Tube sound

This article uses the term tube amplifier, also known as a valve amplifier.

Vacuum tubes glowing inside the preamp section of a modern guitar amplifier.

Tube sound (or valve sound) is the characteristic sound associated with a vacuum tube-based audio amplifier. Some audiophiles prefer the sound that is produced by the characteristics of tube-based amplifiers. The audible significance of tube amplification on audio signals is a subject of continuing debate among audiophiles.

Some electric guitar, electric bass, and keyboard players in a range of popular, rock, funk, blues, reggae and jazz genres also prefer the sound of tube instrument amplifiers or preamplifiers.

History

Before the commercial introduction of transistors in the 1950s, electronic amplifiers used vacuum tubes (known in Great Britain as "valves"). By the 1960s, solid state (transistorized) amplification had become more common because of its smaller size, lighter weight, lower heat production, and improved reliability. Tube amplifiers have retained a loyal following amongst some audiophiles and musicians. Some tube designs command very high prices, and tube amplifiers have been going through a revival since Chinese and Russian markets have opened to global trade—tube production never went out of vogue in these countries.

Sound reproduction

Some audiophiles prefer the sound produced with tube amplifiers on the grounds that it is more natural and satisfying than the sound from typical transistor amplifiers. Typically, in sound reproduction systems, accurate reproduction of the sound of the original recording is the goal; gross distortion is something designers do not deliberately seek to introduce. At the upper end of audio systems ("high end" or "audiophile" systems) it is debated (but only by the frequently-cited 'audiophiles') whether "accuracy" can best be described by measuring a "wide frequency response" and "low measured distortion levels" or whether highest quality reproduction is subjectively determined by listening alone. The very significant profits available by selling this remarkably highly-priced equipment make it difficult to find an honest reporter.

Musical instrument amplification

Some musicians also prefer the distortion characteristics of tubes over transistors for electric guitar, bass, and other instrument amplifiers. In this case, generating deliberate (and sometimes considerable, in the case of electric guitars) audible distortion or overdrive is usually the goal. The term can also be used to describe the sound created by specially-designed transistor amplifiers or digital modeling devices that try to closely emulate the characteristics of the tube sound.

See also: Guitar effects

See also: Distortion (guitar)

The tube sound is often subjectively described by uncritical listeners (that is, not audio professionals) as having a "warmth" and "richness", but the source of this is by no means agreed on. It may be due to the non-linear clipping that occurs with tube amps, or due to the higher levels of second-order harmonic distortion, common in single-ended designs resulting from the characteristics of the tube interacting with the inductance of the output transformer.

Some tube fans attribute the alleged "naturalness" of the perceived sound to be due to the reduced number of components used by tube amplifiers. This is especially so for single-ended triode amplifiers (SET). These are said to reduce the "smearing" of the sound; reducing the imperfections invariably introduced by each electronic component. Much emphasis is placed on phase linearity, and typical distortion figures up to 10% are ignored. This alleged 'minimalism' is not solely the domain of tube amplifiers; there are some transistor amplifiers producing results that are similar. The JFET, for example, behaves much like a triode in its "ohmic" region.

Audible differences

Audiophiles may prefer the alleged 'sound' of tubes over solid state devices such as transistors. This 'sound' is partly a function of the circuit topologies typically used with tubes versus the topologies typically used with transistors, as much as the gain devices themselves. Beyond circuit design, there are other differences such as the electronic characteristics of a triode and MOSFET, or a tetrode and a bipolar transistor.

Some sonic qualities are easy to explain objectively based on an analysis of the distortion characteristics of the gain device and/or the circuit topology. For example, the triode SE gain stage produces a stereotypical monotonically decaying harmonic distortion spectrum that is dominated by significant second-order harmonics making the sound seem "rich" or even "fat" .

However, other audible differences in sound have proven difficult to define or measure, and it is difficult to explain these sound differences in words as the vocabulary available to describe sound is rather limited—even though the underlying sonic effects may be real. Audiophiles often use words like warm, liquid, smooth and mid-range magic to describe the sound from tube amplifiers; it is apparent that these are not quantitatively-based descriptions. Many audio professionals simply regard the effects of the use of tubes as 'distortion' - which can be used creatively in some scenarios; however it is difficult to have a dialog between the two opposing sides in this area, as one side simply rejects quantitative measurement as having any relevance.

Others claim that the mid-range reproduction is smoother {with tube amplifiers, but that high frequencies are somewhat rolled off. Historically this was often the case due to limitations in capacitor performance. Modern audiophile-grade tube amplifiers however, using modern and high quality capacitors can have frequency response that are essentially flat to octaves beyond the audio range: −3 dB above 85 kHz is quite common (though of arguable utility) .

