finally, I note that for the first time at the end of the article I add the address of my Email and twitter - write what you would like to read in future issues. I hope that communication in this “live” format will be productive.

Ilya Tarakanov (

About the “warm” tube sound June 27th, 2017

What is tube sound? There are many myths about it, and fierce disputes, and honest attempts to figure it out. I’ll try to explain it as simply as possible, so that non-engineers can understand what I’m talking about. And quite figuratively speaking, tube sound is something like film photography. On the one hand, there is simply a certain stage in the development of technology, where each subsequent one, as a rule, is more perfect than the previous one. For example, it is difficult for a digital photographer to imagine the problem of calculating the amount of film needed for a shoot. One cassette contained only 36 frames of film. Ten cassettes are already a bag, but there are only 360 photographs, and until the moment of development you don’t know what you got. And the development and printing themselves were a non-trivial problem. “Digital” radically simplified everything and technologically gave the photographer opportunities that even professionals could only dream of in the film era. But on the other hand, for some reason “filters” are very popular for giving a “digital” photo a “film” look. What's the matter? Why and why do people spoil technically “more advanced” shots?

The point here is that man (for now) is an analog system, full of distortions and conventions, just like the rest of the world around us. If we perceive something as “discrete”, “symmetrical” and “refined”, then we subconsciously do not “believe” it. For us it becomes “imitation” or “non-living”. And it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about glossy “club mulls”, digital photos or transistor sound. We can hardly express the feeling that arises, but we clearly feel the “wrongness” of the right. And so, for example, feminine beauty a la Playboy of the 60s, with age you begin to appreciate much more similar options from the 2000s (if only because you already know exactly what happens in reality). The same thing happens with sound, with color, with taste. Everywhere, the majority subconsciously like the noisy and incorrect things more than the refined ones. This is how we are made.

But let's return to the “tube” sound. Amplifiers built on tubes, during their operation, objectively introduce significantly “more” measurable distortions into the original signal, consume more electricity, heat up more, are less powerful, are more difficult to operate and require regular replacement (adjustment) of the tubes. But at the same time, compared to “transistors,” tube sound is perceived better. Why?
The answer is simple: “tube” sound: even distorted, it is more reminiscent in nature to natural, recognizable by “our” senses, and the rest is easily corrected by our adaptive perception. Moreover, to what extent, from a “rational” point of view, the tube sound is “worse”, and its “warmth” is fictitious, can be seen here:

The author explains everything very well and theoretically correctly. Competently and convincingly. But it has about the same relation to real life as mathematics. On the one hand, she is the queen of sciences, and on the other, Gödel’s Theorem of Incompleteness and the impossibility of describing sensory perception using mathematics.

So how does a tube amplifier work? Why do they continue to “rush around” with it, although, from a technological point of view, it certainly loses to the “transistor” in almost everything?

Firstly, the “tube” is capable of squeezing the entire dynamic range of the signal into a certain framework, without “cutoff”. Probably everyone has heard how strange “cymbals” sound through a transistor amplifier? Why is that? Whatever the range of the transistor amplifier, the original signal will still be wider. Therefore, “transistors”, everything that does not fit into the range of the amplifier, is cut off and then they work with the “castled” signal, which is why the unnatural sound of “cymbals” or plucked ones in modern technology arises. In such a situation, a “lamp” behaves fundamentally differently, and although its range, as a rule, is much narrower, it is capable of “squeezing” (carrying out a kind of analogue compression of the audio signal) the entire range into the existing framework. The result is a “dense” “juicy” sound, reminiscent in nature of a “real” sound, although, in a mathematical sense, highly distorted.

Secondly, "lamp" does not disassemble the whole into its components, so that after strengthening it can be put back together “approximately” as it was. Instead, she works with the signal "in general". Yes, objectively, the “lamp” distorts the signal more strongly, but at the same time maintaining its fundamental nature, whereas with transistor amplification at the output the signal has a different (in terms of “harmonics”) “nature”. Therefore, although in a mathematical sense, the “transistor” signal is closer to the original, our senses will perceive its greater “distortion”

Third, we live in a digital, discrete world, but our senses are still “analog” and operate on “continuous” signals. A discrete signal from a file, having undergone conversion to

Their signal contains a small number of harmonics (the second, third and fourth are dominant), which is why a “softer” sound is observed, or, as it is often called, “warm”, “tube”.

A number of authors believe that the cause of the “transistor” sound is not the transistor itself, but negative feedback, which is characteristic of the circuitry of transistor amplifiers. This argument is very controversial, since a significant part of tube amplifiers (and almost all industrially manufactured ones) also have OOS.

Strictly speaking, adherents of “tube sound” adhere to different points of view on this topic: scientific and esoteric. Supporters of the scientific point of view argue their arguments by the physical features of signal amplification by electrovacuum and semiconductor devices. Supporters of the esoteric point of view, as a rule, ignore the physical features of amplification devices, and argue the advantages of “tube sound” by appealing to auditory experience and musical preferences.

Having experienced an unprecedented rise in popularity in the 90s - 2000s, “tube sound” is now going through hard times and its future is very vague.

