On Tue, 2001-11-06 at 12:09, Michael J. Hußmann wrote:
>
> This has always been baffling me: I can understand why a guitarist may
> prefer a tube amp -- the distortion from a tube amp will be different
> from a transistor amp, and therefore the sound will be different as well.
> But with hi-fi equipment, one would avoid ever reaching the the point
> where distortion occurs, so how can it matter?
At risk of fanning a tube/transistor discussion too much:
'Distortion,' in common parlance, has come to mean 'audible clipping
distortion' -- that buzzy noise you get when your audio reproduction
system is pushed far enough past its limits so that it starts 'squaring
off' the tops of waveforms.
Strictly speaking, though, -any- sound reproduction introduces
distortion, changes in the input waveform. For the most part, they are
subaudible, but they are there, and even at low volumes, transient
spikes can push your system into compression or clipping.
Tube equipment distorts differently from transistor equipment (unless
you're doing Bob Carver-style magic in the background), at all levels of
distortion from subaudible on up to full clipping.
The accepted reason that people prefer tubes is that tube distortion
emphasizes even-order harmonics, while transistors don't. Even-order
harmonics are, in nature, much more in-tune with the fundamental they're
derived from, and so de-emphasizing odd-order harmonics can make sounds
subjectively less 'harsh.'
So, even at normal non-clipping listening levels, tubes introduce very
small levels of 'distortion' that are pleasing to the ear; transistors
introduce small levels of 'distortion' that may or may not be.
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