Similarly, audiophiles might characterize "tube sound" as bass response with less power or less definition (perhaps even "sloppy" bass or a bass boom with some speakers), whereas many more critical listeners (for example, recording studio and radio engineers) may disagree. This 'roll-off' again can be explained by many tube amplifiers having high output impedance compared to transistor designs, due to the combination of both higher device impedance itself and typically reduced feedback margins (more feedback results in a lower output impedance).

A hypothetical amplifier design in two otherwise equal variants with just different amounts of feedback, might(?) result in the higher feedback version having a "drier" mid-range (due to reduced second-order harmonics due to greater reduction of distortion) but a "tighter" bass due lower output impedance. The speaker impedance divided by the Z out is sometimes referred to as the "damping factor"—the amplifier's ability to control the mechanical movement of the speaker.

In general terms, the sound from a tube amplifier will typically have a 'softer' attack and the bass frequencies will be more prominent, giving a warmer and less "harsh" sound and perhaps less realism . Instruments such as pianos and vocals sound softer and fatter when compared against transistor amplifiers, which present a more realistic result (which is often not preferred by the uncritical listener). The reasons for these effects are not simply related to the gain device type; today an amplifier designer using either technology may make synergistic design compromise choices. Sonic differences are less stereotyped than they used to be as a result.

Harmonic content and distortion

Triodes (and MOSFETs) produce a monotonically decaying harmonic distortion spectrum. Psychoacoustic phenomena include the effect that the stronger, lower harmonic products tend to dominate and mask the sound of the weaker, higher harmonic products. Even-order harmonics sound as musical chords (notably octaves), which subjectively makes the sound "richer". Odd-order harmonics sound less pleasant. Inharmonic distortion is discordant and is often implicated in designs that sound "brash", "harsh", "brittle", etc.

Push-pull amplifiers use two nominally identical gain devices "back to back". One consequence of this is that all even-order harmonic products cancel, leaving the—subjectively less musical, less "rich"—odd order products to dominate. The total (measured) harmonic distortion content is lowered, but subjectively the design may sound worse. A push-pull amplifier is said to have a symmetric (odd symmetry) transfer characteristic, and accordingly produces only odd harmonics.

A single-ended amplifier has an asymmetric transfer characteristic, and produces both even and odd harmonics. As tubes are often run single-ended, and semiconductor amplifiers are often push-pull, the types of distortion are incorrectly attributed to the devices (or even the amplifier class) instead of the topology. Push-pull tube amplifiers can be run in class A, AB, or B. Also, a class AB amplifier may have crossover distortion that will be typically inharmonic and thus sonically very undesirable indeed.

Another factor is that the distortion content of class A circuits (SE or PP) typically monotonically reduces as the signal level is reduced, asymptotic to zero during quiet passages of music. For this reason class A amplifiers are especially desired for classical and acoustic music etc. cf. class B and AB amplifiers, for which the amplitude of the crossover distortion is more or less constant, and thus the distortion relative to signal in fact increases as the music gets quieter. Class A amplifiers measure best at low power, class AB and B amplifiers measure best just below max rated power.

Loudspeakers present a reactive load to an amplifier (capacitance, inductance and resistance). This impedance may vary in value with signal frequency and amplitude. This variable loading affects the amplifier's performance both because the amplifier has finite output impedance (it cannot keep its output voltage perfectly constant when the speaker load varies) and because the phase of the speaker load can change the stability margin of the amplifier. The influence of the speaker impedance is different between tube amplifiers and transistor amplifiers, principally because tube amplifiers normally use output transformers and they tend to use low feedback.

The design of speaker crossover networks and other electro-mechanical properties may result in a speaker with a very uneven impedance curve, for a nominal 8 Ω speaker, being as low as 6 Ω at some places and as high as 30–50 Ω elsewhere in the curve. An amplifier with little or no feedback will always perform poorly when faced with a speaker where little attention was paid to the impedance curve.

Design comparison

There has been considerable debate over the characteristics of tubes versus bipolar junction transistors. Some audiophiles have argued that the quadratic transconductance of tubes compared with the exponential transconductance of transistors is an important factor. This has not been proven.

Some audiophiles argue that devices are not as important as circuit topology. Triodes and MOSFETs have certain similarities in their transfer characteristics, whereas later forms of the tube, the tetrode and pentode, have quite different characteristics that are in some ways similar to the bipolar transistor. Despite this, eg MOSFET amplifier circuits typically do not reproduce tube sound any more than typical bipolar designs, due to the circuit topology differences between a typical tube design and a typical MOSFET design. But there are always exceptions: for example some very interesting designs such as the Zen series by Nelson Pass which can be found on the web.