Scientific rationale and criticism

Recognizing the obsolescence of electronic tubes as amplification devices, the large weight and size characteristics and low energy efficiency of tube devices, supporters of “tube sound” usually put forward the following arguments in favor of the superiority of amplifiers vacuum tubes:

Electronic tubes, especially triodes, have a very wide linear section of the current-voltage characteristic, which makes it possible to avoid negative feedback alternating current or reduce its depth. Transistors, especially bipolar ones, have greater nonlinearity, which is why they are most often used in audio equipment with a negative feedback(OOS) either with local OOS covering one stage, but, as a rule, with general OOS covering the entire amplifier.
The current-voltage characteristic of electron tubes is practically independent of the ambient temperature (since the temperature of the heated cathode is significantly higher), therefore they do not require deep DC feedback to stabilize the cascade mode.
The presence of negative feedback in the amplifier leads to distortion of the dynamic characteristics of the signals, which is especially noticeable when playing drums and stringed instruments. In this regard, tube amplifiers, which are usually built without OOS, have advantages.
Electron tubes, especially pentodes (beam tetrodes), are characterized by very high gains, which makes it possible to build amplifiers with a small number of stages (2 - 3), which reduces the overall level of distortion.
Tube amplifiers almost always use an output transformer, the use of which makes it possible to optimally match the final stage with the load and thereby reduce the level of distortion introduced final cascade. The exception is tube headphone amplifiers with relatively high impedance, which do not require an output transformer.
Lower level of intermodulation distortion. From the point of view of tube sound proponents, intermodulation distortion is a key disadvantage of transistor amplifiers.

Opponents of tube sound provide counterarguments to each argument:

Transistors do not have such a long linear section of the current-voltage characteristic, but can operate at lower voltage amplitudes than triodes, which eliminates this disadvantage of transistors.
The temperature regime can also be stabilized for the transistor cascade using a cooling system.
There is also no fundamental need for OOS in transistor amplifiers. It’s just that the circuitry of tube stages was developed back in the 20s and 30s, when the theory of environmental feedback was not yet sufficiently developed. Transistor circuitry arose later and already applied all the knowledge of OOS theory. However, transistor (especially field-effect transistor) cascades without OOS are quite functional.
Pentodes and beam tetrodes are characterized by high gain, but their linearity is much worse than that of transistors. Therefore, lovers of “tube sound” rarely use multi-grid tubes in their designs or use them in triode connection. And triodes have significantly lower gains than transistors.
There are no fundamental restrictions on the use of the output transformer in transistor amplifiers. Moreover, transistor amplifiers with output transformers are manufactured by amateurs and mass-produced.
The theory of intermodulation distortion appeared after the end of the era of tube audio technology and is currently being actively developed specifically for transistor amplifiers. For tube amplifiers, this issue has practically not been studied. Therefore, it is almost impossible to compare tube and transistor amplifiers according to this criterion.

Additionally, the following disadvantages of vacuum tube amplifiers are indicated:

Main currents and branches

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, “tube sound” can be considered a well-known phenomenon. Tube amplifiers are produced around the world using both classical and new circuitry, new literature on tube circuitry is published, and there are Internet resources devoted to this topic. However, the environment of fans of “tube sound” is heterogeneous, just as the types of tube audio equipment are not homogeneous. Therefore, here we should highlight a number of main ideological trends and branches from them.

Commercial sales

In the 90s of the 20th century, a number of companies were created in various countries, primarily in Japan, the USA, Germany and Russia, and later in Taiwan and China, specializing in the production of tube sound equipment and acoustic systems for it. These products are produced in various editions and have a wide range of prices, from low-cost solutions from Chinese manufacturers (in particular under the Music Angel brand) to piece products costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, for example Ongaku from AudioNote (Japan). To equip such products with electronic tubes, the production facilities of a number of factories, including Svetlana Production Association, were re-launched. The development of new types of vacuum devices began, for example the SV572 lamp. The global economic crisis of 2008 greatly reduced the demand for such ultra-expensive products. In addition, a number of manufacturers of elite semiconductor equipment have launched fundamentally new products on the market, the sound quality is significantly superior to tube ones, and consumers themselves, having actually encountered “tube sound” and realizing that, by and large, there is nothing outstanding in it, began to lose he's interested. As a result, many manufacturers of new lamp equipment went bankrupt or re-profiled. The production of electronic tubes also came to a complete decline. Their new types were never mass-produced. The future of this industry is very unclear. It is quite possible that after a certain period of time there will be another surge of interest in “tube sound”, but it is most likely that this will not happen, since the interest of the 90s - 2000s was, for the most part, fueled by a generation of people who We still found the “lamp era”. The scarcity of vintage components also calls into question the possibility of commercial success of lamp projects in the future.

