Amps that sound like "Tube Amps?"

[turbokuo]

I've been reading reviews on certain amps/integrated amps and some reviewers have used the term, "sounds like a tube amp."

What are the sound qualities of a tube amp that make them better than non tube amps?

[sugarmedia]

The sound. Sorry, that's the best, most concise answer.

For anyone who may be interested, a little fine reading on tubes!

http://home.comcast.net/~enghenry/diy/taste.pdf

(you'll nead acrobat reader, but can download it for free)

Check out Musical Fidelity. I just bought the A5's

[js24]

Anything that's class A or
Mcintosh, (I wish I could afford one)
MF A5 is a good compromise if you are budget minded

[DanR]

Tube amps are often said to have very realistic mid-range and sweet/warm highs. No edge or harshness up top. However, they tend to suffer in the bass dept. as well as power output. Using a tubed pre-amp with a solid state amp is the best and most affordable way to get a tubelike sound with the advantages of solid state power(bass, output)

[captzerg]

What is the advantage of having a tubed CD player? T+A has their new V Series SACD/CD that I would like to demo and it has tubes.

http://www.taelektroakustik.de/eng/ta2/allgem/neuheiten.htm

But since it is going through my amplifier that doesn't have tubes would the amp cancel out the warmth of the tubed CD player?

[rolski]

IMHO you should do a little web-research as it's commonly recognised that tubes, due to their nature, introduce distortion during amplification. Not the kind of screeching distortion that puts your teeth on edge, but the kind that changes & smooths (=distorts) a signal. Hence the "warm-sound" comments.

www.audioholics.com is a great source of technically-based HiFi info and makes great reading on such subjects.

The aim of an amplifier is to amplify - without introducing distortion - so it all depends on what your eventual goal is with your HiFi. The same is true of speakers - some are much "smoother" or "more relaxing" to listen to than others - because of their design.

I'm firmly in the camp of "if it's on the disc - then I want to hear it - good and bad" for better or for worse - that's why I've gone for B&W speakers & TAG-McLaren-Audio players, processing & amplification !

[Stockinv]

Tube Amps

I notice that tube amps have much lower power specs (watts) than SS.
I'll see many SS amps with 200w,300w and more. However tube amps are usually 100w or less. How do the two equate? Is a 100w tube amp as powerful as a 200w SS? Or are we talking apples and oranges here?

[sugarmedia]

Read the .pdf article I attached in my earlier post. It's all in there. There's even some pictures for those that don't like to read.

Btw...Tube CD players such as the Musical Fidelity A5, produce some of the best sound I've heard.

[tmt]

I'm also concidering a tube cd-player.
The Audioaero Capitole MK II has it's own tube pre-amplifier. The latest revision now has 3 inputs so it can also act as a pre-amp for other stuff.

At $5000 (I think MSRP is $7000) it's very expensive for 'only' a cd player, but it's supposably one of the best sounding cd players out there, regardless of what kind of amplifier you connect to it.