Input impedance

A characteristic feature of most tube amplifier designs is the high input impedance (typically 100 kΩ or more) in modern designs and as much as 1 MΩ in classic designs. The input impedance of the amplifier is a load for the source device. Even for some modern music reproduction devices the recommended load impedance is over 50 kΩ. This implies that the input of an average tube amplifier is a problem-free load for music signal sources. By contrast, some transistor amplifiers for home use have lower input impedances, as low as 15 kΩ.

Soft clipping

Soft clipping is a very important aspect of tube sound especially for guitar amplifiers, although a Hi-fi amplifier should not normally ever be driven into clipping. A tube amplifier will reproduce a wave relatively linearly to a point, and as the signal moves beyond the linear range of the tube (into overload), it distorts the signal with a smooth curve instead of a sudden, sharp-edged cutoff (or even ringing and/or lockup) as occurs with transistors. The harmonics added to the signal are of lower energy with soft clipping than hard clipping. However, soft clipping is not exclusive to tubes, it can be simulated in transistor circuits (below the point that real hard clipping would occur); see section "Intentional creation of distortion" below.

Note also that tube circuits often have huge headroom (overload) margins due to the high voltages they run from, so hard clipping is in reality very rare in a tube stage itself. However core saturation in the output transformer may be "designed in" to some guitar amplifiers when driven hard, and/or the tube biasing may be designed so that the tube passes from class AB₁ to class AB₂ and starts to draw grid current etc. (these effects are perhaps beyond the scope of this article)

Circuit design may also play an important role in the tube sound; tube circuits are often less complex and laid out differently. It is argued that simplicity is usually best, as the length and complexity can change the inductance and capacitance of a circuit. A more complex circuit will have a more complex sonic distortion characteristic. Minimalist DH-SEs for example typically have a dominant very simple harmonic distortion spectrum. Complex modern transistor designs often have low level but extremely complex harmonic distortion spectra.

In recording industry and especially with microphone amplifiers it has been shown that amplifiers are often overloaded by signal transients. There is a major difference in the harmonic distortion components of the amplified signal, with tubes, transistors, and operational amplifiers separating into distinct groups.

Bandwidth

Early tube amplifiers often had limited response bandwidth, in part due to the characteristics of the inexpensive passive components then available. In power amplifiers most limitations come from the output transformer; low frequencies are limited by transformer core saturation and high frequencies by winding inductance and capacitance. Another limitation is in the combination of high output impedance, decoupling capacitor and grid resistor, which acts as a high-pass filter. If interconnections are made from long cable (for example guitar to amp), tube input impedance with cable capacitance acts as a low-pass filter. However, modern premium components make it easy to produce amplifiers that are essentially flat over the audio band, with less than 3 dB attenuation at 6 Hz and 70 kHz, well outside the audible range.

Negative feedback

Tube amplifiers could not use as much negative feedback (NFB) as transistor amplifiers due to the large phase shifts caused by the output transformers and their lower stage gains. While the absence of NFB greatly increases harmonic distortion, it avoids instability, as well as slew rate and bandwidth limitations imposed by dominant-pole compensation in transistor amplifiers. Since transient intermodulation distortion was mainly caused by negative feedback, tube sound never suffered much of that kind of distortion.

Power supplies

Early tube amplifiers usually used unregulated power supplies. This was due to the high cost associated with high-quality high-voltage power supplies. The typical anode supply was simply a rectifier, an inductor and a filter capacitor. When the tube amplifier was operated at high volume, the power supply voltage would dip as the amplifier draws more current, reducing power output and causing signal modulation. This dipping effect is known as "sag", which may be preferable to some electric guitarists when compared with hard clipping. Electric guitar amplifiers are almost invariably using a class AB₁ amplifier, whereas in a class A stage the average current drawn from the supply is constant with signal level, and consequently does not cause supply line sag, until the clipping point is reached.

In contrast, modern amplifiers often use high-quality, well-regulated power supplies. In theory, the output voltage remains constant, but in reality it never does—not least due to resistive losses in the cabling from the power supply to the gain stage. This problem is proportionately much worse in transistor amplifiers because they operate at low voltage and high current, whereas tube voltage amplification stages operate at low currents and high voltages. Ohmic losses are a function of current through resistance.

Tube versus solid state rectification

Blackheart 5 W single-ended class 'A' guitar amplifier chassis, with additional GZ34 valve rectifier installed.