Hi-End

Representatives of this direction consider tube amplifier systems as a means of achieving best quality sound reproduction. However, this flow is also heterogeneous and a number of branches can be distinguished in it, differing mainly in the criteria for the quality of sound reproduction. What should be understood here is not the numerical values of quality indicators, but the set of these indicators itself. In particular, a number of sound engineering designers (for example, Yu. A. Makarov) prioritize such factors as the reduced rate of rise of the output signal voltage and the value of its lowest cutoff frequency, as well as the output resistance (the so-called dumping factor). Other authors (for example, Japanese: H. Kondo, S. Sakuma) pay more attention to the harmonic composition of the output signal. At the same time, almost all followers of the Hi-End direction agree that the power of the output signal is not the determining factor.

Representatives of this direction mainly develop the circuitry of single-cycle output stages, but there are also adherents of push-pull ones. However, in practice, representatives of this direction adhere to the presumption of objective characteristics over subjective assessments. This, in particular, determines the choice of lamps and other components not according to the sound signature, but according to instrumental research data.

Quite often, developments made by representatives of this direction are sold (including at auctions) or given to order. But, more often than not, these are designs that their authors implement for themselves and do not plan for their commercial success. In the vast majority of cases, after they are put into operation, devices are continuously upgraded by their authors.

"Warm Sound"

Representatives of this trend do not a priori renounce high fidelity of sound reproduction, but at the same time believe that the main task of the equipment is to involve people in the music. This determines the basic approach to the construction of equipment by representatives of this direction - components are selected not only according to technical characteristics, but by “sound”. At the same time, authors often use components, for example, radio tubes, in modes other than those recommended, often exceeding the maximum permissible parameters.

This direction also has a number of branches. Often representatives of this trend, misunderstanding the physical and psychoacoustic features of “tube sound,” begin to use their lamps in those units of audio equipment where the use of lamps either does not affect the passage of signals at all audio frequency(for example, in power supply stabilizers for incandescent circuits of other amplifier lamps), or where the use of lamps is impractical due to high level microphone effect, and their linearity does not play any role (for example, in the input stages of microsignal circuits: RIAA correctors, tape recorder playback amplifiers). There are also completely absurd solutions, such as using tube signal generators to clock digital devices, for example, CD players. As a rule, such solutions are proposed by technically incompetent authors.

There are also radical movements, whose representatives completely ignore the circuitry aspects of using lamps and other components, putting the subjective listening experience in first place. These individuals operate with such pseudoscientific concepts as “directionality of the conductor.” Among representatives of the radical movement, vintage electronic components produced in the 20s and 30s by such companies as Western Electric, Klangfilm, Telefunken and others are popular, as they supposedly have “an exceptional ability to involve people in music.” "and "transmission of emotions without loss or distortion." These authors and their fans try to mask their technical incompetence with their “fine ear for music,” “dedication,” and other subjectivist arguments.

Amateur radio designs

Amateur radio tube audio devices are usually created for the purpose of experimentation - “a touch of history” or obtaining tube sound - “for a reasonable price”. This direction is popular all over the world. It is also important that the amateur construction of a tube amplifier is much simpler in terms of circuit design compared to semiconductor devices, which require a much larger number of elements and accurate calculation of all circuits, which is often a determining factor for a radio amateur. Often characteristics homemade devices very modest compared not only to factory Hi-End tube amplifiers, but also to similar homemade amplifiers based on semiconductor devices. Often radio amateurs set themselves the task of creating a circuitry original design, without much regard for sound quality: for example, with control of the pentode not according to the first, but according to the second grid or, for example, a circlotron or the use of an electronic light indicator (“magic eye”) as an amplification lamps.

Since the mid-1990s, Russian radio amateur A. I. Manakov (known in the amateur radio community as Gegan) published a description of a number of amateur amplifiers using vacuum tubes, built according to circuits that are very different from the classical ones and have quite high performance. Outside the Internet community, these designs were popularized in M. V. Toropkin’s book “Do-It-Yourself Tube Hi-Fi Amplifier.”

In 2005, interest in simple amateur tube designs was fueled by the publication in the magazine “Radio” of a series of articles by S. N. Komarov, dedicated to the circuitry of push-pull amplifiers. After this series of articles, publications in the Radio magazine dedicated to tube audio engineering became regular.

It should be noted that interest in homemade tube devices in the mid-2000s caused a rapid increase in prices for vacuum tubes, transformers, winding wire, vintage speakers and other related products. As a result of this, and also due to the fact that all these products have not been mass-produced for a long time and have become scarce, in the early 2010s, interest in tube circuitry among radio amateurs fell again. The decline in interest was also contributed by the fact that it is practically impossible to create fundamentally new circuit solutions using vacuum tubes. Therefore, many technical forums on “tube sound”, popular in the mid-2000s, have either already been abandoned by users, or have been repurposed for aesthetic, esoteric and commercial-consumer topics, or have turned into message boards.

Vintage audio equipment

A number of tube sound lovers prefer only serial vintage equipment produced during the heyday of tube circuitry. Usually amateurs fall into this category musical works past years (30s - 60s of the twentieth century). Their main argument, in general terms, is: “music from the 60s should be listened to on equipment from the 60s.” Representatives of this direction usually do not modernize equipment and limit themselves only to its repair.