Some high end tube amplifier designs also include vacuum tube rectifier circuits instead of modern silicon diode or bridge rectifier circuits. A cheap solid state rectifier does introduce audible noise into the circuit. Audibility of the effects is disputed by many. In unregulated power supplies the switching noise from silicon diodes can affect the amplifier's performance by introducing noise into the high voltage circuit. In guitar amplifiers, tube rectification is used in order to intentionally cause the high voltage supply to sag in order to add distortion and compress the output signal.

The practical advantage to tube rectification is that the cheap rectifier tubes require some time to warm up before they begin to conduct. This gives the time for the heaters in the output tubes to warm up as well and therefore extend their lifespan. If the high voltage supply is brought up too quickly, the cathodes might be damaged. Some high end manufacturers, such as Welborne Labs in their premium kits, feature ultra-fast soft-recovery silicon diodes bridged by snubber networks on the basis that the cost and power required to operate a vacuum tube rectifier does not yield any measurable improvement in the sound.

Class A

The special feature of all Class A amplifiers is the absolute absence of crossover distortion (which is substituted with non-linear higher harmonic distortion, q.v.). The crossover distortion was found especially annoying after first silicon-transistor Class B and Class AB transistor amplifiers arrived to consumer markets; the earlier germanium-based designs with the much lower turn-on voltage of this technology and the non=linear respose curves of the devices had not shown large amounts of cross-over distortion. Although crossover distortion is sound degrading and perceptible in listening tests, it is also almost invisible in normal and often cited Total harmonic distortion (THD) measurements.

Push-pull amplifiers

A Class A push-pull amplifier produces low distortion for any given level of applied feedback, and also cancels the flux in the transformer cores, so this topology is seen by some as the ultimate "engineering" approach to the tube Hi-fi amplifier for use with normal speakers. Output power of as high as 15 watts can be achieved even with classic tubes such as the 2A3 or 18 watts from the type 45. Classic pentodes such as the EL34 and KT88 can output as much as 60 and 100 watts respectively. Special types such as the V1505 can be used in designs rated at up to 1100 watts. See "An Approach to Audio Frequency Design", a collection of reference designs originally published by G.E.C.

Single-Ended Triode (SET) amplifiers

SET amplifiers typically show poor measurements for distortion with a resistive load, have low output power, are inefficient, have poor damping factors and high measured harmonic distortion. But they perform very well in dynamic and impulse response. Also, SET-amplifiers already sound very well at low power levels without the perceived need for higher sound levels like transistor amplifiers often do.

The triode, despite being the oldest signal amplification device, also has the most linear transfer characteristic. However no amplification device has a sufficiently linear characteristic for acceptable distortion performance unless it is linearised by the use of negative feedback. The low gain of a single triode makes it impossible to use more than a minimal level of negative feedback and so THD levels of a few percent are the rule in this type of amplifier. NFB is used in most post 1950s amplifiers and although it usually reduces the measured distortion level, if poorly implemented it results in an unpleasant combination of harmonics to some ears; this is not the case with a competent implementation.

Audiophiles who prefer SET-amplifiers state that measured sound performance is a poor indicator of real world sound performance and distortion level is not the only criterion for good sound reproduction. There are measurements not using resistive load but actual loudspeakers to back this up. In the 1970s, designers started producing transistor amps with higher open loop gain to support a greater value of negative feedback. These amps produced near perfect measured results but some listeners felt that these amplifiers sounded "cold" or "dull". In the following years, amplifiers were built with modest gain but good open loop linearity, deployed with only minimal levels of NFB.

All amplifiers do distort, so do SETs. This for the most part harmonic distortion is a distortion with a unique pattern of simple and monotonically decaying series of harmonics, dominated by modest levels of second harmonic. The result is like adding the same tone one octave higher. The added harmonic tone is lower, at about 1–5% or less in a no feedback amp at full power and rapidly decreasing at lower levels. It has been also claimed that a single-ended power amplifier's second harmonic distortion could reduce similar harmonic distortion in a single driver loudspeaker, if their harmonic distortions were equal and amplifier was connected to the speaker so that the distortions would neutralize each other.

SETs usually only produce about 2 watt (W) for a 2A3 tube amp to 8 W for a 300B up to the practical maximum of 40 W for a 805 tube amp. The most expensive amp in existence, the Wavac SH-833 monoblock SETs (which cost about US$350,000) produces about 150 W using an 833A tube. The resulting SPL depends on the sensitivity of the loudspeaker and the size and acoustics of the room as well as amplifier power output. Their low power also makes them ideal for use as preamps. SET amps have a power consumption of a minimum of 8 times the stated stereo power. For example a 10 W stereo SET uses a minimum of 80 W, and typically 100 W.

Single-ended pentode and tetrode amplifiers

The special feature among tetrodes and pentodes is the possibility to obtain ultra-linear or distributed load operation with an appropriate output transformer. Ultra-linear connection is a negative feedback method, enabling less harmonic distortion.

Class AB

The majority of commercial Hi-fi amplifier designs are Class AB, in order to deliver greater power and efficiency, typically 12–25 watts and higher. Such designs will invariably use at least some NFB.

Class AB push-pull topology is nearly universally used in tube amps for electric guitar applications that produce power of more than about 10 watts. Whereas audiophile amps are primarily concerned with avoiding distortion, a guitar amp embraces it. When driven to their respective limits, tubes and transistors distort quite differently. Tubes clip more softly than transistors, allowing higher levels of distortion (which is sometimes desired by the guitarist) whilst still being able to distinguish the harmonies of a chord. This is because the soft profile of the tube amplifier's distortion means that the intermodulation products of the distortion are generally more closely related to the harmonies of the chord.

Intentional distortion

Tube sound from transistor amplifiers

Some individual characteristics of the tube sound, such as the waveshaping on overdrive, are straightforward to produce in a transistor circuit or digital filter. For more complete simulations, engineers have been successful in developing transistor amplifiers that produce a sound quality very similar to the tube sound. Usually this involves using a circuit topology similar to that used in tube amplifiers.

In 1982, Tom Scholz, a graduate of MIT and a member of Boston, introduced the Rockman, which used bipolar transistors, but achieved a distorted sound adopted by many well known musicians. Advanced digital signal processing offers the possibility to simulate tube sound. Computer algorithms are currently available that transform digital sound from a CD or other digital source into a distorted digital sound signal.

Using modern passive components, and modern sources, whether digital or analogue, and wide band loudspeakers, it is possible to have tube amplifiers with the characteristic wide bandwidth and "fast" sound of modern transistor amplifiers, including using push-pull circuits, class AB, and feedback. Some enthusiasts have built amplifiers using transistors and MOSFETs that operate in class A, including single ended, and these often have the "tube sound" .

Hybrid amplifiers

Tubes are often used to impart characteristics that many people find audibly pleasant to solid state amplifiers, such as Musical Fidelity's use of Nuvistors, tiny triode tubes, to control large bi-polar transistors in their NuVista 300 power amp. In America, Moscode and Studio Electric use this method, but use MOSFET transistors for power, rather than bi-polar. Pathos, an Italian company, has developed an entire line of hybrid amplifiers.

To demonstrate one aspect of this effect, one may use a light bulb in the feedback loop of an infinite gain multiple feedback (IGMF) circuit. The slow response of the light bulb's resistance (which varies according to temperature) can thus be used to moderate the sound and attain a tube-like "soft limiting" of the output, though other aspects of "the tube sound" would not be duplicated in this exercise.

Tube sound enthusiasts

Template:Image Some enthusiasts consider that "pure" tube amplifiers should not use anything except tubes as active devices. Others, in contrast, will use tubes for the audio circuit, but will accept the use of semiconductor gain devices in the power supply or as constant current sources. Others, still, will use tubes for the main amplification circuit but add semiconductors (such as solid-state diodes) for clipping purposes, particularly in the preamp section, which is often debated in advertised 'vintage' instrument amplifiers such as the Marshall JCM900 or the Vintage Modern as to their integrity due to their utilization of solid-state devices in the tone-generation circuit. Other schisms concern the use of triodes vs. tetrodes and pentodes, and the use of directly heated tubes vs. indirectly heated tubes.

Many of the explanations relate to the circuit topologies pioneered using tubes, and traditionally associated with them ever since, regardless of whether they are built using tubes today, notably the directly heated single-ended triode amplifier circuit, which operates in class A and often has no external negative feedback; this topology is a classic source of the tube sound.

Feedback paths coupled through the secondary of the output transformer reduce distortion because they compensate for the transformer's distortion to some extent. However only limited NFB can be used around the transformer, as there is phase lag caused by the transformer, and this causes instability if NFB is incorrectly (without any phase / frequency correction) used.

See also

• Audio system measurements
• British Valve Association
• European triode festival

References

• Barbour, Eric. The Cool Sound of Tubes in IEEE Spectrum Online.
• Hamm, Russell O. (September 14, 1972). "Tubes vs. Transistors: Is There An Audible Difference?". Presented at the 43rd convention of the Audio Engineering Society, New York.
• Reisch, George. Scientists vs Audiophiles 1999 in Stereophile, March, 1999.
• Tube Data Archive - Massive collection (7GB+) of tube data sheets and information.